Transforming Identity and Nomadic Art of Two Contemporary Korean Women Artists

This paper examines the artworks of Sooja Kim (1957- ) and Haegue Yang (1971- ), globally renowned Korean female artists, to unearth the aspects of forming and articulating their identity through art. Although several Western and Korean scholars discuss them from a feminist perspective, my study does not engage with one facet of identity politics, that is, gendered, ethnic, cultural, or class lens, but utilizes identity politics solely as an axis of various interpretations. Instead, this paper considers that both artists’ works address the subject matter of "nomad," a member of a group of people moving from one place to another rather than living in one place. Kim and Yang are nomadic artists practicing art and holding numerous international exhibitions, traveling around the world without settling in one place. In this vein, my paper probes into how both artists respond to the proposition of identity and globalization, analyzing their seminal works, Kim’s Cities on the Move – 2727 Kilometers Bottari Truck (1997) and A Needle Woman (1999-2001) and Yang’s Storage Piece (2004) and Yearning Melancholy Red (2008). By delving into those opuses, this paper aims to illustrate their shared concerns and attitude to transcend physical boundaries to realize transnational art. In doing so, I argue that Kim’s and Yang’s identity continues to transform and reconfigure, yet their artistic engagement and life as nomads ultimately illuminate them as global communicators between disparate worlds and people; thus, they are strenuously writing their own history in that their names have become their identity.