2) Kim Sooja

KIM SOOJA :

1) Kimsooja :

Kimsooja, was born in 1957 in Daegu (South Korea) is an multidisciplinary, plastic artist and videographer.

Her birth name is 김수자 (Gim Su-ja). She works in New York (1992 and 1998 )She belongs to the conceptual art movement. She studied art at the university of Hongik in Seoul and she continued at the studio of lithography at the “Beaux arts” national school in Paris.

The fabric is the principal element of her first artworks. Soon, this element became important and recurrent in her artworks.In 1997, she started a journey of 2727 km though all the South Korea.

2 ) Artwork ok Kimsooja :

Cities on the move:

This photograph is taken from her performance “ Cities on the move” realised in 1997 after a journey of KimSooja when she traveled 2727 km on the South Korea.

This artwork, composed of a truck, with which KimSooja would have traveled, is full of bottaris, a kind of colorful backpack which nomads use, and she made this herself. Here, it contrasts with the grey of the building in the background, so we are attracted by this.

This artistic work is a symbol of travel and wandering of contemporary globalized art.

Bottari Truck:

In 2007, she realized a new performance named “Bottari truck” in the form of a video where we see her walking in front of the emblematic places of Paris, like the “place de la Bastille”, “place de la République”, … We always see her from behind with a lot of bottaris that she made herself with clothes or sheets she found in Emmaüs.

KimSooja finished symbolically her video in front of the Saint Bernard church, a place of struggle for the undocumented. Her works are exposed on many

exhibit in particular at the “ Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain” in Paris, at the Louvre in 2008.

3) About of the artist :

The goal of KimSooja behind these two projects is to represent the free (including moving) and to fight for the rights of undocumented the people and the migrants. she is, by the way, exposed on the “Musée National de la Migration” (National Museum of Migration) in Paris.

4) Our opinion :

We have really enjoyed working on Kimsooja and her artworks because we tried to understand the messages she hides behind her photographs or videos ( why the truck ?, why the bottaris?, … ) We find her really beautiful because of the contrast of the colors and her fight for the undocumented people and the migrants. It was very interesting.

5) Conclusion :

Kimsooja is an artist and a plastic artist and her favorite element is working with clothes. Behind her artworks there is always a message of fight for freedom and rights, here, undocumented people and migrants.

Kimsooja organizes a project called "Traversées", an exhibition of artworks of many contemporary artists that we will see in Poitiers on November 14th.