Kim Yun Shin: ‘Studio’ at Frieze Masters 2024
The artist sees her tools as an extension of herself, making sculptures and paintings that connect with nature’s constant renewal
The artist sees her tools as an extension of herself, making sculptures and paintings that connect with nature’s constant renewal
It’s about the moment when the material and I become one. [Trees are reborn as sculptures and, simultaneously] I am also conceived as another life – Kim Yun Shin1
Across six decades as a sculptor and painter, Kim Yun Shin has probed the essence of human existence, pursuing her stated conceptual ethos, ‘harmony in unity, division in plurality’, through her relationship with the natural world.
At the age of 12, Kim fled North Korea, settling in Seoul. She founded the Korean Sculptress Association in 1974. Primarily sculpting in stone and wood, Kim’s signature series, ‘Add Two Add One, Divide Two Divide One’ (1978 onwards), encapsulates the artist’s geometric interpretation of the balance of opposing forces in Yinyang philosophy.
A trip overseas in 1984 led Kim to relocate to Argentina, where the varied natural terrain offered a stark contrast to the razed landscape of postwar Korea. While in South America, she started using a chainsaw to cut directly into native woods, such as carob and quebracho, exposing the textural contrast between the smooth, inner core and the bark. Kim’s vibrant paintings mirror the striations of her sculptures and follow the same principles of addition and reduction, at times revealing underlying coats of colour by removing strips of paint.
Returning to South Korea in 2024, Kim expanded her practice by painting directly on to her wooden sculptures, as well as generating a new body of painted bronzes.
Kim Yun Shin is showing with Lehmann Maupin at Frieze Masters 2024.
About Studio at Frieze Masters 2024
Following its debut in 2023, Studio, curated by Sheena Wagstaff, highlights Frieze Masters’ commitment to living practice in dialogue with historical art. By focusing on artists’ place of making, it reflects the idea of the past informing the present moment of creation in an object for the future.
Studio features ten solo presentations by Beatrice Caracciolo (Paula Cooper Gallery), Isabella Ducrot (Sadie Coles HQ, Galerie Gisela Capitain and Standard [Oslo]), Nathalie Du Pasquier (Pace Gallery), Shirazeh Houshiary (Lisson Gallery), Kim Yun Shin (Lehmann Maupin), Mernet Larsen (James Cohan), Thaddeus Mosley (Karma), Doris Salcedo (White Cube), Nilima Sheikh (Chemould Prescott Road) and Adriana Varejão (Victoria Miro).
Further Information
Frieze London and Frieze Masters, 9 – 13 October 2024, The Regent’s Park.
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Main Image: Kim Yun Shin, Song of My Soul 2010-101, 2010. Oil on canvas, 1 × 1 m. Courtesy: the artist and Lehmann Maupin
1 Quotation from Park Han-sol, ‘At 88, artist Kim Yun-shin is not ready to put down her chainsaw’, The Korea Times, 26 March 2024.
