Kimsooja: Bottari: Documenta 14, Kassel, Germany

Kimsooja first tied together Bottari (Korean for “bundles”) in 1992 during her time as artist-in-residence at MoMA PS1; since then, she has constantly returned to them within her artistic evolution and as a signature, each time in a site-specific manner in response to the personal and social conditions around her. Traditionally in Korea, until well into the twentieth century, Bottari were constructed by gathering a person’s most important possessions inside a wrapping cloth (used bedcovers in the case of Kimsooja’s work), often at a moment when a person had to leave a native place behind. According to Kimsooja, “homeland is not a topographically definable place, but a state of consciousness and belonging.” Wherever Kimsooja finds herself to be, her body is simultaneously her studio and her home. For the installation at Fridericianum in Kassel, Kimsooja modified her existing Bottari with the addition of used clothing from Kassel together with existing used clothing from Athens. Kimsooja placed the Bottari in three different locations throughout the exhibition in response to historical and formalistic context, current social/political issues, as well as the physical space of the exhibition.

Courtesy of Documenta 14, Kewenig Gallery, EMST Collection and Kimsooja Studio

Photo by Jasper Kettner