Kimsooja

Kimsooja was born in 1957 in Daegu, Korea, a city known for its textile industry. After studying painting in Seoul, she had a residency at a lithography studio at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-arts in Paris (1984-1985) and at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in New York (1992-1993). In the early 1980s her artistic practice started focusing on sewn work, which later evolved into the widely-acclaimed performance, "A Needle Woman", in 1999.

Since her first solo exhibition in Seoul (1988), internationally-acclaimed multidisciplinary artist Kimsooja's work has been shown in numerous venues and museums around the world, including solo exhibitions at P.S.1/ MOMA in New York; the Plateau, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul; the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington D.C; Kunsthalle Bern; Kunsthalle Wien; Kunstmuseum Lichtenstein; the Contemporary Art Museum, Lyon; Museum Kunstpalast Düsseldorf; PAC, Milan; The National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid; The National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul; the Vancouver Art Gallery; The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao; Wanås Foundation; Cisternerne, Copenhagen; Humboldt Forum, Berlin; and De Lakenhal, Leiden. Recently, site-specific installations were inaugurated in Seoul (Leeum), Metz, Paris and Leiden, among others, and one of her works is included in the presentation of the extension of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. Recent group exhibitions have taken place at, among others, MAXXI Rome, IVAM Valencia, MCBA Lausanne, Schirn, Incheon Art Platform, MAC/Val, Chiostro del Bramante, Barbican, and Bourse de Commerce, in addition to the aforementioned institutions.

Kimsooja represented Korea at the 24th Sao Paulo Biennale and the Korean Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale. She also participated in the 48th, 49th, 51st, and 52rd Venice Biennale and over thirty major international biennials and triennials, among others, recently, BIENALSUR 2021, Buenos Aires. In 2019, Kimsooja curated the inaugural biennale Traversées \ Kimsooja in Poitiers, France, featuring more than ten site-specific installations.

Acclaims and awards for her work include Best Show of the Year 2000 for, "Kimsooja - A Needle Woman Who Weaves the World", Plateau Samsung Museum of Art in Seoul; Artist of the American Art Award, granted by the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2002; Anonymous Was A Woman Foundation Award, in 2002; the Visual Arts Grant from New York’s Foundation for Contemporary Art in 2007; the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in 2014; the Ho-Am Prize given by Ho-Am Samsung Foundation in 2015; the Asia Society Arts Award in Hong Kong in 2017; the Lucas Art Award in 2019; and, most recently, Okgwan, The Order of Cultural Merit, Korea, 2021.