Kimsooja: Weaving the Light: Cisternerne, Frederiksberg Museum, Denmark

Every year, the Frederiksberg Museums invites an artist to create a site-specific work for the 4,400 square meters of Cisternerne, into which the daylight never reaches, the humidity is close to 100%, the reverberation is of 17 seconds, and the temperature fluctuates between 4 and 16 degrees Celsius.

In an extensive installation of light and color, Kimsooja transforms Cisternerne into an ephemeral universe, where the light radiates like brushstrokes on transparent canvases and breaks the darkness. The work is comprised of diffraction grating film that is mounted on transparent panels, which altogether let light pass through a microscopic surface of horizontal and vertical prisms. Rays of light split into vibrant colors that dynamically weave in and out of the subterranean colonnades.

As you wander through the exhibition, surfaces appear as abstract paintings which continuously change form. The visitors’ movements create fleeting silhouette effects while the very same reflections appear on water surfaces, allowing light, body and architecture to pose as one choreographic performance. Simultaneously, the light reveals otherwise unseen details in the old water reservoir, and on the slopes encircling the rustic vaults and stalactite-covered walls, one can notice new illusory spaces that echo the rows of columns and masonry. 

This large-scale ambient installation in Cisternerne activates all our senses, making us aware of ourselves as well as our surroundings. With her minimal material intervention, Kimsooja offers a perceptual, exploratory medium that invites visitors to wholly embrace the existing space and experience it in a new light. 

Director of the Frederiksberg Museums, Astrid la Cour, says about the exhibition: 

“Cisternerne was once filled with clean drinking water for the city of Copenhagen, yet today, the chambers are filled with darkness. A darkness that is opened every year by a new artist who fills it with meanings, narratives, and poetry. Kimsooja truly comprehends the potential and inherent beauty of Cisternerne as she has created an exceptional exhibition giving the individual an opportunity of simultaneously sensing the depth of the darkness and the transformative power of the light.”

Installation view at Cisternerne, Denmark, 2023. Courtesy of Cisternerne, Frederiksberg Museum and Kimsooja Studio. Photo: Torben Eskerod