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16/5/2003

Kim Sooja

Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw

Panel discussion with the artist
17 May, 4 p.m.

The Zachêta Gallery of Contemporary Art presents the first in Poland solo exhibition of New York-based Korean artist, Kim Sooja. Kim's work combines performance, video and installation. At Zachêta the artist will show A Laundry Woman installation made of traditional Korean bedcovers as well as a video-installation A Needle Woman (1999-2001). The latter consists of eight simultaneously projected video films where Kim Sooja is seen standing in the crowded streets of Tokyo, New York, London, Mexico City, Cairo, Delhi, Shanghai and Lagos. The exhibition will also feature A Needle Woman (1999) set on a rock in Kitakyushu (Japan) and A Laundry Woman (2000) recorded at Yamuna river in Delhi.

Kim Sooja is an artist who observes her country and its tradition from the outside, from the perspective of the international art world of New York, where she has lived and worked since 1998. This constitutes the global and local quality of her art. In her site specific installations the artist uses traditional Korean bedcovers. Recently they appear in the installations such as A Laundry Woman, a simple presentation of some cloths hunging in the gallery space as to resemble drying linen (Kunstahalle Wien, 2002, Musée d'Art Contemporain, 2003 and at Zachêta). These symbols of woman, sex, love, resting and sleeping body, privacy, fertility, longevity and health can be interpreted as a special kind of traces of life. They also are a metaphor of the roles of woman both in Korean society and in general.

Kim Sooja's videos record the performances taking place in various cities and places around the world. Kim can be seen only from the back. As a figure against the background of the filmed spaces and people she severs herself from their rhythm, their movement, their image. This is the very effect of the artistic means itself, i.e. video which produces a flat and illusionist image. Also, the artist herself takes on the role of the "other" or even "stranger"; the foreground position of her motionless figure prevents her from integrating with the surrounding world. In the video A Needle Woman the artist stands in crowded streets. Her absolute immobility contrasts with the traffic and noise of the metropolis; however, we cannot hear that noise.

In his essay published in the exhibition catalogue Adam Szymczyk puts forward a new interpretation of Kim Sooja's work. Recalling the journalists' reports of the Iraq war, he confronts Kim's quiet presence with the media clamour accompanying the current political situation in the world. Kim Sooja's media personality is radically different from the way the media operate. In her video performances she shows her body yet remains silent and conceals her face, turning away from the viewers. She seems to be protesting against the noise made by the media and against all acts directed against human beings, including accidental tragedies.

Kim Sooja consciously cultivates this attitude by contemplative perception of the world and rejection of excess information (e.g. she decides not to read books). She is a nomadic artist, constantly on the move, but seems to stand firmly on the ground. In fact, her attitude may be interpreted, in a simplified way, as a practical exemplification of Heidegger's being-in-the-world, an existence cast into the world, but conscious of its "spatiality", concerned yet not frightened, a being open to cognition and "the world's worldliness", a being who accepts other "beings".

Kim Sooja was born in Taegu, Korea in 1957. The artist's solo exhibitions include: Conditions of Humanity, Musée d'Art Contemporain in Lyon (2003), A Needle Woman in P.S.1, New York (2001), Kunsthalle Bern (2001) and CCA Kitakyushu (1999), Video Installations, ICC Tokyo (2000), etc. Selected group exhibitions include: Art through the Eye of the Needle, Henie Ondtad Kunstcenter, Oslo (2001), Partage d'exotisme, 5e Biennial de Lyon (2000), Human Being and Gender, 3 Kwangju Biennial (2000), Hypermental, Kunsthaus Zurich (2000), ArtWorld in Dialogue, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, (1999), dAPERTutto, 48 Venice Biennial (1999), Echolot, Museum Fridericianum, Kassel (1998), Cities on the Move, Secession, Vienna (1997).

Curator: Maria Brewiñska
Assistant: Anna Jagieo

Catalogue - 80 pages; essays by Adam Szymczyk, Maria Brewiñska; color photographs

Gallery Hours
Tuesdays - Sundays 12 noon - 8 pm
free Thursdays

THE ZACHETA GALLERY OF ART
pl. Malachowskiego 3
00-916 Warsaw, Poland
tel. (48) (22) 827 58 54
fax. (48) (22) 827 78 86

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