Minouk Lim

Minouk Lim (b. 1968) is an artist of many forms, creating works that are beyond the boundary of different genres and media, and deepening the scope of questions while encompassing writing, music, video, installation and performance as her means of artistic expression. Lim’s work recalls historic losses, ruptures, and repressed traumas. Rooted in language, and specifically the politics of expression, of what has been said and what that, in turn, has silenced, her sculptures, videos, performances, and installations don’t replay past events, rather, they elevate the experiences, memories, and feelings of those sidelined by the political violence of the Korean war and its ensuing process of modernization. Curator Soyeon Ahn has written that Lim’s work “testifies on behalf of the invisible.” Indeed, her projects cast that which has gone lost and missing—be this collective memories or deep feelings of longing and grief—into generative, even hopeful, new forms.

Lim’s solo exhibitions include Hyper Yellow (Komagome SOKO, 2024), Fossil of High Noon (Tina Kim gallery, 2022), Night Shift, 2021 Title Match: Minouk Lim vs. Young-gyu Jang (two-person exhibition, Buk-Seoul Museum of Art, 2021), Minouk Lim: The Promise of If (PLATEAU, Samsung Museum of Art, 2015). Lim has participated in a number of group exhibitions and biennials, including DMZ Exhibition: Checkpoint (2023), Real DMZ Project: Negotiating Borders (2021), Gwangju Biennial (2021 and 2014), Asia Society Triennial (2020), Setouchi Triennale (2016), Sydney and Taipei Biennial (2016), Paris Triennale (2012), Liverpool Biennial (2010), Political Populism (Kunsthalle Wien 2015), The Time of Others (Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, 2015) and Your Bright Future: 12 Contemporary Artists from Korea (Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2009–2010).

Lim’s work is included in numerous public collections, including the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Arts, Seoul; Gyeonggi Museum of Art, Ansan; Seoul Museum of Art; Art Sonje Center, Seoul; Centre Pompidou, Paris; KADIST, San Francisco; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Tate Modern, London; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, among others.