Suzie Kim

Suzie Kim

Associate Professor of Art History

Courses
History of Asian Art; Arts of Japan and Korea; Global Modernisms in East Asian Art; Contemporary Asian Art; Contemporary Korea on Screen (seminar); Methods of Art History; Architecture Now (FSEM); K-Pop, Hallyu, and Contemporary Korean Art & Film (FSEM)

Contact Information
James Farmer Hall 219
(540) 654-1961
skim8@umw.edu

Bio
Suzie Kim specializes in the history of Korean and Japanese modern art and architecture. She holds a B.A. in western history from Korea University, Seoul, Korea and a M.A. in art history from Hongik University, Seoul, Korea. She received her Ph.D. in Art History from University of Maryland, College Park in 2015 and has held fellowships in the Japanese art curatorial department at the National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Her research investigates how Abstract art, Constructivism, and the International Style became the primary source for a multifaceted cultural phenomenon in Japan and Korea from the 1920s onward. Her wider areas of expertise include contemporary Korean art, North Korean architecture, postcolonial theory, and cross-cultural interactions between European and East Asian avant-garde movements.

Publications
“The Eve of Geometry and Surfaces Beyond Space: Hilma af Klint and Korean Abstraction in Stylistic Resonance,” In Hilma af Klint: Proper Summons, edited by the Busan Museum of Contemporary Art, 198-217. Busan: Busan Museum of Contemporary Art, 2025. Exhibition catalog.

“Il Lee—Energy and Flow: Abstraction of Movements,” In ll Lee—Energy and Flow: Abstraction of Movements, edited by Art Projects International, 11, 18-21. New York: Vilcek Foundation, 2025. Exhibition catalog.

“Political Expressions in Non-political Art: Lee Ungno’s Works in Prison,” in Lee Ungno, edited by Lee Ungno Research Institute, 349-357. Daejeon: Lee Ungno Museum, 2023.

“A Return to Geometric Abstraction: Yoo Youngkuk’s Mountain Paintings from the Late 1960s to Early 1970s,” In Colors of Yoo Youngkuk, edited by Kukje Gallery, 29-42. Seoul: Kukje Gallery, 2023. Exhibition catalog.

“Early American Missionaries in Korea: Photographs of Vanished Modern Architecture in the Moffett Korea Collection.” The Review of Korean Studies 26(1) (June 2023): 305-319.

“Visualizing the Ideal Relationship Between Animals and Humans: Park Dae Sung’s Zoomorphic and Anthropomorphic Images,” in Park Dae Sung: Ink Reimagined, edited by Sunglim Kim, 95-110. Dartmouth: Hood Museum of Art, 2022.

“Hidden Identities in Contemporary Cambodian Photography.” TRaNS: Trans -Regional and -National Studies of Southeast Asia  10(1) (May 2022): 59-74. https://doi.org/10.1017/trn.2021.18

Co-guest editor of Special Issue Nation-building in the Postwar Period: Modern Art and Architecture in Southeast Asia and Beyond, TRaNS: Trans-Regional and -National Studies of Southeast Asia 10(1), May 2022.

“Abstraction Meets Korean Lyricism: Yoo Youngkuk’s Mountain Series in Postwar Korea,” Art in Translation 12, no. 4 (December 2020): 448–468. https://doi.org/10.1080/17561310.2020.1899425

Co-guest editor of Special Issue Modern and Contemporary Korean Art: Continuity and Transformation, Art in Translation 12, Issue 4 (2020).

“The Legacy of Colonial Architecture in South Korea: The Government-General Building of Chosŏn Revisited.” In Neocolonialism and Built Heritage: Echoes of Empire in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe, edited by Daniel E. Coslett, 124-143. New York: Routledge, 2019.

Marginalized Histories of Korean Women. Curated by Suzie Kim. Fredericksburg: UMW Galleries, 2019. Exhibition catalog.

“Let Them Speak Out: Visualizing Hidden Stories of Women by Youngjoo Cho and Dohee Kim.” In Marginalized Histories of Korean Women, edited by Suzie Kim, 15-23. Fredericksburg: UMW Galleries, 2019. Exhibition catalog.

Review of Korean Art: From the 19th Century to the Present, by Charlotte Horlyck. The Journal of Asian Studies 77, no. 4 (November 2018): 1101-1102. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021911818001195

“Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Temperance: On Its Artistic Significance in the Context of Middle-Class Patrons in Antwerp.” In Rŭnesangsŭ, parok’ŭ, rok’ok’o: kŭnse yurŏbŭi misulsa (Renaissance, Baroque, and Rococo: History of Early Modern European Art), ed. by Han-Soon Lee, 183–208. Seoul: Seoul House, 2010.

English Translation of Kim, Jae Yeol, “The Origin of the Inlay Technique in Goryeo Ceramics: Focusing on the Existence of Proto-Inlaid Decoration,” Ho-Am Misulgwan yŏn’gu nonmunjip (Journal of Ho-Am Art Museum) 2 (1997): 56–98. https://archive.asia.si.edu/publications/korean-ceramics/essays.php

Curated Exhibitions
Il Lee—Energy and Flow: Abstraction of Movements, Vilcek Foundation, NYC, May 29, 2025 to May 29, 2026.

Park Dae Sung: Ink Reimagined, DuPont Gallery and Ridderhof Martin Gallery, University of Mary Washington, October 26 to December 10, 2023.

Marginalized History of Korean Women, Ridderhof Martin Gallery, University of Mary Washington, October 24 to December 6, 2019.

Buddhist Art from the Past and Present: BG Muhn & The Leidecker Collection, Ridderhof Martin Gallery, University of Mary Washington, March 24 to April 26, 2019.

Art of Darkness: Japanese Mezzotints from the Hitch Collection (co-curated with James Ulak), National Museum of Asian Art, Washington D.C., April 7 to July 8, 2012.