“I’ve always known that my life would ultimately determine my work. Because of what art means to me, I have endeavored just as much to protect and treat my life with value.” These are the words of artist Kimsooja, who has ceaselessly searched for the answers to her own questions for the past 40 years.
Have you ever experienced the sensation of being embraced in a conversation of one hour, despite having just met? When sitting across from Kimsooja, tranquility seems to fall over the surrounding noise, brought about by a calm gaze, a soft voice, and a gentle touch.
Kimsooja, who from the start of her early ‘Bottari’ series (whose title references a Korean fabric-wrapped bundle) has made the act of wrapping and encompassing a core element of her artistic practice, embraces those in front of her with a vast and open demeanor, as do her creations. I first met her in Seoul two years ago and saw her again in Paris last April. The exhibition <Le monde comme il va (The World As It Goes)> was taking place, in which Kimsooja was participating after being granted a carte blanche (conferring full authority over an exhibition’s curation and realization) by the highly esteemed Pinault Collection at the Bourse de Commerce.
In this exhibition, the artist installed 418 mirrors on the floor of the 29 meter wide, 9 meter high Rotunda, the most symbolic space of Bourse de Commerce, for her work <To Breathe—Constellation>. Through the construction of a perfect sphere formed by reflecting the dome of the semi-circular ceiling onto the floor, visitors strolling through the architecture of the round bottari created by the artist could either gaze upwards or at their feet, surrendering their bodies to spatial mystery. In addition, 24 showcases encircling the Rotunda displayed a selection of the artist’s works accumulated over the course of her career, including yoga mats embedded with decades of the artist’s movements, photographs inspired by stitching while observing the night sky, and moon jars cracked and distorted from the firing process—traces of reflection and practice, existence and relationships, understanding and embracing, sharing and coexistence. In the basement of the exhibition space were video works recorded in tragic and unlucky corners of the world, such as <A Needle Woman> and <Thread Routes>. It was truly an exhibition that encompassed the decisive moments of Kimsooja’s career.
After the shoot we relocated to the residency for an interview, where she had been staying for a long time. Her space was a modest room with only a single-sized bed, a desk with a chair, and a small cooking counter. Living essentials were minimal and frugally arranged. In stark contrast to the grandeur of the Bourse de Commerce, the room seemed to speak volumes about the artist. It felt like witnessing the deepest part of an artist’s philosophy, built stoically and stubbornly over a lifetime. I recalled her statement when we first met, “If I were not an artist, I might have become a religious person.” Sitting knee-to-knee across from each other, I reflected on the things she had not chosen in her effort to align her life with her art. The conversation that began in the narrow room expanded into boundless realms.
I was surprised by the ascetic simplicity of the residency. Perhaps this impression was heightened by the fact that I have just come from witnessing the opulence of the Bourse de Commerce, but this modest place seems to explain much about you.
It was actually a place formerly used as a monastery. When I stay in Paris, I always stay here. I have only the essentials, but it’s not uncomfortable. I don’t need much for daily life.
In two months, the 2024 Paris Olympics will be held. The world will stroll through the vast mirror garden that is the installation <To Breathe—Constellation>. How close have you come to your expectations from when you first arrived in Paris 40 years ago under a French government scholarship at the École des Beaux-Arts?
I don’t think I ever anticipated or imagined a day like today. Thanks to the continued interest and support of the French art world, I was able to reach significant milestones as an artist. I have reached this point through those beneficial times. One interesting thing to note is that Julie Mehretu started her career at the Harlem Gallery in New York around the same time I first met her in Paris. She went on to flourish commercially and now has a solo exhibition at the Palazzo Grassi of the Pinault Collection in Venice, while at the same time I am in Paris. Until now, I have worked largely in non-commercial exhibitions, biennales, and institutions, so the situation of exhibiting in the Pinault Collection, which is said to command today’s global art market, is ironic yet fascinating. I am experiencing the diverse works in the Pinault Collection for the first time, and it possesses a great openness and inclusivity.
Traveling around the world with a truck loaded with bottari, you have faced the violence of contemporary history, addressing issues surrounding refugees, migration, war, and terrorism. Perhaps because of this, the current exhibition comes across as an encouraging message that even if an artist is not optimized for the mainstream art market, they can find themselves at the center of their own world-building.
I hope this exhibition conveys hope to young artists as well. I often see many artists becoming anxious and distressed as they try to commercialize themselves. In some ways, I have only walked in the opposite direction from commercialization. I want to tell them that there is no need to rush.
This seems to be a message not only for the art world but also for today’s youth.
The value of life is not something that can easily be obtained by a particular material. Indeed, assigning value to anything through material means is itself challenging.
Looking back, your steps have always aligned. Even while experimenting extensively with materials and methods, you have remained faithful to yourself without being swayed by the scale or fame of the exhibition. There must have been moments when the mainstream art world’s responses to your work were not forthcoming. Did you ever feel lonely?
I have always thought it sufficient if I could appropriately answer the questions posed to me in each exhibition, rather than focusing on public attention. If I could present a single answer to the world after the utmost contemplation on the location, time, subject, and method, that was enough for me. I wasn’t very interested in external matters. This remains the same to this day. I am grateful to the curators I have worked with; through biennales, artists are given the most pressing questions and topics of contemporary times, and, as a result, I have developed as an artist. Since starting site-specific work, I have put significant effort into finding the appropriate approach or solution for individual locations, and that process has allowed me to grow. Even while seeking and discovering, there has always been a clear belief within me that effort in the process will comprehensively manifest at some point.
Has recognizing the process allowed you to be patient or think long-term?
Yes. I am not someone who tries to see results quickly, not at all.
Before the exhibition you were granted a carte blanche by the museum, which is a rare privilege—I’m sure you didn’t take it lightly. What did you want to see unfold with this opportunity?
Being granted a carte blanche signifies complete trust in the artist. It is an honor, but it also comes with responsibility. For the center of the exhibition, I wanted to transform the Rotunda into an architectural bottari using mirrors. The mirrors installed on the floor reflect the dome to create the illusion of a visual dome beneath the feet as well. The intention was to place the viewer somewhere between the heavens and the earth, in a liminal space that is neither here nor there, a “nowhere,” a floating space sans gravity. Surrounding the Rotunda with 24 showcases, I displayed traces of the questions I have raised in the past through bottari. If the Rotunda represents the torso, the showcases are like hands and feet. Through the 24 showcases, you can sense that I have continuously reinterpreted and sought answers to the same inquiries through various media and methodologies.
For over 20 years, you have opened doors to other dimensions using mirrors. It started with the 48th Venice Biennale in 1999. Do you remember that time?
It was a work titled “Bottari Truck—Migrateurs”. I installed mirrors in front of a 2.5-ton truck loaded with bottari, as a tribute to refugees of the Kosovo War (between the Albanian Kosovan residents and Serbian government forces). The mirror facing the truck was intended to symbolize an exit. Through the reflective illusion, the truck was enveloped once more in the space within the mirror. That was the beginning.
Since then, you have continuously explored the infinity of space—folding and unfolding, filling and emptying—through mirrors. The form of the sphere, which began with the bottari, is an important concept and keyword for you. In this exhibition, the main themes are consolidated into a single work. How did these ideas come together?
Until now, I attempted to present places with a single identity and totality by reflecting space through mirrors. In particular, this place, with its clear and definite dome shape, naturally inspired the desire to create a sphere. During the process of completing the spherical shape, I realized that placing a mirror under the dome bore a similarity to the process of creating a moon jar, which I had previously conceptualized as a bundle in my ceramic and terracotta work titled “Deductive Object—Bottari”. I discovered this similarity by accident, without prior calculation or intent. As I continued working and questioning, I discovered that what I had previously considered two different processes had come together.
Is it true that you come to understand things through practice rather than conceptualization?
Yes, most of my work follows this process. The acts of sewing, wrapping, and their reinterpretation into three-dimensional stitching in the form of bundles, or the relationship between needles and bodies, were not explicit concepts before starting. It’s more of an intuitive logic. However, although it may seem like I act on intuition and artistic impulse, there was already an unconscious discipline present; I discover myself through action. Afterwards, the disciplines become apparent and interconnected. I reflect on why I started and how I arrived at it. In a way, it feels like following the principles of nature.
What is most fascinating is the audience. I noticed that about a dozen young children stood in a circle holding hands, alternating their gaze between the sky and the ground, while some visitors lay down comfortably. It felt like a scene in a park. The work seems to embrace viewers in their own ways of experiencing it.
Since my work for the Palacio de Cristal, I have considered the audience as performers in my work. Although I haven’t formally stated this, I think of them as secret performers, so to speak. Therefore, I watch the visitors with a mindset of enjoying the experience. Each person’s movements, interactions, and even displays of narcissism are observed. When viewers who usually look up at the ceiling focus on the ground instead, they start to wonder, “Where am I?” or “Can I look this way too?” Seeing these responses, I too find new questions arising. The midpoint between the heavenly realm and the earth is a section, a connection, a space, and even a void. I hope that an intriguing development will emerge from the process of dissecting what that is.
Despite your use of diverse materials and methods in your practice, your works are meticulously strung together by related concepts. Perhaps this contributes to why many ascribe a sense of spirituality to your work.
Moments when I sense and respond to the vibrations and swirls of the universe, the phenomena of light and darkness, sometimes feel like revelations. As for how I encounter these moments, they seem to simply emerge. As I navigate with intuition and artistic impulse, everything meets at a point of unity. There is a clear goal in the process of finding that path. For decades, I’ve said I want to reach the totality of life and art. I can’t know exactly what or where that totality is.
It seems that you have never polarized life and art as discrete binary realms. Do you feel that this consistency in your life reflects the consistency in your work?
Yes. I’ve always known that my life would ultimately determine my work. Because of what art means to me, I have endeavored just as much to protect and treat my life with value.
Perhaps this is why your work seems to disclose a sincere perspective and attitude toward art and humanity. The work <Meta Painting>, which piles 250 sheets of Hanji paper aligned horizontally and vertically, vividly embodies the immateriality of time. At a moment when unseen values are neglected, this work resonates even more profoundly.
<Meta Painting> shows the accumulation of time and labor. It allows us to see beyond what we observe. Through the process of making such works, I feel that I am also starting to see beyond the apparent and gain confidence that my thoughts might not be entirely wrong.
Following an artistic career of over 40 years—do you mean to say that your vision is clearer?
Yes, I’m discovering things through meticulous interaction and self-validation. However, this realization does not present itself in a clear, causal, or linear way but rather in a very complex and three-dimensional manner. I feel that wherever I ask questions and provide answers, I can reach what I want to express. Therefore, I feel free. I believe that I can freely unfold my work with any material, at any location, and in any way. Maybe I’ve become less fearful? There used to be aspects where I had my reservations, but now I feel I can do as I wish. Of course, I’ve always done what I wanted [laughs]. It feels like the time to do so has come.
You have been sensitive to issues regarding refugees, migration, war, and terrorism, which has translated into your work. Having lived intensely through the 20th century, do you believe the world is improving?
In terms of enjoying life there may be progress, but humanity itself is regressing. There are those who strive for coexistence and healing and those who disrupt coexistence. Like the duality of humanity, society too is divided. Our situation may be an incurable disease, but still, the only way is to continue striving. Recently, I participated in the Desert X AlUla 2024 project in Saudi Arabia after much deliberation. What prompted my decision was the fact that no nation is without shameful history. Most nations have committed acts against humanity. I viewed this project as a proactive effort to improve and heal mistakes through art and culture. I thought it was right not to undermine their efforts but rather to support them. Even if perfect peace and coexistence are not achieved, this endeavor seems like something we must do.
If there is inherent hope within humans, what would it be? What do we have, and what can we expect from ourselves?
Is there a value more important than love? I don’t know how love germinates. Like weaving threads, the sense and feeling of love, rational thinking or judgment, and the resulting actions seem to intricately combine and create a mysterious world, like Indra’s net (a Buddhist concept where the world is covered by a vast net with pearls at each intersection, reflecting and illuminating each other). That seems to be the essence of love. When we think of “love,” it often appears as a unified feeling in our hearts. Yet love itself is very complex and conveyed to us through intricate processes we don’t consciously recognize. Loving others is, therefore, a miracle. It is an incredibly challenging state of mind and perhaps the highest state of human consciousness.
Shall we conclude our interview? The image of the artist Kimsooja evokes for me an image of you facing the world’s shadows. What are you looking at now, and what are you aiming for?
I increasingly contemplate the reality of death, as well as my own body and death, entering into an unknown future. Changes due to death will be another form of life, another form of light and shadow. The biggest task now is how I interpret and unravel that light and shadow.
You have sewn together countless boundaries, and now you aim to merge life and death.
Yes. The act of breathing in and out repeats until it stops, like the act of sewing before halting. Is the ending of the interview too sad? [laughs] But if I can leave behind a truly meaningful work, death isn’t frightening. Maybe it’s because of my strong desire for knowledge. Work is an expression of knowledge. More precisely, it’s an expression of knowledge and ignorance. Knowledge isn’t just about information but about understanding oneself and the world and interpreting from one’s perspective. It’s about expressing how I see and interpret life through the medium of art.
Is that why you haven’t let go of the knowledge process despite countless obstacles?
The more challenges I face, the stronger I become. Artistic impulse arises more in moments of opposition. While happiness and positive energy can influence my work, the decisive moments as an artist are formed through adversity. That has been the case so far. The truths of the universe revealed through challenges and artistic impulse seem to captivate me. I keep acting without conscious knowledge again and again [laughs].
