Divide Two Divide One

Lehmann Maupin is pleased to present a two-part solo exhibition of work by pioneering Korean artist Kim Yun Shin, which spans the gallery's London and New York locations. Surveying the artist's oeuvre and including both paintings and sculptures from the 1970s to the present, Add Two Add One --which marks the artist's debut exhibition in the United Kingdom--was on view at Lehmann Maupin's temporary space at No.9 Cork Street in London. Shortly thereafter, Divide Two Divide One, Kim's first major solo exhibition with Lehmann Maupin in New York, is on view. Named for Kim's iconic sculptural series Add Two Add One Divide Two Divide One, the title derives from the philosophical concept of yin (division and fragmentation) and yang (addition and integration), which informs Kim's process--she "adds" her soul into the solid wood and "divides" the space between the bark and inner wood to create a complete whole. Both exhibitions probe the scope of Kim's historic career, tracing her artistic and thematic development, and thus, her connection to the natural and spiritual worlds around her. This two-part exhibition comes on the heels of a breakthrough year for the artist, who joined Lehmann Maupin's program in early 2024, marking Kim's first commercial gallery representation in her nearly seven-decade career. Also in 2024, Kim's work was prominently included in Foreigners Everywhere, the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, curated by Adriano Pedrosa. Kim's work is included in museum collections worldwide, including recent acquisitions by the Singapore Art Museum, the Harvard Art Museum, and the Seoul Museum of Art; most recently, a historic sculpture from the late 1980s was acquired by the Guggenheim Museum in New York and will enter the permanent collection. Growing up amidst the backdrop of Korea's tumultuous history in the 20th century, Kim Yun Shin established herself as a formative figure in the post-war South Korean art scene, overcoming societal norms to carve out a space for herself as a first-generation woman sculptor. Despite facing challenges in a male-dominated field, she ventured to Paris to pursue her artistic aspirations, taught at various universities, and co-founded the Korean Sculptress Association in 1974 to support emerging artists. Partly influenced by her nomadic early life, her work reflects a fearless exploration of diasporic cultures--from France, Mexico, and Brazil, to her adoptive home of Argentina, where she established Museo Kim Yun Shin, the first Korean immigrant art museum. Now, at 90 years of age, the artist resides in Paju, South Korea, where she continues to produce work in her studio. Her artistic practice, which encompasses sculpture and painting, is also deeply rooted in encounters with the natural world. Kim's sculptural work engages with the fundamental qualities of materials and nature, navigating themes of confrontation, introspection, and coexistence. Using solid wood as her primary medium, she visualizes the intersection between nature, time, and history, reconsidering the very essence of human existence. Her early sculptures from the 1970s are deeply rooted in traditional Korean hanok architecture, which uses a distinctive technique that joins wooden blocks without nails. Her colorful paintings, meanwhile, are marked by distinctive surface fragmentation; across her compositions, large sections gradually divide into smaller shapes. The resulting artworks evoke a primordial energy, at once expansive and concise, concentrated and diffused. For Kim, painting offers the opportunity to explore sculptural concepts in a two-dimensional format. In New York, Divide Two Divide One similarly includes selections from several of Kim's historic series, with works dating from the mid-80s to the present. Sculptures from Kim's ongoing Add Two Add One Divide Two Divide One series are assemblages of terracotta-hued natural wood--algarrobo, indigenous to South America--stacked vertically and scarred with angular notches and planes. The resulting sculptures, as in Add Two Add One Divide Two Divide One 2015-20 (2015) and Add Two Add One, Divide Two Divide One 1993-498 (1993), appear like sprouting plants or gestural figures, evoking both human and animal forms. Several stone iterations of this series are also included in the New York exhibition, including Add Two Add One, Divide Two Divide One 2002-750 (2002) and Add Two Add One, Divide Two Divide One 1989-216 (1989), crafted from quartz and onyx, respectively; the exhibition also includes paintings from Kim's ongoing Song of My Soul and her more recent Waves of Joy series. Notably, Song of My Soul 2015-49 (2015), one of the artist's largest paintings to-date, was recently included in the solo exhibition Kim Yun Shin: Letters from Argentina at the Leeungno Museum in Daejeon, South Korea in 2024. Across both exhibitions, Kim's paintings and sculptures locate the essence of her unique diasporic experience amidst the grounding consistency of a spiritual connection to the natural world. Decades of creative production unfold from one series to the next in both London and New York, paying homage to Kim's journey from turbulent beginnings during the Japanese colonial period and Korean War to becoming a trailblazer in Korean contemporary art and reflecting the artist's personal resilience and commitment to artistic innovation.

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