Description:
Color video still of the artist standing with her back to the viewer as she looks upon a blue sea. Her dark silhouette contrasts the dark blue water that fades to white in the distance where a faint grey sky meet the sea.
Label Text:
Exhibition Label, 40 Years / 40 Artists, January 22–March 8, 2015:
This still from the video “A Laundry Woman ‒ Yamuna River, India” (featured in the artist’s 2011 exhibition at the UMCA) considers nature, stillness and movement and the cycle of life and death as the river slides by, picking up flotsam and washing away the earth. - Loretta Yarlow
Label text from the exhibition (OFF)BALANCE: Art in the Age of Human Impact, March 27-May 9, 2025:
A Laundry Woman – Yamuna River, India offers a quiet meditation on the relationship between humanity and nature. The video still shows the artist as a silhouetted figure facing the Yamuna River—a sacred site in Hindu tradition that, despite its spiritual significance, bears the visible traces of environmental decline. This coexistence of reverence and degradation highlights the layered complexity of the river as both a place of purification and a space marked by human impact. Through stillness and silence, Kimsooja transforms the act of looking into a space for contemplation. Her presence is neither declarative nor didactic; instead, it opens a subtle dialogue between the body, the site, and the viewer. By positioning herself between observation and immersion, she gestures toward a deeper awareness of coexistence—inviting reflection on the delicate balance between the visible and the invisible, the material and the spiritual. - Bo Kim, MFA Candidate in Studio Arts
Tags:
allegory; landscapes; seascapes; exterior; politics; water Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=UM+2014.21 |
