This season, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) is showcasing a remarkable retrospective of work by Lee ShinJa, one of South Korea’s most important and influential artists.
At the age of 95, Lee's extraordinary five-decade career has made her one of the most distinguished Korean fiber artists of the twentieth century. Her retrospective at BAMPFA, the artist’s first in the United States, is a rare opportunity for Bay Area audiences to discover her celebrated work firsthand—including a large number of extraordinary tapestries never before seen in North America.
Installation view of Lee ShinJa: Drawing with Thread, August 6, 2025–February 1, 2026, at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), Berkeley, CA. (Courtesy of BAMPFA and Tina Kim Gallery. Photo by Hyunjung Rhee.)
Lee, who began her career in the wake of the Korean War, started out by creating art from whatever everyday materials she could scavenge, ranging from grain sacks and mosquito nets to yarn from secondhand sweaters. From these humble beginnings, her work eventually became larger and more complex, incorporating new techniques of dyeing, knotting, and embroidery that brought a modernist sensibility to Korean textile traditions.
At Lee ShinJa: Drawing with Thread, visitors will immediately spot the large-scale artworks for which Lee is now widely known—bold, innovative pieces that sit at the intersection of art and craft, tapestry and sculpture, figuration and abstraction. One of the most striking of these works, Spirit of Mountain, draws inspiration from Lee’s memories of her upbringing in the seaside province of Uljin. The vivid, abstract tapestry has been newly acquired by BAMPFA so that it can be rediscovered by Bay Area audiences in future exhibitions, too.
Installation view of Lee ShinJa: Drawing with Thread, August 6, 2025–February 1, 2026, at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), Berkeley, CA.(Courtesy of BAMPFA and Tina Kim Gallery. Photo by Hyunjung Rhee.)
“Lee ShinJa is one of the most visionary artists of our time who has long understood the artistic possibilities of fiber,” said Victoria Sung, BAMPFA’s Phyllis C. Wattis Senior Curator, who organized the retrospective. “Lee’s exhibition follows in the footsteps of recent exhibitions at BAMPFA, including important solo shows of Key Sekimachi and Rosie Lee Tompkins, adding to the Bay Area’s rich history of fiber and textile arts.”
On Wednesday, September 17th at 12:15pm, Sung will lead a curator’s tour of the exhibition to deepen visitors’ understanding of the work and the arc of her long and innovative career. The tour is free with museum admission.
// 2155 Center St. (Berkeley); get more information about this and other public programs at bampfa.org
Installation view of Lee ShinJa: Drawing with Thread, August 6, 2025–February 1, 2026, at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), Berkeley, CA.(Courtesy of BAMPFA and Tina Kim Gallery. Photo by Hyunjung Rhee.)
