Soun-Gui Kim

The media artist Soun-Gui Kim was born in 1946 in Buyeo, Korea. After completing her art studies (department of Art) at Seoul National University, she received a scholarship by French Government as guest artist at the Centre Artistique de Rencontre International in Nice in 1971. Since then she has lived and worked in France.

Directly after her stay as a guest artist, Soun-Gui Kim taught at the École Nationale d'Art Décoratif in Nice and at the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Marseille between 1974 and 2000. Further professorships followed, for example as a visiting professor at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg (1985) and as a long-standing professor at the École Nationale Supérieure d'Art Dijon.

Ranging from the deconstruction of painting to links between philosophy, art and technology the media artist develops experimental performances, video works and conceptual works.

Due to her growing interest in video and multimedia art, she has been in international exchange with renowned video artists such as Nam June Paik, Ko Nakajima, Ira Schneider and Frank Gillette since the early 1980s and also with John Cage.

Since the late 1980s, issues related to the spread of global capitalism and structural changes in society caused by the Internet have become particularly important for Soun-Gui Kim, and she has engaged in intensive discourse with the philosophers Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Nancy.

Solo Exhibitions (Selection)

2019 »Lazy Clouds – Soun Gui Kim«, National Museum of Modern & Contemporary Art (MMCA), Seoul
2013 »Beating the market, Soun-Gui Kim in dialogue with Cage, Derrida, and Nancy«, presented by Jean-Michel Rabaté & Aaron Levy, Slought Foundation, Philadelphia
2001 P.A.P., Galerie Lara Vincy, Paris
2000 »Stock Exchange II«, Art Sonje Center, Seoul
1996 »Station O Time«, Interactive multimedia installation, Korean Institute of Industrial Technology, Cheonan, Korea
1991 »O Time«, Musée d’Art Moderne et d’Art Contemporain de Nice, Nice
1988 Soun-Gui Kim, Galerie Donguy, Paris
1983 »Bonjour Paik Nam-June II«, Performance with Paik Nam June, Paris
1975 »Soun-Gui Kim«, American Cultural Center, Seoul

Group Exhibitions (Selection)

2021 »Another Energy: Power to Continue Challenging – 16 Women Artists from around the World«, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo
2010 »Media City Seoul 2010«, Seoul History Museum, Seoul
2007 »Hommage to Paik Nam June: Memories of Wuppertal«, MMCA, Gwacheon
1999 »Sarajevo 2000«, Contemporary Art Museum of Sarajevo, Sarajevo
1987 festival »Ars Electronica«, presented by Daniel Charles, Linz
1986 »Video & Multimedia/Soun-Gui Kim et Ses Invités«, Vieille Charité, Marseille
1982 festival »Infermental II«, Hamburg

Publications (Selection)

Encounters with Soun-Gui Kim: »Writings, 1975-2021«, Publication Slought Foundation, Philadelphia, 2022
»Lazy Clouds – Soungui Kim,« Catalog of exhibition, MMCA-Seoul, Seoul, 2019
»Kim Soun Gui, Art, or listen to the silence: Soun-Gui Kim in conversation with Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Nancy & John Cage,« DVD/Book, Jean-Michel Rabaté & Aaron Levy, Slought Foundation & Art Sonje Center & Institut français of Korea, Seoul, 2014
»Montagne, c’est la mer / Tchouang-tseu et Wittgenstein,« La Main Courante, La Souterraine, 2003
»Saveur du bruit,« reply to the text of Jean-Luc Nancy; »Les sens du sens,« Bonjour, Hong Design, Seoul, 2000
»The emptiness of emptiness/dream of butterfly,« Art and Asia Pacific, vol.1, n° 4, Sydney, 1993
»Eclat du vide / Temps et Espace dans l’art japonais,« Travers, n° 38-39, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 1986
»Technology of art in East Asia today in East Asia,« Culture, UNESCO, Paris, 1982