'Visitors become performers' in Kim Sooja's latest work on show in Paris

Kim Sooja's "To Breathe – Constellation" featured at Bourse de Commerce in Paris uses 418 mirror panels to reflect the 360-degree mural painting representing French trade on the wall above and the glass dome ceiling that suffuses with natural light.

Korean contemporary artist Kimsooja, right, and Korea's Culture Minister Yu In-chon, talk inside Bourse de Commerce - Pinault Collection's rotunda where Kimsooja's latest work “To Breathe - Constellation" is being exhibited, on May 2 in Paris, France. [MINISTRY OF CULTURE, SPORTS AND TOURISM]

PARIS — A long line formed on a Friday morning in May in front of the Bourse de Commerce building situated between the Seine River and Les Halles in the center of Paris. It’s no surprise to see so many visitors, who purchased timed tickets, waiting for their turn to go into the building that was once a grain and commodities exchange during the latter part of the 20th century.

It is now one of the most popular exhibition sites in the city of Paris. Francois Pinault, 87, the French billionaire who founded the luxury group Kering, which owns brands like Gucci, Balenciaga and Yves Saint Laurent, is an avid art collector and also owns British auction house Christie’s — though he recently handed over the director position to his 26-year-old grandson. Pinault and the Paris city government decided to turn this historic building into a new Pinault Collection-branded contemporary art museum and assigned Japanese architect Tadao Ando to design the space so that it could showcase some 10,000 art pieces in his collection.

After nearly a decade, the 130-year-old building finally opened its doors in May 2021 with its central rotunda, a feature the award-winning Japanese architect managed to preserve well from the original structure. It has become the most iconic space of the building.

The artist that got to use this space for the current exhibit “Le monde comme il va,” or “The World As It Goes” in English, is Korean contemporary artist of international fame, Kimsooja. The exhibit brings together works mainly from the 1980s to the present day. A total of 29 artists are exhibiting their works, including Fischli & Weiss, Maurizio Cattelan, Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons. Among these big names, Kimsooja was selected as an artist to create this monumental piece in the context of a carte blanche entitled “To Breathe – Constellation.”

As the 63-year-old Kimsooja is best known for her bottari works, one might expect to see a new version of her bottari, the traditional Korean cloth bundles used to carry belongings, in the middle of the rotunda. But instead, there’s nothing.

A rotunda is a building or section of a building that is round in shape, often featuring a dome. New York’s Guggenheim Museum is an iconic rotunda, and Rome’s Pantheon could be seen as its prototype.

Kim preferred to leave this monumental space empty, but had only one thing in mind: covering the floor using 418 mirror panels to reflect the 360-degree mural painting representing French trade on the wall above and the glass dome ceiling that suffuses with natural light.

In early May, about six weeks since the premiere of “Le monde comme il va,” the museum was still packed with visitors. Dozens were inside Kimsooja’s artwork in the rotunda, wearing overshoes to protect the mirrored floor. They were either slowly walking around, sitting down, leaning against the wall or lying down gazing aimlessly at the dome ceiling. Others were busy taking selfies of themselves reflected in the mirror. Visitors are free to do whatever they want inside the rotunda, except wear skirts or stilettos.

“I instantly thought about installing mirrors on the floor after encountering this space,” said Kimsooja, after showing a group of Korean reporters the space when they visited the art museum last month.

Kimsooja gained international attention in 1997 through her performance and video work “Cities on the Move: 2,727 kilometers Bottari Truck.” She traveled throughout Korea for 11 days on top of a truck loaded with colorful bottari as an artist exploring borders and crossed borders, evacuation and migration. Such motifs, according to the artist, were inspired by her mother whom she often spotted sewing duvet covers on her family’s yo — a Korean-style mattress used as a bed on the floor. In sewing, a needle and thread penetrate the “borders of fabric,” the artist said. As for bottari, it’s initially a two-dimensional fabric but becomes three-dimensional when bundled up with belongings inside, making a very flexible boundary between the inside and outside.

Though this emptied-out space looks like it has nothing to do with the motifs of sewing, weaving and bottari, Kimsooja says it’s all in there.

Visitors enjoy Korean artist Kimsooja's “To Breathe - Constellation," an exhibit the artist did in the rotunda inside Bourse de Commerce - Pinault Collection, on May 2 in Paris, France. [MINISTRY OF CULTURE, SPORTS AND TOURISM]

“One's gaze inside the rotunda acts like a sewing thread that moves around, entering into the depths of the self and of the other and reconnecting us to reality and the inner world,” she said. “The mirror is a fabric woven by the gaze in an ebbing and flowing motion.”

In that sense, the rotunda, which now reflects the dome ceiling due to the mirrored floor, is her new “architectural bottari.”

The visitors enjoying the rotunda — or “the humanity that exists inside it" — become the belongings of the bottari, she said. “The visitors act as an axis of time and space by standing upright between the sky and the ground inside this rotunda.”

Kimsooja said her work can also be seen as performance art.

“Regardless of their age and gender, everyone showed the narcissistic side of themselves. The space is emptied out, but visitors unconsciously become performers on this plateau, reacting to what they see in the mirror. And I secretly hide behind the walls and observe how they react.”

More of Kimsooja’s works are on display inside 24 display cases in the museum’s passage that surrounds the rotunda. [YIM SEUNG-HYE]

More of Kimsooja’s works are on display inside 24 display cases in the museum’s passage that surrounds the rotunda. [YIM SEUNG-HYE]

More of Kimsooja’s works are on display inside 24 display cases in the museum’s passage that surrounds the rotunda.

Emma Lavigne, chief curator and director in charge of the collection, said the art museum has had many visitors since its opening but definitely more have been visiting to experience Kimsooja’s work inside the rotunda.

The exhibition is scheduled to run until Sept. 2 but Lavigne said Kimsooja’s rotunda may stick around for a little longer.

“We have great Korean artists’ works in our collection like Lee Ufan but I honestly want to say we are currently obsessed with Kimsooja and want to work with her for our next project as well,” said Lavigne.

BY YIM SEUNG-HYE [yim.seunghye@joongang.co.kr]