KIM SOOJA
NEEDLE WOMAN
Kim Sooja is a Korean video, performance and installation artist based in New York and Paris. She works with traditional Korean materials and references to construct narratives of transcultural experiences.
Her perspective is a more optimistic view - belief in a world that can coexist with its various perspectives, cultural, religious and social contexts.
WATCH KIM SOOJA'S INTERVIEW
WATCH NEEDLE WOMAN
:23
In this series, Kim uses herself as a symbol of a needle sewing the earth and its various places, along with a passage of time. She also sees herself as a needle that connects the body and soul. Like a needle that connects but does not leave a trace, her presence is almost invisible in these clips. People passing by do not seem interested in her presence, although there is an occasional stare. The artist becomes a needle that connects her with strangers.
The needle also represents a circularity and continuity of life.
:23
In this series, Kim uses herself as a symbol of a needle sewing the earth and its various places, along with a passage of time. She also sees herself as a needle that connects the body and soul. Like a needle that connects but does not leave a trace, her presence is almost invisible in these clips. People passing by do not seem interested in her presence, although there is an occasional stare. The artist becomes a needle that connects her with strangers.
The needle also represents a circularity and continuity of life.
CITIES ON THE MOVE
Cities on the Move is a 11-day performance that was documented into two video pieces, a sound-installation as well as a contributing editorial to an in-flight magazine for Asiana Airline.
CONCEPT OF BOTTARI
Cities on the Move is a 11-day performance that was documented into two video pieces, a sound-installation as well as a contributing editorial to an in-flight magazine for Asiana Airline.
CONCEPT OF BOTTARI
Bottari is a tied bundle of fabric, historically used as a packing method for traveling in Korean culture. It was also used to wrap gifts, food and to store things. This bundle represents the history of Korea - the constant need to flee war and to look for food or job.
"They were used both by refugees and merchants, who transported their wares in them. On a metaphorical level, the bottari also functions as a signifier of mobility in unbound space, and is thus at the same time a container that includes its own contents."
The fabrics also represent the feminist concerns about conditions, restrictions and specific roles of women in Asian society. Historically, Korean women sewed bed linens from these fabrics.
"The artist sees these blankets and bedclothes as places on which we are born and die, a foundational field which is the frame of our lives. To women, a blanket is a comfortable resting place during the night, while being related to the bed in a sexual sense as well. Women give birth to children on a blanket. Thus, it is a space where women continue human history. The blanket was also a symbol of oppression by Confucian morals and strict social ideology during the Chosun Dynasty (1392 - 1910). Within a social hierarchy that privileged men, women found pleasure and emotional survival through their needlework. Sewing was one of the few accepted activities that they could do. In a society in which the expression of colour was prohibited, Korean women used colour to decorate their blankets and bedclothes, and communicate their hope. At a time when bright colours were not allowed in ordinary life, the blanket could be as brilliant in colour as the women liked."
"They were used both by refugees and merchants, who transported their wares in them. On a metaphorical level, the bottari also functions as a signifier of mobility in unbound space, and is thus at the same time a container that includes its own contents."
The fabrics also represent the feminist concerns about conditions, restrictions and specific roles of women in Asian society. Historically, Korean women sewed bed linens from these fabrics.
"The artist sees these blankets and bedclothes as places on which we are born and die, a foundational field which is the frame of our lives. To women, a blanket is a comfortable resting place during the night, while being related to the bed in a sexual sense as well. Women give birth to children on a blanket. Thus, it is a space where women continue human history. The blanket was also a symbol of oppression by Confucian morals and strict social ideology during the Chosun Dynasty (1392 - 1910). Within a social hierarchy that privileged men, women found pleasure and emotional survival through their needlework. Sewing was one of the few accepted activities that they could do. In a society in which the expression of colour was prohibited, Korean women used colour to decorate their blankets and bedclothes, and communicate their hope. At a time when bright colours were not allowed in ordinary life, the blanket could be as brilliant in colour as the women liked."
In the videos, Kim sits on top of a truck full of Bottaris. Her back is towards the camera, and it is a constance throughout the video, where the background changes but she does not. The background is of various countries, as well as all parts of South Korea that she has personal ties with.
Kim references bottari's notion of something saved, in both physical and metaphorical sense. The tying and untying of this bundle represents the anticipation of what is to come, and of a story of travel, life and passage. It is a signifier for transit and restlessness. At the same time, it also represents a vessel, a container of things. She sees our bodies as bottaris.
Kim references bottari's notion of something saved, in both physical and metaphorical sense. The tying and untying of this bundle represents the anticipation of what is to come, and of a story of travel, life and passage. It is a signifier for transit and restlessness. At the same time, it also represents a vessel, a container of things. She sees our bodies as bottaris.
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MICHAL ROVNER
Michal Rovner is a New York and Israel based Israeli artist whose inter-disciplinary work mixes various media - video, installation, photography and painting. Her work walks the thin line between reality and abstraction, between politics and aesthetics.
She manipulates things by re-photophing/re-filming and re-scaling until they are no longer recognizable. She employs the method of stripping things down to its essence.
OUTSIDE
1990-1991
Rovner photographed an abandoned Bedouin house that she found on her way to the Dead Sea. She revisited the site with a polaroid camera, and manipulated the polaroids by experimenting with the scale and color.
The photographs become a symbol for human strength in the void, as well as a contemplation of home.
TIME LEFT
WATCH HER WORK AT PACE GALLERY
WATCH HER INTERVIEW 1:30
Clips of people walking become currents. They also become like texts - unresolved text about humanity.
-Intersection of reality, feeling, and memory
-Tear and crack of time, continuity, particles of existence.
-Creation, construction and reconstruction. Cracks signifiy a new beginning.
Rovner states that her work is not about a "political situation", but about a "human condition".
Quotes from Rovner:
"Even at night, when the piece was later installed at the Venice Biennale, I asked the technical staff not to turn off the computer. I mean the projectors were off, but not the computer, so they could keep walking."
"I always loved repetition. To see something again and again— it’s a very basic movement in life, you repeat something to make it stronger. Like in a prayer. Like in lovemaking. I think when you repeat something, you’re starting to get to another level of its nuances, like in music. "
"So what you have to do if you’re an artist is to take that reality as great material to work with. And the past is not something you have to admire or feel so holy about, and even if you are aware of all the lives before you, all the layers of history, the footnotes of people who came before you, you still don’t have to stand speechless before them, partly because the past is really another story about your own existence. On the other hand, where life and death are near to each other at all times, things are so fragile, so breakable, so dramatic, yet so seductive in some strange ways." - from Rovner's interview with Phong Bui in the Brooklyn Rail
-Intersection of reality, feeling, and memory
-Tear and crack of time, continuity, particles of existence.
-Creation, construction and reconstruction. Cracks signifiy a new beginning.
Rovner states that her work is not about a "political situation", but about a "human condition".
Quotes from Rovner:
"Even at night, when the piece was later installed at the Venice Biennale, I asked the technical staff not to turn off the computer. I mean the projectors were off, but not the computer, so they could keep walking."
"I always loved repetition. To see something again and again— it’s a very basic movement in life, you repeat something to make it stronger. Like in a prayer. Like in lovemaking. I think when you repeat something, you’re starting to get to another level of its nuances, like in music. "
"So what you have to do if you’re an artist is to take that reality as great material to work with. And the past is not something you have to admire or feel so holy about, and even if you are aware of all the lives before you, all the layers of history, the footnotes of people who came before you, you still don’t have to stand speechless before them, partly because the past is really another story about your own existence. On the other hand, where life and death are near to each other at all times, things are so fragile, so breakable, so dramatic, yet so seductive in some strange ways." - from Rovner's interview with Phong Bui in the Brooklyn Rail