A major donation exhibition by Geum Kisook, a pioneering figure in Korea’s first generation of fashion art, will be held at the Seoul Museum of Craft Art from December 23, 2025, through March 15, 2026. Titled《Dancing, Dreaming, Enlightening》, the exhibition presents 56 works from 55 donated holdings, offering a concentrated overview of more than four decades of artistic exploration.
 
The exhibition traces Geum’s trajectory from early experimental “art garments” to her signature wire dresses, sculptural reinterpretations of hanbok, ‘Upcycling’ series, and extensive archival materials. As the museum’s second large-scale donation exhibition since its opening, the presentation carries institutional significance, situating fashion art within the broader discourse of Korean craft and contemporary art history.

From Garment to Form, From Form to Space
 
In the early 1990s, Geum reinterpreted the concept of “art garments” within a distinctly Korean cultural framework, expanding clothing beyond functionality into the domain of sculptural practice. Employing nontraditional materials—wire, beads, translucent ramie, sequins, and discarded objects—she moved beyond the paradigm of “Art to Wear” and articulated an autonomous field she defined as “Fashion Art.”
 
A defining public moment came during the opening ceremony of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, where her Snow Flower Fairy costume for the placard bearer captured international attention. Drawing upon the fluid lines and structural logic of hanbok, the work rendered crystalline snow and refracted light through intricately woven wire and beads. Presented on a global stage, it demonstrated how fashion could function as pure form within a civic spectacle.

Light, Line, and the Transformation of Material
 
Structured across five sections, the exhibition reveals the evolution of Geum’s material language. In “Dreaming,” the origins of her practice are traced to childhood memories of threading persimmon blossoms into necklaces. The work Baekmae (2024), inspired by a white plum blossom tree, appears to hover weightlessly in space, its delicate wire structure woven with beads that shimmer subtly as light shifts. The piece evokes both temporal passage and quiet vitality.

“Dancing” foregrounds experimental dress works that emerged in the 1990s. Spider Lady – Web Dress (1997), inspired by dew caught in a spider’s web, translates fragility and hope into a lattice of wire and beads. Earlier landmark works, including Jinsa Celadon Lotus Dress (1995), exhibited at the inaugural Gwangju Biennale’s International Art Garment Exhibition, underscore her longstanding engagement with the porous boundary between fashion and fine art.
 
The ‘Enlightening’ series moves decisively beyond garment-based structures into relief installations that occupy walls and architectural space. Lines formed by wire and beads intersect with directed light to produce shifting shadows and reflective surfaces, transforming the exhibition environment into an immersive sculptural field. In recent works, discarded wire, foil packaging, straws, and sponges introduce an ecological dimension, linking fashion art to questions of reuse and sustainability.

Translating the Line of Tradition
 
A central axis of the exhibition is Geum’s sustained inquiry into Korean dress aesthetics. Educated in clothing and textiles and later in costume aesthetics, she has examined the sensibility embedded in Joseon-era attire. Traditional garments such as the jeogori, dangui, jikryeong, and hakchangui are reinterpreted through immaterial structures of wire and beads.
 
Curvilinear forms unfold in midair like drawn lines, while beads and sequins function as chromatic surfaces, activating color and light. These works may be understood as translations of traditional formal principles—line, rhythm, and negative space—into a contemporary material vocabulary. Revisiting the Snow Flower Fairy costume on the eve of the 2026 Milan–Cortina Winter Olympics further underscores how Korean sculptural language has been visualized and remembered within global cultural events.
 
 
 
Toward Documentation and Discourse
 
Geum Kisook has played a pivotal role in shaping the field of fashion art, serving as president of the Korea Fashion Culture Association and as the inaugural president of the International Federation of Fashion Art (IFAA). Her donation marks more than the transfer of objects; it positions fashion art as a subject of research, preservation, and institutional discourse within public collections.
 
During the exhibition period, sixteen workshops and an artist talk will be organized, with the artist directly participating in half of the sessions. These programs expand the exhibition beyond display, reinforcing fashion art as a site of pedagogy and critical exchange.
 
Moving beyond the functional logic of clothing and extending from the body into architectural space, Geum Kisook’s practice weaves immaterial scenes through light and line. Traversing craft and fine art, spectacle and public space, her fashion art claims its place as a distinct artistic language—one that continues to expand the boundaries of what fashion can become.


 
Exhibition Information

Title: 《Dancing, Dreaming, Enlightening》
Artist: Geum Kisook
Dates: December 23, 2025 – March 15, 2026
Venue: Exhibition Hall 1, 3F (Special Exhibition Gallery) and 1F Lobby, Seoul Museum of Craft Art
Organizer: Seoul Museum of Craft Art
Website: https://craftmuseum.seoul.go.kr/exhibit/plan/view/174