Kim Yun Shin: Two Be One

Hoam Museum of Art is pleased to present Kim Yun Shin: Two Be One, a major retrospective of the pioneering Korean sculptor Kim Yun Shin(b. 1935, Wonsan), on view from March 17 through June 28, 2026. Featuring approximately 170 works—including sculpture, painting, drawing, and printmaking—the exhibition offers the most comprehensive survey to date of the artist’s seven-decade career, showcasing her practice from the mid-1960s.

In the 1970s, a pivotal period for Korean modernist sculpture, Kim emerged as a distinctive voice within the field. At a time when many sculptors were pursuing modernism and experimenting with new materials and techniques, she introduced a series of abstract sculptures characterized by vertical forms, establishing a sculptural language of her own. Working primarily with wood, her practice emphasized a direct engagement with the material and highlighted its inherent structure and vitality. As one of the first generation of women sculptors in Korea, Kim forged an independent path within a predominantly male-dominated field and gained recognition in the Korean sculpture scene.

Kim Yun Shin’s art took shape across Asia, Europe and South America. She first studied abstract art in mid-twentieth-century Korea and later developed her visual language through encounters with contemporary Western art in France. A decisive turning point came in the early 1980s when Kim relocated to Buenos Aires. Drawn to the country’s vast natural landscapes and forests, she left behind her established career in South Korea to pursue a new chapter devoted entirely to art and to an ongoing dialogue with nature.

Over more than forty years in Argentina, she developed a distinctive language of abstract sculpture while absorbing the natural and cultural landscape of South America. Embedding her Korean identity within pure abstraction and a primal vitality shaped by South American culture, her works reflects the layered cultural exchanges that have shaped modern and contemporary art.

Bringing together works from the 1960s to the present, this first major retrospective of Kim Yun Shin’s career invites viewers to experience her practice as a unified sculptural universe. The first floor surveys her works through the 1990s, highlighting the visual connections among her printmaking, painting, and sculpture. The second floor features major stone sculptures alongside works from the 2000s onward. By tracing the dialogue between her two- and three-dimensional practices, as well as between her early and later works, this retrospective reveals how painting and sculpture increasingly inform one another and share a common formal language.

The exhibition takes its subtitle, Two Be One, from Kim’s iconic philosophy, “Add Two Add One, Divide Two Divide One,” a principle that has guided her work since the mid-1970s. Rooted in the Eastern philosophy of yin(division and fragmentation) and yang(addition and integration), the idea reflects her belief that the interaction between artist and material generates a new entity—the artwork.

Seen in this light, the exhibition offers a rare opportunity to encounter an artist whose lifelong commitment to making has shaped a singular body of work. It also invites renewed consideration of how twentieth-century modernism extended beyond its original centers to become a global artistic language.

Curated by Tae Hyunsun, Senior Curator, Leeum Museum of Art
In partnership with Samsung Securities
Press Contact: Michelle Park, Communications, Leeum Museum of Art / daeunm.park@samsung.com