Artwork of the month August

Kimsooja, Mumbai: A Laundry Field, 2007

Kimsooja

*1957 in Taegu, Korea


 A Laundry Field, 2007


3-channel video projection, colour, sound, loop 10'25''

Dimensions variable

KML 09.07

In her installations, performances, videos and photographs, Korean artist Kimsooja observes and juxtaposes different cultures. Fabrics, colours and the act of sewing play a salient role. Kimsooja equates her task as an artist with the activity of a needle that sews different cultures together: "The fine needle pierces the world, but the whole universe passes through the eye of the needle. " The perception of time as linear recedes into the background: Kimsooja's video installations communicate a timelessness in which present and past are interwoven.

Her video installation Mumbai: A Laundry Field features colourful Indian fabrics: wet clothing in the concrete wash pens of the Dhobi Ghat open-air laundry in Mumbai, the clothing of passengers in overcrowded commuter trains fluttering out of the windows, or clothing hung up to dry in the narrow alleys of a slum in Mumbai. The sumptuous colours and iridescent textures of the fabrics almost blot out the wretched working conditions of the lower caste laundrymen, many of whom have left the countryside hoping to improve their lives in the city. At the same time, coming from so many different families and homes in Mumbai, the textiles show a cross-section of Indian society. Here we see united in poetic and powerful pictures what the social system ordinarily keeps rigorously separated

<b>Kimsooja, Mumbai: A Laundry Field, 2007</b>
Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein highlights a work from the permanent collection each month throughout the year. Works from the collection of the Hilti Art Foundation are also included in this series on a regular basis.