60 years of Korean contemporary art debuts in UAE's largest exhibition

Installation view of the exhibition, "Layered Medium: We Are in Open Circuits," at Manarat Al Saadiyat, Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates / Courtesy of ADMAF

A landmark exhibition tracing the arc of Korea’s contemporary art scene, from the 1960s to today, has opened in the United Arab Emirates, marking the largest showcase of its kind ever staged in the Gulf Cooperation Council region.

Titled “Layered Medium: We Are in Open Circuits,” the presentation gathers 48 works by 29 Korean artists, all drawn from the Seoul Museum of Art’s (SeMA) collection. On view at Abu Dhabi’s Manarat Al Saadiyat, many of these pieces are being shown in the UAE for the first time.

Co-curated by SeMA’s Yeo Kyung-hwan and independent curator Maya El Khalil, the show delves into how Korean artists have harnessed evolving media to mirror — and at times, reimagine — a society in flux, tracing six decades of sweeping social and technological transformation.

“Bringing these important works from the Seoul Museum of Art’s collection to Abu Dhabi, we had to consider the context in which they would be encountered, and how this would inherently shape their meaning,” El Khalil said. “Works that may have carried specific cultural resonance in Seoul could become more abstract or universal here, while other dimensions of this location [in Abu Dhabi] surface new meanings.”

Nam June Paik’s "Self-Portrait Dharma Wheel" (1998) / Courtesy of ADMAF

“Layered Medium” begins with the groundbreaking experiments in video, photography and performance undertaken by creatives in the 1960s and ‘70s — works such as Nam June Paik’s “Self-Portrait Dharma Wheel” and Park Hyun-ki’s “TV Fishbowl” anchoring this formative period.

The exhibition then moves into an exploration of how artists interrogate the ways we physically experience and interpret the world. Pieces like Lee Kun-yong’s “The Method of Drawing: Body Drawing 76-2-07-02,” Hong Seung-Hye’s “Ghost” and Lee Bul’s “Untitled (Crystal Figure)” probe the intersection of perception and embodiment.

Further along, the show turns to works that weave history and cultural memory through the lens of technology: Kwon Ha-youn’s virtual reconstruction of 1920s Seoul under Japanese colonial rule, Jun So-jung’s digital documentation of Korea’s Demilitarized Zone and Ayoung Kim’s “Delivery Dancer Simulation,” a speculative game-world set in a fictitious, algorithm-governed Seoul.

Lee Bul's "Untitled (Crystal Figure)" (2006) / Courtesy of ADMAF

“Layered Medium” comes to life via a three-year institutional partnership between the SeMA and the Abu Dhabi Music & Arts Foundation (ADMAF) — a collaboration designed not only to illuminate the distinct cultural paradigms of Korea and the UAE, but also to present their shared experiences of technological evolution and rapid urban development.

The show runs until June 30 in Abu Dhabi. The second co-curated exhibition between the two institutions, “Intense Proximities,” will open in Seoul this December, bringing together three generations of UAE-based creatives from the 1980s to the present.

Beyond these curated presentations, the SeMA-ADMAF partnership will also give rise to co-commissioned artworks, artist residences and a public program featuring performances and film screenings across both cities.