Leading conceptual artist Kimsooja (b. 1957, Daegu, South Korea) presents site-specific installations across Floors 1 and 3 that illuminate the philosophical and material foundations of her practice. Working across diverse mediums, the exhibition unfolds through the metaphor of the needle—an axis, threshold, and point of encounter—through which Kimsooja has long explored handcraft traditions, female labour, nomadism, co-existence, memory, and transformation. Rooted in a philosophy of “non-doing” and “non-making,” her work uncovers rather than imposes. The needle becomes a model of consciousness—piercing yet binding, dividing yet connecting—while stillness emerges as a resistance to the acceleration of contemporary life.
On Floor 1, suspended traditional Korean bedcovers—historically used by women to bundle belongings for travel, migration, and gift-giving—hover as portable architectures of memory and as canvases released from their stretchers. Nearby, the video A Needle Woman – Paris (2009) anchors the space in stillness: the artist stands motionless within the city’s flow, a living point threading disparate lives and drawing attention to the urban fabric. On Floor 3, the Meta Painting works return to painting’s material origin in linen cultivated and hand-processed by the artist, while ceramic vessels and plates from the Deductive Object–Bottari series translates wrapping into weight and void, each pierced or patterned with constellations of needle holes that open form to air and light. A photographic series centred on the artist’s hands further distills gestures of crossing, binding, and release. Together, these works propose wrapping and piercing as acts that shape not only objects, but consciousness itself—where the simplest fold or incision holds the depth of the unknown.
About the Artist
Kimsooja studied in Seoul (1980–84) and Paris (1984–85). Her works have been exhibited in numerous solo shows at renowned international museums, including MoMA PS1 in New York (2001), Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid (2006), Musée d’Art Moderne Saint-Étienne and Miami Art Museum (both in 2012), Vancouver Art Gallery (2013), Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (2015), Centre Pompidou-Metz (2015, 2022), MMCA Seoul (2010, 2016), CAC Málaga (2016), Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein (2017), Wanås Konst Sculpture Park in Sweden (2020), Leeum Samsung Art Museum in Seoul (2021), Frederiksberg Museum in Copenhagen (2023), and Bourse de Commerce, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, and Museum De Lakenhal in Leiden (all in 2024). In May 2025, a solo exhibition will be organized at Oude Kerk in Amsterdam.
In 2013, Kimsooja represented Korea at the 55th Venice Biennale (Korean Pavilion) and has also participated in the biennials of Istanbul (1997), São Paulo (1998), and Sydney (1998). Her work has been the subject of major site-specific installations, including projects at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Leeum Samsung Art Museum (2021), the Oku-Noto Triennale in Suzu (2021), Metz Cathedral (2022), Desert X AlUla (2024), and Desert X Coachella Valley, California (2025).
Kimsooja’s works are included in the collections of institutions such as the FENIX Museum for Migration in Rotterdam, the Art Gallery of Western Australia in Perth, CAC Málaga, Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea in Turin, the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens, Folkwang Museum in Essen, Fukuoka Art Museum, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle, Hana Bank Collection in Seoul, K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf, Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein in Vaduz, Kunstmuseum Bern, LACMA in Los Angeles, MAC in Lyon, Magasin III – Museum for Contemporary Art in Stockholm, Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain de Saint-Étienne Métropole, National Museum of Contemporary Art in Seoul, Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean (MUDAM) in Luxembourg, Musée National de l’Histoire de l’Immigration in Paris, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Helga de Alvear in Cáceres, the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC, Sammlung Goetz in Munich, Sammlung Hoffmann in Berlin, Vancouver Art Gallery, and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.
