[This Week's Exhibitions] Kim Sungyeop Solo Exhibition 'Sand Garden', Lee Taeksu Solo Exhibition 'Janjan (Remnants)', and More

Editor's NoteThis week's exhibitions present a curated selection of diverse and captivating shows taking place across the country, offering a guide to notable exhibitions you can experience over the week.

Sand Play, 73.4x116.9cm, Acrylic and oil on canvas, 2026. Headb Gallery

Kim Sungyeop Solo Exhibition 'Sand Garden'

A sandcastle is a world where, despite knowing it will eventually collapse, you build it again. Kim Sungyeop's solo exhibition 'Sand Garden' views this transience not as futility, but as a condition for creation. The castles, jars, sea, and small figurines in his paintings may at first appear like scenes from childhood play, but upon closer inspection, they are landscapes of time built up from countless dots. The artist repeatedly dabs acrylic and oil paint to create dot-like grains of sand, constructing castles, carving out paths, and arranging small adventures. The act of making and tending to something, even with the knowledge that it will not last long, takes center stage within the canvas.

Sand Jar That Wants to Become the Sea, 60.6x45.6cm, Acrylic on canvas, 2025. Head-B Gallery

The exhibition title's "sand" and "garden" are juxtaposed as seemingly opposing concepts. Sand scatters easily, while a garden requires constant care to be maintained. Kim Sungyeop brings together this fragile material and the time of tending within a single frame. In "Sand Play," the sandcastle becomes a stage for toy figurines, while in "Sand Jar That Wants to Become the Sea," the waves inside the jar surge as if dreaming of escaping outside. The exhibition focuses less on forms destined to disappear, and more on the enduring mindset that builds them up. The exhibition runs until August 6 at Headbee Gallery, Bundang-gu, Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi Province.

Woo Hannah Bag with you_Cook or be cooked, Installation, 2026. J Gallery

Group Exhibition 'Faisandage: Death Seeping into the World'

Death may not be an ending, but a process of passing into another body. The group exhibition 'Faisandage: Death Seeping into the World,' curated by Woo Hannah, explores the unstable relationships between eating and being eaten, sleeping and waking, death and absorption, through the sensory act of "digestion." The exhibition's title, "Faisandage," comes from a French term describing the process of hanging hunted game with feathers on, allowing it to age. Just as decay and flavor are inseparable in that state, the exhibition views death not as an end but as a moment of transformation and circulation.

Shui Chao, Stone enters me, stainless steel, 60 x 52 x 34 cm, 2026. J Gallery

Woo Hannah reveals the predatory and exploitative structures underlying the language of cooking and gastronomy through fabric installations, while Choi Sujin captures in painting the residual sensations and memories that remain undigested amidst the repetition of drawing, cooking, and sleeping. Shui Chao expands the notion of digestion beyond the interior of the body, presenting it as an environmental process through sculptures that traverse the boundaries between sea and land, organism and matter. Fabric stretches, colors bleed, and forms of metal and organic matter permeate between floor and wall. Life and death are not opposites but are manifested as the constant shifting of material flows. The exhibition runs through July 31 at G Gallery, Gangnam-gu, Seoul.

, Re-born'sagger series, Chinese Song dynasty dragon scale fragments, Okto, wheel throwing, Jingyao glaze, fired at 1300℃ oxidation. Ji Wooheon

Lee Taeksu Solo Exhibition 'Janjan (Remnants): The Unrecorded Re-born: In between'

Broken ceramic shards may not become complete relics, but they have not disappeared. Lee Taeksu's solo exhibition 'Janjan (Remnants): The Unrecorded' calls back the time left in discarded fragments, giving them new form in the present. Over the past three years, the artist has collected and encountered ceramic shards during residencies in Chinese cities such as Quyang, Shaoxing, Jingdezhen, and Qinhuangdao, firing them in a kiln together with modern clay. Fragments from the Five Dynasties, Song, Ming, and Qing periods combine with new clay to form a single surface, allowing unrecorded remnants and afterimages to regain embodiment.

, - '_Dalphangari 2017, fragment of a Ming Dynasty ceramic from China, Chinese white clay, wheel-formed, transparent glaze, reduction firing at 1300°C, 44 x 25 x 25 cm. Ji Wooheon

The large circular installation 'Re-born_series in Jiwooehon,' which fills a gallery wall, depicts the moment when fragments are rewoven into a new world. In the 'Re-born_sagger series,' which uses Song Dynasty saggar fragments, the teacup forms thrown by the artist on the wheel appear to melt and merge with the old shards during firing. In the vessels of the 'Re-born_Jade series,' traces of blue cobalt on Qinghua fragments faintly shine through the surface when illuminated. With the addition of participatory installations using paper and dye, the exhibition accumulates invisible layers of time through ceramics, light, dyeing, and the actions of viewers. The exhibition continues until July 25 at Jiwooehon Gallery, Jongno-gu, Seoul.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.