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At Frieze Masters, we are pleased to present a selection of sculptures and paintings by Korean artist Kim Yun Shin in the Studio section, curated by Sheena Wagstaff. This presentation marks our first time participating in Frieze Masters.

Our presentation is on view at Stand B9, October 9–13, 2024.

Concurrent to the fair, Kim’s work is on view in Foreigners Everywhere, the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. In early 2025, Kim will have her debut solo exhibition in the United Kingdom at Lehmann Maupin London.

Here, we present a timeline of Kim Yun Shin’s creative life and innovative artistic career. Unfolding across Asia, South America, and Europe over the course of more than 60 years, Kim’s pioneering work has come to embody a distinct aesthetic that engages with the fundamental qualities of materials and nature.

Read on to learn more about her global story.

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Kim Yun Shin: Frieze Masters 2024

KIM YUN SHIN

Song of My Soul 2016-71, 2016

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KIM YUN SHIN

Song of My Soul 2016-71, 2016

Oil and acrylic on canvas

3 panels, each: 59 x 47.2 inches
150×120 cm
59 x 141.7 inches (overall)
150 x 360 cm

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Kim Yun Shin: Frieze Masters 2024

KIM YUN SHIN

Tree Full of Songs 2024-8V1, 2024

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KIM YUN SHIN

Tree Full of Songs 2024-8V1, 2024

Acrylic on bronze

18.11 x 12.59 x 6.69 inches
46 × 32 × 17 cm

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Kim Yun Shin: Frieze Masters 2024

KIM YUN SHIN

Tree Full of Songs 2024-33V1, 2024

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KIM YUN SHIN

Tree Full of Songs 2024-33V1, 2024

Acrylic on bronze

15.74 x 15.35 x 6.29 inches
40 × 39 × 16 cm

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Kim Yun Shin: Frieze Masters 2024

KIM YUN SHIN

Vibration Series 2018-50, 2018

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KIM YUN SHIN

Vibration Series 2018-50, 2018

Oil and acrylic on canvas

39 x 47 inches
100 x 120 cm

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Kim Yun Shin: Frieze Masters 2024

KIM YUN SHIN

Song of My Soul 2013-64, 2013

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KIM YUN SHIN

Song of My Soul 2013-64, 2013

Oil on canvas

35 2/5 x 35 2/5 inches
90 x 90 cm

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vibration detail banner

1930s–1950s

Born in 1935 in Wonsan, Gangwon province (present day North Korea) during the Japanese occupation, Kim Yun Shin was impacted by a tumultuous political situation during her early childhood. Following the partition of Korea after the Second World War and the outbreak of the Korean War, Kim and her family immigrated to Seoul, where she began to forge her own path as an artist.

In 1959, Kim received her B.F.A from Hongik University in Seoul.

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Kim Yun Shin: Frieze Masters 2024

Kim Yun Shin studying in France, 1964–1969

Kim Yun Shin studying in France, 1964–1969

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Kim Yun Shin: Frieze Masters 2024

Kim Yun Shin lithographs from 1966–1967

Kim Yun Shin lithographs from 1966–1967

The 1960s

From the mid to late 1960s, Kim was enrolled at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts’ Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris, where she studied sculpture and lithography. The medium of lithography was new to Kim at the time, and she relished in the delicate, versatile expressions that could be created through monochrome. In an early experiment, Kim produced lithographs on Hanji (traditional Korean paper) sent from Korea. Kim’s peers in Paris were surprised that such thin paper could withstand the density of ink without being destroyed. These lithographs Kim produced during this period are titled Prediction and prominently feature the Taegeuk—a Korean symbol that translates as “great duality” and bears symbolic and visual resemblance to the yin and yang symbol. Prediction marks a prescient moment in Kim’s practice and is an early hallmark of her fusion of formal techniques, materials, and aesthetics from both Eastern and Western cultures. 

In 1969, Kim returned to Seoul.

 

The 1970s

In the early 1970s, Kim began working on her series Myth of Constellations, rendering the memory of sparkling stars in the sky from her childhood in her hometown of Wonsan. As a child, the artist used to fall asleep under a tree while staring at stars, imagining that they were telling her stories. The size of the artist’s brushstrokes varies throughout each canvas, each a representation of the constellations that reside in her memory. Aware of the fleeting nature of these moments, Myth of Constellations evokes a longing for her childhood and the nostalgia for home. 

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Kim Yun Shin: Frieze Masters 2024

KIM YUN SHIN

Myth of the Constellations, 1972

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KIM YUN SHIN

Myth of the Constellations, 1972

Ink on canvas

27 9/16 x 20 21/32 inches
70 x 52.5 cm

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Kim Yun Shin: Frieze Masters 2024

KIM YUN SHIN

Myth of the Constellations, 1972

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KIM YUN SHIN

Myth of the Constellations, 1972

Ink on canvas

27 9/16 x 20 21/32 inches
70 x 52.5 cm

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Kim Yun Shin: Frieze Masters 2024

KIM YUN SHIN

Myth of the Constellations, 1972

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KIM YUN SHIN

Myth of the Constellations, 1972

Ink on canvas

27 9/16 x 20 21/32 inches
70 x 52.5 cm

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Kim Yun Shin: Frieze Masters 2024

In 1974, Kim founded the Korean Sculptress Association with Lee Yang-ja, Young Ja Yoon, and Kim Jeong-sook, an organization that offers resources and mentorship opportunities for female sculptors across South Korea. The Association is still active today and hosts exhibitions featuring works by association members.

Constellations banner

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Kim Yun Shin: Frieze Masters 2024

Outdoor installation from the 1970s

Outdoor installation from the 1970s

In the 1970s, Kim immersed herself in creating wooden sculptures. Her seminal series Stacking Wishes and Add Two Add One Divide Two Divide One are inspired by her interests in architecture and philosophy. Kim was specifically inspired by the wooden fittings of hanoks (traditional Korean houses), which utilize an architectural technique called “Gyeolgu-beop” Instead of using nails, the components are fitted together by carving slots, creating interlocking joints or grooves. During this time, the artist often incorporated used timber from pillars or rafters of hanoks into her sculptures. Through incorporating these formal, architectural techniques into her sculptures, Kim reveals the inherent philosophical and spiritual nature of these methods. 

Kim was also inspired by the philosophical concepts of Yin and Yang. Both visually and through its title, Stacking Wishes invokes the Buddhist meditation practice of stacking stones as a form of prayer and devotion, as well as Jangseung, a traditional Korean totem pole. The motif of stacked stones can be commonly found in Zen Buddhist gardens, and is a visual representation of creating order amidst the world’s chaos. Stacking Wishes highlights Kim’s connection to Buddhist spirituality and philosophy, a core and enduring tenet of her oeuvre.

The title Add Two Add One Divide Two Divide One also represents what became a foundational and defining philosophy throughout Kim’s work. This phrase signifies a phenomenon in which two disparate entities interact to become one, then divide to become two again, with each becoming its own entity. Fusing formal techniques and spiritual philosophy, this phenomenon speaks towards Kim’s spiritual orientation towards artmaking, where in the process of creation the artist and the art become one and are eventually separated into their own entities upon completion: “I go through the process of immersion where nature, the material, and I become one.”

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Kim Yun Shin: Frieze Masters 2024

KIM YUN SHIN

Stacking Wishes, 1970s

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KIM YUN SHIN

Stacking Wishes, 1970s

Wood from old Korean architecture

29.53 x 5.51 x 3.94 inches
75 x 14 x 10 cm

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Kim Yun Shin: Frieze Masters 2024

KIM YUN SHIN

Stacking Wishes 2, 1978

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KIM YUN SHIN

Stacking Wishes 2, 1978

Wood from old Korean architecture

37.01 x 5.91 x 3.94 inches
94 x 15 x 10 cm

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longing detail banner

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Kim Yun Shin: Frieze Masters 2024

Installation view at Museum of Modern Art Botanical Garden in Buenos Aires, 1985

Installation view at Museum of Modern Art Botanical Garden in Buenos Aires, 1985

The 1980s

In 1984, Kim visited her niece in Argentina and was enthralled by the natural environment there. “The first thing that captured my attention was the beautiful horizon. The land and sky were flat. Secondly, the people were kind and gentle. Thirdly, there were trees, thick and lush trees.” This visit inspired her move to Argentina, where she lived and maintained a studio for over three decades. For the artist, leaving Seoul allowed her to develop a more idiosyncratic visual language that departed from the figurative and narrative aesthetics that dominated this period in South Korea. 

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Kim Yun Shin: Frieze Masters 2024

Kim Yun Shin in her Buenos Aires studio, 1990s

Kim Yun Shin in her Buenos Aires studio, 1990s

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Kim Yun Shin: Frieze Masters 2024

KIM YUN SHIN

Add Two Add One Divide Two Divide One 1992-454, 1990

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KIM YUN SHIN

Add Two Add One Divide Two Divide One 1992-454, 1990

Lapacho

44 7/8 x 18 1/2 x 17 23/32 inches
114 x 47 x 45 cm

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Kim Yun Shin: Frieze Masters 2024

KIM YUN SHIN

Add Two Add One Divide Two Divide One 2001-10, 1998-2001

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KIM YUN SHIN

Add Two Add One Divide Two Divide One 2001-10, 1998-2001

Algarrobo wood

22 5/8 x 18 1/2 x 15 9/16 inches
57.5 x 47 x 39.5 cm

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Kim Yun Shin: Frieze Masters 2024

Kim Yun Shin in Buenos Aires, 1996

Kim Yun Shin in Buenos Aires, 1996

​​In 1988, Kim visited Mexico City and saw an exhibition at the Palacio de Bellas Artes that featured many works created from onyx, a solid mineral that is classified as a semi-jewel based on its scarcity and aesthetic value. Kim became fascinated with the material, as she saw it as a microcosm of the Earth. Influenced by onyx’s formation process—in underground cracks in volcanic and sedimentary rocks where dissolved calcite and impurities merge to form crystals—when creating her sculptures, Kim deliberately cuts the surface of the stone to reveal its myriad patterns and colors, which cannot be seen on the surface of the material. For the artist, the layers of accumulated material that make up onyx are a visual representation of the passage of time.


The time Kim spent in Mexico and Brazil from the late 1980s to the early 2000s inspired her to incorporate both onyx and stone into her sculptures, expanding the range of mediums in her Add One Add Two Divide One Divide Two series.

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Kim Yun Shin: Frieze Masters 2024

KIM YUN SHIN

Song of My Soul 2006-10, 2006

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KIM YUN SHIN

Song of My Soul 2006-10, 2006

Oil on canvas

35 x 35 inches
89.5 x 89.5 cm

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Kim Yun Shin: Frieze Masters 2024

KIM YUN SHIN

Song of My Soul 2009-3, 2009

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KIM YUN SHIN

Oil on canvas

35 2/5 x 35 2/5 inches
90 x 90 cm

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painted sculpture banner (37458)

The 2000s

Inspired by totemism in South American culture, in the early 2000s Kim began experimenting with adding color to wood sculptures. Through a chance encounter with the Mapuche, an indigenous people living in the Patagonia region, the artist discovered similarities between the colors and patterns they used and Korean totemism. This encounter prompted her to actively incorporate geometric patterns and coloration into her works in an attempt to combine the totemism of South America and the Obangsaek, the traditional Korean color spectrum which consists of white, black, blue, yellow, and red. In her painting series produced during this period, including Primal Vitality, Song of My Soul, Prayer of A Soul, Fragments of Memories, and Vibration, she uses sculptural techniques to create surface fragmentation. Kim adds vibrant pigment to her surfaces, then uses a palette knife to scrape off the paint, generating geometric patterns as she works. Mirroring her formal sculptural techniques, her painting process also involves addition and subtraction. The resulting aesthetic imbues each work with a radiating, dynamic energy.

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Kim Yun Shin: Frieze Masters 2024

Kim Yun Shin and an outdoor sculpture, 2000

Kim Yun Shin and an outdoor sculpture, 2000

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Kim Yun Shin: Frieze Masters 2024

KIM YUN SHIN

Song of My Soul 2010-101, 2010

KIM YUN SHIN

Song of My Soul 2010-101, 2010

Oil on canvas

39.37 x 39.37 inches

100 x 100 cm

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Kim Yun Shin: Frieze Masters 2024

KIM YUN SHIN

Song of My Soul 2010-100, 2010

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KIM YUN SHIN

Song of My Soul 2010-100, 2010

Oil on canvas

39.37 x 39.37 inches
100 x 100 cm

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Wood Sculpture Banner Detail LM37453

During the late 2000s in Argentina, Kim began her seminal painting series Song of My Soul. In this series, she incorporates silhouettes of hapchukseon (a folding bamboo fan) alongside motifs of diagonal combs. Rendering these symbols in bright colors, Kim highlights the similarities between traditional Korean symbolism and ancient Western designs. The artist also regards Song of My Soul as a homage to nature, incorporating imaginary designs of organic forms including plants, seeds, and spores. Here, Kim gestures towards the natural progression of evolution that impacts every life form on earth. 

In the Vibration series, Kim layers lines, patterns, and colors, generating a dynamic rhythm that radiates across the canvas. For Kim, the convergence and divergence of these densely layered shapes and colors mimics the effect of ripples, gesturing towards the relationship between cause and effect, a theme that she also explores in Fragments of Memories, This Moment, Prayer of a Soul, and Primal Vitality

In 2008, Kim established Museo Kim Yun Shin in Buenos Aires, the first and only museum established by a Korean-Argentine.

 

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Kim Yun Shin: Frieze Masters 2024

KIM YUN SHIN

Add Two Add One Divide Two Divide One 2010-132, 2010

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KIM YUN SHIN

Add Two Add One Divide Two Divide One 2010-132, 2010

Algarrobo wood

16.9 x 20.86 x 17 inches
43 x 53 x 44 cm

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sculpture detail bannr

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Kim Yun Shin in her Seoul studio, 2024

Kim Yun Shin in her Seoul studio, 2024

The 2020s

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Kim spent time in South Korea and began experimenting by creating sculptures with woods native to the region, such as walnut, chestnut, and gingko. Due to difficulty in sourcing materials, the artist often used recycled wood. These materials are less durable than the algarrobo wood native to Argentina she previously used. The difference in the wood’s texture prompted the artist to create softer grooves in the wood and to preserve the natural extension of branches from tree trunks. 

During this time, the artist also added vivid colors to her wooden sculptures, and began referring to them as “painting sculptures.” The phrase “painting sculpture” demonstrates a central tenet of Kim’s practice—to continuously contemplate “the integration of painting and sculpture in an organic way.”

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Kim Yun Shin: Frieze Masters 2024

KIM YUN SHIN

Longing 2023-1, 2023

KIM YUN SHIN

Longing 2023-1, 2023

Acrylic on canvas

31.49 x 39.37 inches
80 x 100 cm

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Kim Yun Shin: Frieze Masters 2024

KIM YUN SHIN

Longing 2023-5, 2023

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KIM YUN SHIN

Longing 2023-5, 2023

Acrylic on canvas

31.49 x 39.37 inches
80 x 100 cm

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Kim Yun Shin: Frieze Masters 2024

KIM YUN SHIN

Add Two Add One, Divide Two Divide One 2022-6b, 2022

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KIM YUN SHIN

Add Two Add One, Divide Two Divide One 2022-6b, 2022

Acrylic on zelkova tree

54.33 x 26.38 x 26.38 inches
138 x 67 x 67 cm

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Kim Yun Shin: Frieze Masters 2024

KIM YUN SHIN

Add Two Add One, Divide Two Divide One 2022-14, 2022

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KIM YUN SHIN

Add Two Add One, Divide Two Divide One 2022-14, 2022

Acrylic on wood

18.50 x 17.32 x 14.17 inches
47 x 44 x 36 cm

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Kim Yun Shin in the Studio, 2024

Courtesy Ocula and the artist

Film and edit by Sonongji Studio

Kim Yun Shin in the Studio, 2024

Courtesy Ocula and the artist

Film and edit by Sonongji Studio

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Kim Yun Shin: Frieze Masters 2024

KIM YUN SHIN

Vibration Series 2019-4, 2019

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KIM YUN SHIN

Vibration Series 2019-4, 2019

Acrylic on canvas

35 2/5 x 35 2/5 inches
90 x 90 cm

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Kim Yun Shin: Frieze Masters 2024

KIM YUN SHIN

Vibration Series 2019-17, 2019

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KIM YUN SHIN

Vibration Series 2019-17, 2019

Oil and acrylic on canvas

39 x 47 inches
100 x 120 cm

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Kim Yun Shin: Frieze Masters 2024

Kim Yun Shin: Studio at Frieze Masters

Curated by Sheena Wagstaff

Kim Yun Shin: Studio at Frieze Masters

Curated by Sheena Wagstaff

Installation view

October 9–13, 2024

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Kim Yun Shin: Frieze Masters 2024

Kim Yun Shin in her studio, 2020

Kim Yun Shin in her studio, 2020

In addition to adding vivid colors to her sculptures, Kim also experimented with other materials. Tree Full of Songs is a series of colorful “painting sculptures” cast in aluminum and bronze. For the artist, using metal instead of wood in this series was a way of expressing the spiritual energy she felt in her eighties, as well as marking her return to Seoul from South America. 

In 2024, Kim presented a group of eight sculptures as part of Foreigners Everywhere, the 60th Venice Biennale. These wood and stone sculptures are part of Kim’s seminal Add Two Add One Divide Two Divide One series and mark the first time the artist’s work has been included in the Venice Biennale.

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Kim Yun Shin: Frieze Masters 2024

Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere, Venice Biennale, Giardini, Central Pavilion

April 20–November 24, 2024

Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere, Venice Biennale, Giardini, Central Pavilion

April 20–November 24, 2024

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