Publication "Kimsooja: Interviews and Works"

They say it takes time to do a thing well, and this saying certainly holds true for the ambitious project of assembling all of Kimsooja’s interviews in a single publication. We are all the more proud to present the two-volume publication in separate German and English editions.

The volume of texts contains more than twenty interviews with Kimsooja (born in Daegu, Korea, in 1957, lives and works in New York and Seoul) conducted between 1994 and 2017. Together with the extensive illustrated volume presenting a detailed overview of her complete work since 1981 in chronological order it forms one of the most impressive and personal publications on her oeuvre. The two-volume concept was developed to offer both a handy reader and a condensed compendium of images. This format also allows the reader to study the volume of interviews and the volume of images separately or side-by-side.

The interviews in this book are authentic testimonies of an artist, her background and her unfaltering progress. Kimsooja’s diverse work is characterised by essential experiences to which she exposes herself consciously and then allows the audience to relive. In her works she uncompromisingly investigates elementary questions of human existence in their universal contexts. In this respect her work is pervaded by a profoundly human perspective: “In that sense, I’ve been working closely with non-violence and that is my position to the individual and society.” The interviews, conducted over the years in many different places around the world, afford a vivid insight into the conditions, background and findings of her meditative and empirical work.

The interviews were conducted by Daina Augaitis, Nicolas Bourriaud, Franck Gautherot, Flaminia Gennari Santori, Chiara Giovando, Barbara Kelly Gordon, Hou Hanru, Hwang In, Mary Jane Jacob, Petra Kapš, Kim Sunjung, Andrew Maerkle, Oliva María Rubio, Gerald Matt, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Park Young Taik, Francesca Pasini, Ryu Byoung Hak, Oliva Sand, Jérôme Sans, Thomas Van Loocke and Maxa Zoller.

All interviews have been re-edited for this publication in close cooperation with the artist and the authors. Translations of the interviews are presented to the German-speaking audience for the first time.

Edited by Christiane Meyer-Stoll as part of the exhibition Kimsooja. Weaving the World at Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Vaduz from September 22, 2017 to January 21, 2018. Published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne. Volume 1: Interviews comprises 220 pages, Volume 2: Works comprises 224 pages with 168 colour illustrations, mostly full-page.

ISBN: 978-3-96098-347-7 (English) / 978-3-96098-346-0 (German), available here or here.

Furthermore, we are pleased to announce a new artist's edition by Kimsooja, created exclusively for Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, as a follow-up to her 2017–18 exhibition. The show featured the first screening of the fourth chapter—shot in China—of her 16mm film series Thread Routes, from which the image of this edition is taken.

The edition is available in a small-format and large-format version:

Thread Routes – Chapter IV (China), 2018
Fine art print on paper, framed
Sheet size: 66 x 96 cm, frame size: 73 x 106 cm
Edition: 25 + 5 APs
Printed by: Grieger, Düsseldorf
Published by: Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Vaduz

Thread Routes – Chapter IV (China), 2018
Fine art print on paper, acrylic glass, aluminium (Diasec method)
101.6 x 152.4 x 1.5 cm
Edition: 8 + 3 APs
Printed by: Grieger, Düsseldorf
Published by: Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Vaduz

For any further information, please contact Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein.