Mark Rothko's "No. 16 [?] {Green, White, Yellow on Yellow}" (1951) / Courtesy of 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York By Park Han-sol The art world in Korea is once again entering a fall frenzy as September approaches, heralding the return of the two biggest fairs — Frieze and Kiaf Seoul. Along with these mega-events comes a smorgasbord of art across the country’s museums and galleries, whether it be blockbuster exhibition openings or the 30th-anniversary celebration of Asia’s oldest biennale.
From the remarkable meetup of Mark Rothko and Lee Ufan to the comeback of François Pinault’s coveted collection, here’s a roundup of shows that could be the cherry on top of your autumnal cultural outings. "Correspondence: Lee Ufan and Mark Rothko" at Pace Gallery Seoul (Sept. 4-Oct.
26) It’s a blockbuster encounter between the masters of the East and the West. Curated by Lee in collaboration with the Rothko family, this two-person show places Lee’s “Dialogue” and “Response” series, produced between 2018 and 2023, in a compelling dialogue with Mark Rothko’s tours de force from the 1950s and 1960s. The show offers a rare chance to witness unexpected intersections in color, surface and atmosphere between these two artistic heavyweights.
"Portrait of a Collection" at SongEun (Sept. 4-Nov. 23) The Pinault Collection — an eclectic assemblage of over 10,000 contemporary artworks amassed by François Pinault, the French billionaire and founder of the luxury group Kering — returns to Korea after its initial mini-presentation at SongEun 13 years ago.
This exhibition seeks to encapsulate the essence of the famed collection through more than 60 select pieces by the likes of Danh Vo, Julie Mehretu and Anri Sala, all spread throughout the striking, angular building designed by Herzog & de Meuron. Derrick Adams' "Who Can I Run To (Xscape)" (2024) / Courtesy of the artist and Gagosian Gagosian’s "Derrick Adams: The Strip" at APMA Cabinet (Sept. 3-Oct.
12) The mega gallery Gagosian has chosen Derrick Adams as the star of its inaugural show in Korea. For his first-ever Seoul outing, the New York-based artist is taking over a ground-floor project space in the David Chipperfield-designed headquarters of beauty giant Amorepacific. Adams, celebrated for his portrayal of Black life through strikingly flat planes of bold colors, debuts a new body of works that reimagines beauty store display windows with mannequin heads, colorful wigs and spray-painted hearts.
"Nicolas Party: Dust" at Hoam Museum of Art (Aug. 31–Jan. 19, 2025) Swiss art star Nicolas Party is best recognized for his color-drenched portraits, landscapes and murals infused with a touch of Surrealism — a number of which have fetched soaring prices at recent auctions.
Now, over 80 of his pieces have landed in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, for his first survey exhibition in the country. Among the works on display are five pastel murals drawn directly onto the museum’s gallery walls, immersing viewers in mystical yet ephemeral environments. Installation view of "Do Ho Suh: Speculations" at Art Sonje Center / Courtesy of Art Sonje Center "Do Ho Suh: Speculations" at Art Sonje Center (Aug.
17-Nov. 3) Do Ho Suh’s name is often synonymous with his otherworldly, large-scale fabric replicas of former homes and studios from around the world. While his new show — his first in his home country in 12 years — leaves out these iconic pieces, it still grapples with the same questions surrounding displacement, dwellings and the body’s relationship to space.
His “My Home/s, Positive,” for instance, is a structure that assembles scaled-down versions of all the houses and studios the artist has ever lived in, much like Tetris blocks. There’s also a miniature, kinetic version of “Public Figures,” a monumental plinth installed earlier this year in the plaza of the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, D.C.
“Elmgreen & Dragset: Spaces” at Amorepacific Museum of Art (Sept. 3–Feb. 23, 2025) The Scandinavian duo Elmgreen & Dragset, whose art is often a provocative fusion of conceptual wit and social commentary, is set to transform the white-cube museum with a life-sized family house, a public pool and a restaurant.
By reimagining familiar spaces and objects into uncanny scenarios, the two invite viewers to rethink everyday realities. With more than 60 works on view, the exhibition marks their most extensive presentation in Asia to date. A scene from Hong Lee Hyun-sook's "In the Neighborhood of Seokgwangsa" (2020) / Courtesy of MMCA “Connecting Bodies: Asian Women Artists” at MMCA Seoul (Sept.
3–March 3, 2025) The latest group exhibition of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, seeks to reexamine the contemporary significance of post-1960s art by Asian women creators, with a focus on the theme of corporeality. Within thought-provoking works by Atsuko Tanaka, Pacita Abad, Hong Lee Hyun-sook and around 60 other artists from 11 Asian countries, the body becomes a site where ideologies, identities, sexualities, otherness and resistance converge. “Anicka Yi: There Exists Another Evolution, But In This One” at Leeum Museum of Art (Sept.
5–Dec. 29) Korean American artist Anicka Yi has long worked with unconventional “collaborators” in her oeuvre — bacteria, scents and deep-fried flowers, among others. When paired with machinery, these organic elements create multisensory experiences that prompt viewers to rethink the relationship between the human and the non-human.
Yi’s show at the Leeum Museum of Art — her first and most extensive museum presentation in Asia — offers rare insight into her latest projects, featuring some 40 pieces and new commissions. Installation view of Refik Anadol's "Echoes of the Earth: Living Archive" at Futura Seoul / Yonhap “Echoes of the Earth: Living Archive” at Futura Seoul (Sept. 5–Dec.
8) Refik Anadol, a pioneer in the aesthetics of machine intelligence, describes his generative AI model as an entity capable of dreaming on its own. His installations fill the walls of the newly opened art space Futura Seoul with ever-changing AI-generated abstractions, derived from a dataset of half a billion images of flora, fungi and fauna from rainforests around the world. Unique to the Seoul exhibition, the immersive experience is further heightened by echoing sounds and earthy odors — also the product of AI created from archives of sonic data and molecular compositions.
“When I think about data as a pigment, it’s something that deviates from the physical Newtonian roots. It’s a pigment that never stops, that always shifts,” Anadol says. Installation view of Kylie Manning's "Yellow Sea" at Space K / Courtesy of Space K “Kylie Manning: Yellow Sea” at Space K (Aug.
9-Nov. 10) Raised between Alaska and Mexico and having once worked as a commercial fisher, New York-based painter Kylie Manning channels her coastal experiences into mesmerizing oil seascapes. The exhibition’s title “Yellow Sea” is inspired by the ocean between the Korean Peninsula and mainland China with a dramatic 9-meter tidal range.
Manning describes a “distillation process” in her work, where she spreads pigments and oil to create expansive, wave-like washes across the canvas. This technique edits out much of the detail, leaving a representation that ebbs and flows, mirroring the vast tidal phenomenon. “What remains in the tide [and in my painting] are these memories and stories,” she explains.
“Turbulent Times: Women, Life, Art” at Seoul Museum of Art (Aug. 8–Nov. 17) The Seoul Museum of Art’s celebration of Chun Kyung-ja’s centennial, marking the birth of one of Korea’s most towering female painters, is a delightful revelation.
The show features 22 other Korean women artists who were Chun’s contemporaries, each navigating the tumultuous eras of the 1910-45 Japanese colonial rule, the 1950-53 Korean War, military regimes and democratization movements. The show offers insightful glimpses into the often-overlooked journeys of such artists during these pivotal times, while also honoring Chun’s enduring legacy. Installation view of "Doki Kim: The Apple and the Moon" at Gallery Baton / Courtesy of Gallery Baton Installation view of "John Pai: Shared Destinies" at Gallery Hyundai / Courtesy of Gallery Hyundai Other powerhouse international and Korean galleries are staging their own presentations of big-name and emerging creatives.
Highlights include “Yoo Youngkuk: Stand on the Golden Mean” at PKM Gallery (Aug. 21–Oct. 10); “Nari Ward: ongoin’” at Lehmann Maupin Seoul (Aug.
28–Oct. 19); “Kyungah Ham: Phantom and A Map” at Kukje Gallery (Aug. 30–Nov.
3); “John Pai: Shared Destinies” at Gallery Hyundai (Aug. 28–Oct. 20); “Sean Scully: Soul” at Thaddaeus Ropac Seoul (Sept.
3–Nov. 9); “Gabriel Orozco” at White Cube Seoul (Sept. 4–Dec.
14); “Joan Jonas: the Wind sings” at Gladstone Gallery Seoul (Sept. 5–Oct. 12); and “Doki Kim: The Apple and the Moon” at Gallery Baton (Aug.
14–Sept. 14). The Busan Biennale 2024, co-curated by Vera Mey and Philippe Pirotte, draws inspiration from the concepts of pirates and Buddhist enlightenment to propose that these alternative ways of life can offer new perspectives in navigating today's dark and uncertain world.
Courtesy of Busan Biennale Organizing Committee “Pansori — a soundscape of the 21st century” at Gwangju Biennale (Sept. 7–Dec. 1) “Pansori,” a Korean musical tradition of storytelling that blends chant-style vocals with drumming, translates to “the sound from the public place.
” The 15th edition of the Gwangju Biennale, Asia’s longest-running art biennial, uses this musical storytelling as a thematic gateway. Led by artistic director Nicolas Bourriaud, the exhibition brings together 73 artists who examine the evolving relationship between humans and contemporary spaces — intimate, geopolitical and planetary. The show will be divided into three segments, each in tune with a specific sonic phenomenon that functions as a spatial metaphor: “Larsen Effect,” “Polyphony” and “Primordial Sound.
” “Seeing in the Dark” at Busan Biennale (Aug. 17–Oct. 20) This year’s Busan Biennale takes its cue from an unlikely pairing: the 18th-century “pirate utopias,” which served as autonomous and surprisingly egalitarian havens for socially exiled outcasts, and Buddhist monastic practices that emphasize ascetic living far removed from the normative, secular world.
Guided by these distinctly alternative ways of life, co-artistic directors Vera Mey and Philippe Pirotte invite us to look beyond the boundaries of normality as we navigate today’s uncertain world — through the provocative works of 78 artists, instrument makers, doctors, DJs and religious practitioners. George Condo's "The Blues Musician" (2021) / Courtesy of Phillips Phillips’ “Azure Horizons: A Journey Through Blue” at Songwon Art Center (Aug. 30–Sept.
8) Global auction giant Phillips’ pop-up group exhibition intriguingly spotlights the color azure as both its visual and symbolic thread. Regarded as not only the most richly layered shade of blue but also the most highly valued pigment used in painting throughout the history of art, azure is what unites the featured works of both in-demand and emerging talents, including Nicolas Party, Ugo Rondinone, George Condo, Flora Yukhnovich and Kim Min-ku. “2024 Connect Seoul” at Seoul Auction Gangnam Center (Aug.
24–Sept. 13) Seoul Auction celebrates this year’s Frieze Week with a lineup of eye-dazzlers — “Yoshitomo Nara,” a showcase of 30 works by the Japanese art star; “Mindfulness,” a creative dialogue between painter Lee Ufan and ceramist Park Young-sook; and “Contemporary Art Sale,” a preview of its Sept. 10 marquee auction.
The homegrown auction house is also teaming up with Hong Kong’s K11 Art Foundation for the “Lunar Water” media art exhibition and Paris-based antique dealer Les Enluminures for the “European Heritage” antique jewelry display. All these events can be experienced in a single visit to its eight-story Gangnam Center. Ham Kyung-ah's "Phantom and A Map / Poetry 03WBXS01" (2018-2024) Courtesy of the artist and Kukje Gallery.
