KIMSOOJA
To breathe – Respirare
The Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation
Gran Teatro La Fenice
Venice
Inauguration Friday 27 January 2006
from 18:00 to 21:00
The second phase of the collaborative program with the Teatro La Fenice promoted by the Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation and curated by Francesca Pasini.
Korean artist Kimsooja will show her edited for the occasion video, To breathe Respirare, on the Teatro La Fenices firescreen immediately preceding the opera Die Walkure, which opens – with the first dress rehearsal – on 22 January. To breathe Respirare will be shown before all of the subsequent performances, as well as in February/March for the production of I Quatro Rusteghi by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari.
We are also pleased to announce the inauguration of Kimsoojas solo show on 27 January at the gallery of the Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation in Piazza San Marco (open until 20 March). Also on this date the Teatro La Fenice will be open to the art-going public in order to assist the screening of the artists video work.
In addition to this twofold event, there will be a monographic work, edited by Charta, containing various essays published over the last ten years by such critics and writers as Nicolas Bourriaud, Bernard Fibicher Jonathan Goodman, Gerald Matt, David Morgan, Keiji Nakamura, Harald Szeemann, as well as new contributions by Eleanor Heartney, Francesca Pasini and Angela Vettese. The publication is a mixture between a book on the artist and an critical anthology of her work, and will come with a CD Rom of the production presented at the Teatro La Fenice.
Kimsooja is a renowned artist around the world and particularly in Italy. She participated in the Biennale of Venice in 1999 and 2005, and had a solo show at the Pac and the Raffaella Cortese Gallery in Milan in 2004.
In her Venetian project, light and color create a purified abstraction, starting with Invisible Mirror and Invisible Needle which are joined into the single video installation To breathe – Respirare. In the first piece the spectrum of colors move slowly and the video screening functions as a mirror in which the surrounding space is reflected; in the second piece the speed of the sequence increases until it reaches a frenzied pulsation, like the prick of a needle. The video work itself is silent, however, it is accompanied by the sound piece The Weaving Factory 5.1, (2004), made up of the sounds of the artists breathing which rise in a rhythmic crescendo, creating the perception of a space-time that merges with the theatre itself.
The precedent works leading up to this idea of colour in a pure state, can be seen in the six new videos shown at the Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation. In the videos nature is represented as a suspended figure free of prospective restrains. In Wind Woman (2001), a fluttering explosion of intense grey colour, in which now and then a burst of light blue can be glimpsed, slide across the screen like very fine and elusive paintings. In Bottari, Waiting for the Sunrise (2000), a Mexican desert landscape is filmed in the still moment before dawn. This imperceptible movement of light runs through the other videos as well, making the imagery ever so faint and nearly metaphysical.
Biography
Kimsooja was born in Taegu, Korea. She lives in New York yet maintaining a regular rapport with her homeland.
Her most recent works include Bottari, a collection of nuptial bedcovers, tied in bundles and representing existential sculptures in which the daily life of women and the nostalgia of exile is portrayed. Needle and fabric are the metaphoric elements which also appeared in the artists videos, such as Needle Woman (1999-2001) which was presented at the Biennale of Venice.
Kimsooja has had solo exhibitions in important museums such as the Magasin in Grenoble, the PS1.MoMA in New York, the Kunsthalle in Bern, the Sprengel Museum in Hannover, the Kunsthalle in Vienna, the National Gallery of Warsaw, the Musée dArt Contemporain in Lion, the Honolulu City Hall in Hawaii, the Musuem Kunst Palast in Düsseldorf, and her performance 59th Munuite was performed in Times Square in New York. In April she will be exhibiting at the Palacio de Crystal in Madrid with a work involving light and sound.
She has participated in international exhibitions of such prestige as the Biennale of Venice, of Kwangiu, of San Paolo, of Lion, of Sydney, of Valencia, in Manifesta, at the itinerant exhibition Cities on the Move and in numerous collective shows in the some of the most renowned museums in the world.
Specifications
Title: Respirare – To Breathe Curated by Francesca Pasini Inauguration: 27 January 2006, at 18:00 Location: Galleria di piazza San Marco, 71/c, Venice, Italy Dates: from 28 January to 20 March Opening hours: open Wednesday – Monday, closed Tuesday, 12:00-18:00 Information: Giorgia Gallina, Mattia Zanetti; Press Office of the Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation, press@bevilacqualamasa.it; 0039.041.5207797, Dorsoduro 2826, 30123 Venice
