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Invisible Torso #2

Artist/Maker (Korean, b. 1960)
Date2004
MediumInkjet print on handmade paper
DimensionsOverall: 54 1/2 × 37 3/4 in. (138.4 × 95.9 cm)
Frame: 57 1/4 × 41 1/4 × 1 7/8 in. (145.4 × 104.8 × 4.8 cm)
Credit LineOberlin Friends of Art Fund
Edition1/3
Object number2006.14
Status
Not on view
Copyright© Koo Kyung SookMore Information
A direct impression of the artist’s body was used to create this work. An initial image was made by laying out multiple sheets of exposed photographic paper, then covering these papers with a sheet of bubble wrap coated with photo-developer. When the artist lay on top of the bubble wrap, the pressure of her body and drips of developer left a distinctive record of that moment. That image was digitized and enlarged, then printed out on Korean mulberry paper. Koo has said that this process “created figures composed exclusively of movements of fluid and faceted sparks of light.”

Invisible Torso #2 was part of a series made while the artist was undergoing treatment for cancer. “Invisible” refers to the body at the cellular level: the abstract but recognizable form of a body suggests imagery from a medical scan; the bubbles and drips are like burst cells and bodily fluids.
Exhibition History
New Frontiers: American Art Since 1945
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (August 29, 2006 - December 23, 2006 )
Religion, Ritual, and Performance in Modern and Contemporary Art
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (August 28, 2012 - May 26, 2013 )
Psycho / Somatic: Visions of the Body in Contemporary East Asian Art
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (June 16, 2015 - June 5, 2016 )
A Century of Women in Prints, 1917-2017
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (August 8, 2017 - December 8, 2017 )
Collective Gestures: The Impact of Experimental Performance at Oberlin in the 1970s
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (January 18, 2022 - July 17, 2022 )
Collections
  • Asian