Kimsooja: Thread Routes
03.12.2015 - 07.05.2015
Film & Video gallery
The Film & Video gallery is a permanent space dedicated to video art and the moving image.
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao presents Thread Routes – Chapter I, II and III (2010–), the first 16-mm film series produced by multi-disciplinary conceptual artist Kimsooja (b. 1957, Daegu, Korea). This ongoing project consists of six chapters, each shot in a different part of the world, and together they form a mosaic of common performative elements that unite different textile cultures. In this triangular installation created by the artist, you can view three chapters filmed in Peru, Europe, and India, respectively.
These films uncover the structural continuity between textile, architecture, nature, agriculture, and gender relations through the framework of a non-narrative documentary, plunging the viewer into the realm of poetry and visual anthropology. The artist first conceived this series in 2002 after visiting Brugge and experiencing the process of lace making.
Kimsooja established her multidisciplinary practice in the beginning of 1980s. Taking yibulbo (Korean bedcover) as a tableau and as a frame of life, her work evolved through the use of textiles and performance. Bottari (traditional Korean cloth bundle), as an extension of this idea, has been an essential feature in many of her works. Thread Routes is directly related to her earlier sewn pieces, wrapped objects, and A Needle Woman performance videos, in which she placed herself in the middle of vibrant urban fabrics of metropolises around the world.
Kimsooja
Thread Routes - Chapter II, 2011
16 mm film transferred to HD video, with sound, 23 min., 40 sec.
Courtesy La Fábrica, Madrid, Galerie Kewenig, Majorca and Berlin; Galerie Tschudi, Zuoz;
Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milan; and Kukje Gallery, Seoul