Raffaella Cortese is pleased to present in the gallery space in via Stradella 1 a solo show by Kimsooja, whom the gallery has been working with since 2005. Kimsooja has exhibited at major Italian institutions such as Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa / Teatro la Fenice, Venice in 2006, PAC, Milan in 2004 or Palazzo delle Poste, Trieste in 2001.

Kimsooja is an internationally acclaimed, Korean born conceptual multi media artist. Combining performance, video, photo and installation, her work addresses issues of the displaced self and the other, while investigating the dualistic and existential nature of philosophy such as the relationship of yin and yang to life and death; mobility to immobility; and location to dislocation that evolves various fundamental problems of life and art.

In 2013, Kimsooja represented Korea at the 55^th Venice Biennial with a site-specific project, entitled To Breathe: Bottari. Approaching the architecture of the Korean Pavilion as a bottari, the artist wrapped the division between nature and the interior space with a translucent diffraction grating film, accompanied by an anechoic dark room that completely transformed the space into an experiential and transcendental environment in which the audience was invited to be the live and active performers.

For the exhibition at Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Kimsooja presents two distinct series which explore the natural phenomenon of light and darkness to evoke two visual extremes that are connected as part of a whole.

The To Breathe lightbox series (2013) are based on images created during the installation in Venice, and are presented alongside the photographic series The Sun – Unfolded, which were created in Goa, India in 2008.

Rendered as lightboxes, the To Breathe works further investigate the architecture of color through surface, reflection and abstraction, while The Sun – Unfolded shows circles of spectral color taking shape in concentric waves around the sun, creating forms reminiscent of a mandala or the sun as a breathing body.