Munch, Parreno, Do Ho Suh: must-see exhibitions in 2024

Installation view of Philippe Parreno's "My Room is Another Fish Bowl" at the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin, Germany in 2018 / Courtesy of the artist and Esther Schipper, Berlin, Paris and Seoul

The year 2023 was indeed “the moment” for art enthusiasts in Korea, as evidenced by the record attendance alone.

A whopping 4 million visitors headed to the National Museum of Korea — the largest-ever figure witnessed in the institution’s history. Blockbuster exhibitions for Edward Hopper at the Seoul Museum of Art and Maurizio Cattelan at the Leeum Museum of Art drew nearly 600,000 people, combined.

The museum and gallery shows for 2024 are equally full of eye-dazzlers — a rare chance to view centuries-old East Asian Buddhist art through the lens of gender; Korea’s first-ever museum retrospectives for European masters; and a dive into celebrated and overlooked Korean artists alike.

The year also marks the 30th anniversary for both the Gwangju Biennale and the Korean Pavilion housed at the Venice Biennale.

Museums

Among the standouts is the lineup presented by two Samsung Foundation of Culture venues: Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul and Ho-Am Art Museum in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province.

The Leeum will kick off the New Year with the blockbuster exhibit of Philippe Parreno. The French artist’s site-specific installations put different elements in the mix — artificial intelligence, life simulation programs, choreography and even thousands of helium-filled balloons — to approach storytelling as a multisensory experience.

This institutional presentation will be the first of its kind in Korea and the largest show ever held in the museum’s 20-year history.

Installation view of Anicka Yi's solo exhibition, "Metaspore," at Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan, Italy in 2022 / Courtesy of the artist and Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan

The Ho-Am Art Museum is set to welcome visitors in March with a groundbreaking exhibition aiming to reexamine East Asian Buddhist art from a contemporary gender perspective. Looking at women as creators, patrons and models of centuries-old religious art, the show features 90 Buddhist masterpieces from over 25 institutions and temples worldwide.

And leading up to the art-filled week of Frieze Seoul in September, the two museums will respectively host the country’s first solo shows of Anicka Yi, a Korean American artist who infuses fragrance, bacteria and marine algae into her sensorially rich pieces, and Nicholas Party, one of the current art market’s most in-demand stars.

Iconic names in the history of art and architecture will fill up other venues in the capital city throughout the year.

These include Pritzker Prize-winning architect Norman Foster, whose well-known projects include the UFO-shaped Apple headquarters in California and the glass-domed Reichstag building in Berlin, at the Seoul Museum of Art in April; “The Scream” painter Edvard Munch (1863-1944) at the Seoul Arts Center’s Hangaram Art Museum in May; and Do Ho Suh, a globetrotting Korean artist behind the otherworldly fabric replicas of his former homes, at Art Sonje Center in August.

Do Ho Suh's "Secret Garden" (2012) / Courtesy of the artist, Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong and Seoul and Victoria Miro London, Venice

A scene from Hong Lee Hyun-sook's "In the Neighborhood of Seokgwangsa" (2020) / Courtesy of MMCA

The exhibits put forth by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA), are worth checking out for those craving something new yet timely.

In April, the state-run institution’s Seoul branch will illuminate the half-century journey of Jung Young-sun, Korea’s first female landscape architect. And in September, it will traverse the oeuvre of nearly 30 Asian women creators active from the 1960s to today — Atsuko Tanaka (1932-2005), Pacita Abad, Hong Lee Hyun-sook, etc. — to explore the varied perspectives centered around the body.

Galleries

In addition to museums, leading galleries in central Seoul are gearing up for the New Year with their own eye-catching rosters.

For its March program, Kukje Gallery will spotlight Kim Yun-shin, a sculptor who has been essentially “cut off” from Korea’s modernist art movements since her relocation to Argentina in the mid-1980s. This move prompted her to cultivate a uniquely personal visual grammar, primarily through the heavy medium of wood.

Kim’s solo show will be followed by that of the renowned German photographer Candida Höfer in May. For five decades, Höfer has trained her lens on eerily deserted interiors of public spaces — libraries, museums and concert halls. The upcoming exhibit brings together her images of historic buildings that underwent renovation during the pandemic, prompting visitors to reflect on the recent adversities faced by humanity.

Candida Höfer's "Stiftsbibliothek St.Gallen" (2021) / Courtesy of the artist and Kukje Gallery

Kwak Duck-jun's "Ford and Kwak" (1974) / Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Hyundai

Meanwhile, Gallery Hyundai is set to highlight the works of Kim Tschang-yeul (1929-2021), referred to as “the man who paints water drops,” in May, and those of veteran ethnic Korean creatives — U.S.-based sculptor John Pai and Kyoto-born artist Kwak Duck-jun — in August.

Arario Gallery will pair two Korean sculptors of different generations in May — Moon Shin (1922-95), whose unique wood and bronze models take stunningly biomorphic forms, and Gwon O-sang, best known for his uncanny photograph-pasted sculptures.

In September, Indian artist Subodh Gupta’s monumental, glittering installations made up of everyday materials found in his home country — steel tiffin lunch boxes, thali pans and milk buckets — will grace the Seoul gallery.

Biennales, fairs

Frieze Seoul’s 2023 edition drew some 70,000 visitors from 36 countries to 120 galleries, with a majority being Asia-based exhibitors or those with outposts in the region. Despite the ongoing market slowdown, many participating art dealers noted that the level of excitement was as strong as the fair’s much talked-about debut in 2022.

The fair’s third iteration will return to COEX in Gangnam District from Sept. 4 to 7, running concurrently with its local counterpart Kiaf Seoul.

The 2023 edition of Frieze Seoul, held at COEX in Gangnam District, southern Seoul from Sept. 6 to 9, attracted some 70,000 visitors from 36 countries. Courtesy of Lets Studio, Frieze

As for the biennales, the 60th Venice Biennale will kick off on April 23, with its flagship International Art Exhibition running under the theme, “Stranieri Ovunque — Foreigners Everywhere.” The show turns its focus to “artists who are themselves foreigners, immigrants, expatriates, diasporic, émigrés, exiled and refugees,” according to its curator Adriano Pedrosa.

At the biennial, the Korean Pavilion is set to put forth “Odorama Cities,” centered around artist Koo Jeong-a’s site-specific pieces with aromas that represent Korea’s different cities.

And to mark the 30th anniversary of the pavilion’s establishment in Venice’s Giardini parkland, a special exhibition on Korean art will be organized in the city — with a budget of 1.7 billion won ($1.32 million) allocated by the culture ministry.

The facade of the Korean Pavilion at the Giardini, one of the principal sites of the Venice Biennale in Italy / Courtesy of Arts Council Korea

In September, the 2024 edition of the Gwangju Biennale, Asia’s longest-running survey of contemporary art, will use “pansori” — the Korean musical tradition of storytelling featuring vocals and arrhythmic drumming — as a gateway to explore “a soundscape of the 21st century.”

Helmed by French curator and art critic Nicolas Bourriaud, the biennale brings together creatives whose works muse on humanity’s changing spatial conditions influenced by the climate crisis, as well as feminism and decolonization.

Another major biennial will unfold in the fall: Busan Biennale. Its upcoming iteration is curated by two artistic directors — Philippe Pirotte and Vera Mey — for the first time in the event’s history. By taking inspiration from specific cultural and spiritual modes of life, the show aims to encapsulate the identity of the southeastern port city.