Urgent Conversations: Athens – Antwerp

    ENELNL

    The exhibitions Urgent Conversations: Athens–Antwerp and Urgent Conversations: Antwerp – Athens are a collaboration between EMST and M HKA, a theoretical and visual dialogue, based on works from the collections of both museums, which includes more than 70 works structured in 22 topics.   

    28.04.2017 - 07.01.2018        

    M HKA, Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen - Leuvenstraat 32, 2000 Antwerpen

    EMST, National Museum of Contemporary Art - Kallirrois Avenue & Amvr. Frantzi Str., Athens 11743

    TOPICS

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    (c)image: National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST), Athens
    Bottari, 2005
    Kimsooja
    Installation , variable dimensions
    traditional Korean bedcovers and used clothing

    […] A Korean bottari is a bundle used to carry unbreakable household objects (clothing, books, etc.), food or gifts. It is quite common in Korean culture and is commonly associated with mobility – voluntary (e.g. salesmen, travelers etc.) or involuntary (e.g. refugees). It is also something Kimsooja is particularly familiar with both as a result of her national roots and because of her family being constantly on the move.

    […] In order to create the bottari, as with many of her other works, Kimsooja uses traditional Korean bedcovers, which she fills with fabrics, clothes etc., usually second-hand, since, as she says herself, they “carry” with them the smell, the memories, the desires, the “spirit” and the life of their erstwhile owners. The colours, the designs and the embroideries of the covers symbolize love, happiness, wealth and fertility, as they are traditionally used in Korea as bedding for newlyweds. For the artist, bedcovers symbolize the human body and the cycle of human life: birth, love, pain and death, since it is upon them that people are born, dream, rest and finally die.

    - Eleni Ganiti (Kimsooja. Journey into the world, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, 2003)

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