About

Kay Yoon is an artist working between Germany and Korea, whose practice navigates the bounds of cultural memory, technological mediation, and embodied ritual. Between Korean folk tradition and globalized modernity, her works translate the complexities of sense and experience while refusing elision.

In regarding specters and ghosts as the past's addressal of the present, Yoon summons lost voices in history, reinterpreting traditional rituals, folk beliefs, and everyday symbols in a contemporary context. Her work primarily manifests in the form of sound installations and spatial interventions, wherein everyday objects such as dining tables, beds, and musical instruments are disassembled, reassembled, and imbued with new meaning. A dining table becomes a stage laden with family history, while spoons, chopsticks, and bowls serve as evidence bearing the traces of women's labor and care. Notably, she blends the rhythms of traditional Korean pansori, mechanical noise, and the dissonances of contemporary music to deliver complex emotions as auditory encounter. Combined with performance, her work synthesizes an experience that surpasses viewing to invite the audience's corporeal engagement.

Although her work departs from personal perception, it expands into the universality of contemporary experience. What Yoon materializes into the audiovisual are the emotions of those caught between tradition and modernity, and those forging new lives while bearing the memories of loss and violence. The 'affective migration' broached in her work extends beyond the physical crossing of borders; it is a process of endless transit between languages and cultures across time, of unceasingly forging new identities.

[1] Pansori is a Korean traditional narrative performance art combining storytelling, vocal techniques, and rhythmic accompaniment.

translated by Joan Lee

Education

2020 - 2023 Study at Academy of Fine Art, München, Prof. Alexandra Bircken
2018 - 2020 Study at Academy of Fine Art, Nürnberg, Prof. Michael Sailstorfer
2018 - 2020 Study at Academy of Fine Art, Leipzig, Prof. Joachim Blank
2016 - 2018 Study at Academy of Fine Art, Nürnberg, Prof. Ottmar Hörl
2013 - 2015 Study at Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul

Stipends / Awards

2024 USA Scholarship, Bayerisches Staatministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst
2023 Project Funding, Erwin und Giesla von Steiner Stiftung
2023 Catalog Funding, LfA Förderbank Bayern
2023 Debutant Promotion Award, Bayerisches Staatministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst
2022 Project Funding, Akademieverein, München
2022 Deutschlandstipendium, Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung
2020 Kunstkalender, LfA Förderbank Bayern
2019 Project Scholarship, Freunde der Akademie der Bildenden Künste Nürnberg e.V.
2018 Class Prize, Akademie der Bildenden Künste Nürnberg

Residency

2025 NARS Foundation, New York City, USA
2025 Popps Packing, Detroit, USA
2024 K.A.I.R Artist in Residence, Košice, SK

Solo/Duo Exhibitions

2024 Of Hungry Ghosts, Housewives, and Untold Stories - Metalhouse Gallery, Yangpyeong, KR
2023 Bone On Bone Echoing, Sauers Berlin, DE
2022 A Smooth Exit From Eternal Inflation, SOMA 300, Berlin, DE
   Borderless Breath, Between Commas, Some Space, München, DE
2021 Play, Touch, Grip -sic! Elephanthouse, Lucerne, CH
    Paratexual Skin - Projektort 4D des BBK LEIPZIG e.V. Leipzig, DE
2019 The Piece Of Sculpt You Left In The Playground - HGB, Leipzig, DE
2018    Elsewhere is My Where, Akademie Galerie, Nürnberg, DE
Stay Anonymous! - PrimaKunst, Stadtgalerie, Kiel, DE
2017    Room: Digital Materiality 101 - CICA Museum, Kimpo, KR
Suche Eingeben - Vitrine am Hauptbahnhof Nürnberg, DE

Group Exhibitions

2026 Silver Baits, Silver Archive, The Compound, Baltimore, USA
Extinction, Platform Bunker, Copenhagen, DK
Archive 002, Caption Seoul, KR
New York, New Ink!, Korean Cultural Center, NY, USA
2025 間 Interstice, Caption Seoul, KR
When Lullabies Become Walls, Deposit(o), Brooklyn, NY, USA
Kocking Where a Door Once Stood, Jeonnam Museum of Art, Gwangyang, KR
   Fabulative Lore - Bistro 21, Leipzig, DE
2024     Chliorophyllic Chorus - Council+, Berlin, DE
             Spiritual World - Rainrain Gallery, New York City, USA
           A Little Bit of Solidarity Goes A Long Way - Zirka Space, Munich, DE
             MOUVEMENT 1 - System D, Malakoff, Paris, FR
2023    Made in Munich - Pasinger Fabrik, Munich, DE
On Listening - Lothringer Halle 13, Munich, DE
Tacker - Galerie der Künstler, Munich, DE
Fragrant Tissues - Beacon Art Space, Munich, DE
2022 Where An Eagle Meets Fish - Nokwoo Art and Culture Foundation, KR
Herbstball - Pavillon Ismaning, DE
installation - inter.pblc, Copenhagen, DK
Hollow Shells, Shallow Holes - Circolo, Lia Mostra d’Ert, St. Ulrich / Urtijëi, IT
All That is Solid Melts into Air - Springbraettet 6a, Copenhagen, DK
Liminal Bridges - Trauma Bar Und Kino, Berlin, DE
Januar - Goldberg Galerie, Munich, DE
2021    Rituale - Projektraum 145, Berlin, DE
Vis a Vis - Gallery Baturina, Leipzig, DE
Wild Hair : dissident hair practices - Apthk Lab, Wuppertal, DE
To be successful in hunting, Think like a prey- Kunstpavillon Munich, DE
Seasonal Black - Werkschauhalle, Leipzig, DE
2020 Eine Letzte Sache Noch - Alte Handelschule, Leipzig, DE
Bodyscan, Körper der Gesellschaft - Burg in Tittmonig, DE
Windwo Display - Fonda, Leipzig, DE
Der River - curated by Michael Sailstorfer, Anselm Reyle, Gregor
Hildebrandt, Halle 14, Baumwollspinnerei, Leipzig, DE
2019    We All Should Be Lichens - AO Kunsthalle, Leipzig, DE
Rroooaaarr! - Tiergarten Nuremberg, DE
Human Particles Of The Living Sun - The Art Foundation, Athens, GR
Backup - Projektraum KA, Leipzig, DE
Art Teleported - CICA Museum, New York, US
2018    It’s Just A Matter Of Utility - Lindenauer Hafen, Leipzig, DE
2017      Best Of - AEG Halle, Nuremberg, DE

Press

2025 Group Exhibition: 間 Interstice, Caption Seoul, South Korea
at This Comes From
at Kubaparis
at Vogue Korea
Group Exhibition: Kocking Where a Door Once Stood, Jeonnam Museum of Art, Gwangyang, South Korea
at Public Art
at E-Flux
at Kubaparis
    at JinBo News
at Namdo News
2024 interview at Saliva Live
Solo Exhibition: Of Hungry Ghosts, Housewives, and Untold Stories, Yangpyeong, South Korea
at Fakewhale
    at Saliva Live
    at Kubaparis
Group Exhibition: Spiritual World, NYC
at Art Spiel
at Daily Lazy
at cultbytes
2024 Group Exhibition: MOUVEMENT 1, Paris, at Art Critique
2023 Solo Exhibition: Bone On Bone Echoing, Berlin, at Kubaparis
2023 Group Exhibition: Debutant Exhibition, Munich, at Süddeutsche Zeitung
2023 Group Exhibition: Fragrant Tissues, Beacon Art Gallery,
at Tzvetnik
at Kubaparis
2022 Group Exhibition: Where An Eagle Meets Fish, Nokwoodang Culture And Arts Foundation at Haenam Local Newspaper
at Kubaparis
at Ofluxo
2022 Group Exhibition: Herbstball, Galerie Ismaning, at Gallerytalk
2022 Group Exhibition: intallation, Copenhagen Fashion Week, at hypebae
2022 Solo Exhibition: A Smooth Exit From Eternal Inflation
   at Ofluxo
   at PASSE-AVANT
at Kubaparis
2022 Group Exhibition: To the Land II, at Kubaparis
2022 Group Exhibition: Hollow Shells, Shallow Holes
at Kubaparis
at La Usc Di Ladins
2022 Solo Exhibition: Borderless Breath, Between Commas at Kubaparis
2022 Group Exhibition: Liminal Bridges at AQNB
2021 Duo Exhibition: Rituale at Kubaparis
2021 Interview at Vasistas Magazine
2021 Solo Exhibition: Play, Touch, Grip Contemporary Art Pool
2020 Work: Sculpt Quarttete, Raumwww
2020 Group Exhibition: bodyscan, Körper der Gesellschaft, Chiemgau Zeitung
2020 Work: Playframe for Transcendental Bodies at Rundgan io
2020 Group Exhibition: We All Should Be Lichens, Leipziger Volkszeitung
2020 LfA Förderbank Bayern Kunstkalender

KAY YOON