KIMSOOJA

Central to the exhibition is Meta-Painting (2020), an immersive installation that redefines painting through its most elemental materials. Comprised of raw linen canvases suspended freely in space, and Bottari—fabric bundles traditionally imbued with notions of transition and mobility—this work challenges the conventional role of painting. While Kimsooja’s Bottari have often been wrapped in opulent silks, satins, or polyesters in this iteration she chooses the stark simplicity of unadorned linen, reinforcing a profound dialogue between textile, painting, and the raw materiality of creation as a fundamental form and structure of it. In this pairing, the act of wrapping, unwrapping, and folding extends beyond the physical gesture, offering a meditation on the nature of painting as a tabula rasa.

Conceived at Wanås Konst Sculpture Park in Sweden, Meta-Painting reflects Kimsooja’s sustained inquiry into the origins of painting itself. The installation emerged from the planting, harvesting, and weaving of flax—the very material that constitutes both linen canvas and linseed oil. Through this process, the artist reimagines painting not as a static object but as a generative cycle, from the cultivation of flax to its transformation into painting’s foundational components. This transformative act of materiality reframes painting as an ongoing, life-generating process, which resonates with Kimsooja’s long-standing exploration of the relationships between textile, landscape, and labour, first articulated in works such as Agriculture (1988).

The adjacent room of the exhibition presents Thread Routes ll (2011), the second  chapter of  a six-part 16mm film series that explores the structural affinities between textile, architecture, and human movement. Shot across diverse locations, Thread Routes (2010–ongoing) unveils the performative connections between weaving, building, and daily labour, offering a meditative visual anthropology. Initially conceived after Kimsooja’s visit to Bruges in 2002, where she encountered the intricate tradition of lace-making, the series immerses the viewer in the cyclical interconnections between cultural materiality, gendered labour, and embodied gestures of making.

By bringing together Meta-Painting and Thread Routes, this exhibition underscores Kimsooja’s sustained exploration of transformation—of textiles, objects, and spatial perception. Moving fluidly between painting, sculpture, and film, her work dissolves boundaries between medium and meaning, revealing an interwoven narrative of materiality and migration.