ART BASEL PARIS 2025

Since the inaugural edition of the fair, Kukje Gallery has been the sole Korean gallery to participate in Art Basel Paris. This year’s presentation highlights works by leading Korean women artists alongside international artists. Song of My Soul 2006-145 (2006) by Kim Yun Shin, a pioneering first-generation Korean female sculptor, is a painting that demonstrates her unique artistic philosophy of perceiving nature not as an object of contemplation, but as a subject that ‘add[s to become] one’ with the artist. Kim conveys the essence of eternal life and vitality through bold colors, lines, planes and textures. Jae-Eun Choi presents When We First Met (2024). Living and working in Kyoto, Choi frames and inscribes the names of different wildflowers that she had encountered upon her strolls near the studio. By calling each flower by its name, the artist brings attention to the beauty of the mundane and of nature, as well as existential ideas of the order of the universe. Choi is expecting a solo exhibition at the Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA) Seosomun Main Branch in December 2025. Kyungah Ham’s embroidery work Floating Mysterious Nicergoline, Detail from SMS Series 07 (2018–2019) is also displayed at the booth. The work is part of her SMS series that metaphorically explores communication in contemporary society through text messaging. In order to create each work, Ham has the patterns embroidered by North Korean artisans, subversively enacting a forbidden dialogue by concealing English words, South Korean slang, and K-pop lyrics within the colorful design of abstract patterns.

Contemporary artist Haegue Yang presents Wired Feelers and Dichoptic Viewing – Trustworthy #370 (2018), a collage work that reconfigures the security patterns found inside envelopes into abstractions. Yang is currently featured in two major solo exhibitions: Haegue Yang: Quasi-Heartland at the Contemporary Art Museum (CAM) St. Louis, and the touring exhibition Haegue Yang: Leap Year at the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Zurich. Jina Park’s Rocks and a Manual 02 (2023) draws from her observations during a preliminary site visit to the Busan Museum of Art, ahead of her participation in a group exhibition there in 2023. The work reflects her distinctive practice of translating backstage and everyday moments into painting. Suki Seokyeong Kang’s Mora 210 × 163 #05 (2021–2022) takes inspiration from the linguistic concept of ‘mora,’ a phonetic unit smaller than a syllable. Painted with gouache and ink on silk, the abstract composition encapsulates the layered notions of temporality and narratives.

Kukje Gallery’s booth also showcases international artists active on the global art scene. An icon and legend of American photography, Robert Mapplethorpe’s Lisa Lyon (1982) is on view. A striking portrait of the female bodybuilder that conveys both strength and femininity, the work offers Mapplethorpe’s experimental perspective that challenges conventional notions of gender and beauty. Jean-Michel Othoniel’s Precious Stonewall (2024), crafted from glass bricks made in India, is installed along the booth’s wall. His ongoing monumental solo exhibition OTHONIEL COSMOS or the Ghosts of Love spans across the city of Avignon, France, showcasing his poetic and symbolic sculptural language developed over the past three decades. Daniel Boyd introduces his new work Untitled (MHMLW) (2025), continuing his signature pointillist technique. The ‘sleight of hand’ captured within the dotted lens metaphorically reveals the hidden layers of Western-centric history. Gala Porras-Kim examines how cultural institutions organise their collections and their classification systems that shape how objects are produced, perceived, and preserved. Her work Signal (MAK Center 10/19/23-01/27/24) (2024) which utilises humidity, typically strictly controlled in art institutions, reflects the environmental conditions of the exhibition space and visualises its vitality in abstract forms. Porras-Kim is currently holding a solo exhibition Conditions for holding a natural form at Kukje Gallery and has been nominated as one of the recipients of the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship. Thai contemporary artist Korakrit Arunanondchai introduces The sun of consciousness (2025), part of his History Paintings series. The work layers burnt and bleached denim, a symbol of Western-centric globalisation and history of labor, with photographic documentation of the painting’s combustion. His large-scale solo exhibition The Blood of the Earth is currently on view at Le Consortium in Dijon, France. Lastly, Berlin-based artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset presents Masculinity (2023), depicting masculinity, queerness, and belonging through everyday objects, playfully subverting conventional norms and traditions.