[Gallery Walk] How Does AI Rewrite History?... The Question Raised by "Artist of the Year"

National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Unveils New Works by Lee Haeminseon, Lee Jeongwoo, Jeon Hyunseon, and Hong Jinhwon
Exploring Disappearance, Memory, and the Power of Images
Over 100 Paintings, Videos, and Installations on Display
Final Award Recipient to Be Announced in October

The snow has disappeared, but traces remain. Film scenes that were once cut by censors have now been reassembled by generative artificial intelligence (AI).

On the 23rd, attendees are viewing exhibition works at the 2026 Artist of the Year press conference held at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Jongno-gu, Seoul. Photo by Yonhap News

On the 23rd, at the Seoul branch of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, one part of the exhibition hall revived a lost scene from the post-liberation film "Viva Freedom!" (1946) using an AI-generated video. A few steps away, a massive cylindrical painting hovered in the air, its front side hidden, while in another space, a screen bearing only dust and stains testified to the passage of time, in place of the melted snow. "Artist of the Year 2026" is less about what is shown and more about how images are created, erased, and rewritten.

The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, in collaboration with the SBS Cultural Foundation, will be holding "Artist of the Year 2026" at the Seoul branch from July 24th to December 6th. This program, which the two organizations have run since 2012 to support contemporary artists, features 100 new and major works by four artists this year: Lee Haeminseon, Lee Jeongwoo, Jeon Hyunseon, and Hong Jinhwon. The final recipient of the award will be announced in October, after open discussions and a second round of screenings during the exhibition period.

The underlying theme of this year's exhibition is not "representation" itself but the conditions and structures that make it possible. Although these four artists use different media, they each question the ways we perceive and remember the world through vanished traces, generative AI, image power, and multiple narratives.

The most attention-grabbing work is Lee Jeongwoo's "Written Movie, Written History." The artist reconstructed the missing scenes of "Viva Freedom!", a film made right after Korea’s liberation, using generative AI to fill in gaps left by censorship, war, and re-editing. However, restoration does not mean complete recovery. In the process of having AI seamlessly fill in the blanks with convincing images, platform regulations, content filtering, and data bias create new omissions. Thus, censorship from the past is repeated in a different form within today's technological systems.

On the 23rd, attendees at the 2026 Artist of the Year press conference held at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Jongno-gu, Seoul, are viewing the exhibition works. Photo by Yonhap News

Lee Haeminseon explores "the time that continues after absence" through the traces left behind, reminiscent of melting snow, dust, and stains. In new works such as "Residual Snow" and "Outside," the marks and surfaces left by vanished objects become the protagonists on the canvas. Makeshift tents, lumps of earth, and melted snow are all reinterpreted as landscapes that have accumulated time.

Jeon Hyunseon does not keep painting confined to flat canvases on the wall. "Rabbits Also Dig Two Holes," composed of 30 large-scale canvases, resembles a rock-climbing wall, inviting viewers to explore the images by following their own perspectives and paths. In "Invisible Painting," where a cylindrical painting is suspended in the air, the back of the canvas, rather than the front, is confronted first, prompting reevaluation of the painting medium itself.

On the 23rd, attendees are viewing exhibition works at the 2026 Artist of the Year press conference held at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Jongno-gu, Seoul. Photo by Yonhap News Agency

Hong Jinhwon delves into the relationship between image and power. In "The Highest Form of Image Is Armed Struggle," the artist juxtaposes revolutionary manifestos from the 1970s with today’s protest cultures, raising questions about how social movements are repackaged into consumable images. In "Dark Adaptation" and "Light Adaptation," Hong explores what is visible and what is erased through the interplay of light and darkness, revealing the power dynamics of contemporary visual systems.

As part of the exhibition’s related programming, there will be screenings and talks by Lee Jeongwoo and Hong Jinhwon, as well as a "Critical Docent" session featuring Won Soyoon and Yoo Heekyung. Each of the four sponsored artists will receive a creative grant of 50 million won, while the final award recipient will be granted an additional 10 million won. Documentaries detailing the artists’ worlds will be released through SBS and Netflix.

Kim Sunghee, Director of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, said, "The work of these four artists, who explore the structures and conditions behind what is visible, will provide an opportunity to understand our era with greater depth and dimension."

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