[This Week's Exhibitions] Junggeun Park Solo Exhibition '404: Page Not Found', Hainyong Invitational Exhibition 'TRANCE', and More

Editor's NoteThis week's exhibitions showcase an array of diverse and captivating shows taking place across the country over the week.

Junggeun Park's "Heegwon Youngae Story (Judanjamba)." This work records the time of two people who were born in the same village on the same day and became a married couple amidst the oppression of the Jeju 4.3 Incident. Jeju Gallery

Junggeun Park Solo Exhibition '404: Page Not Found'

Some histories are so close that they remain inaccessible. Junggeun Park's solo exhibition '404: Page Not Found' refuses to reduce the Jeju 4·3 Incident to a mere description or shocking images, instead tracing its remnants through the faces of survivors and bereaved families, through places and objects, through the sea and the trees still bearing its marks. The title comes from the error message displayed when a requested web page cannot be found. However, rather than simply referencing an "unavailable page," the exhibition calls for a renewed attitude of reading and listening when faced with a history that cannot be easily uncovered. Photographs and videos serve as records attesting to the past, but also as media that ultimately reveal time that cannot be completely contained within images.

Jeongkeun Park's "Sea, Divergence." Following the smuggling route from Jeju to Busan and then to Osaka, Japan, it captures the memories of the sea that survivors risked their lives to cross. Jeju Gallery

'Small Comfort_Oh Taekyung' follows the lifetime of a person who experienced both the Jeju 4·3 Incident and the Korean War, while 'The Story of Huikwon and Youngae' documents the time passed by a couple born on the same day, in the same village, who became husband and wife through harsh years. 'Grandmother, what fruit do you like?' gazes at the faces of survivors, capturing the continuing ordinary aspects of daily life that persist beyond violence and silence. The sea traversed by clandestine migrants from Jeju through Busan to Osaka, Japan, and the "tree that does not exist in the world" within an ordinary village scene are not merely chapters from the past—they are pages of the Jeju 4·3 Incident that still live on today. Through August 10, Jeju Gallery, Jongno-gu, Seoul.

Frozen Silence from the Bible. This work crystallizes the COVID-19 pandemic as a time of an 'invisible virus.' Khalifa Gallery

Seongseo Solo Exhibition 'Frozenism: Frozen Legacy – The Legacy of Frozen Time'

While photography captures time gone by, Seongseo's works refreeze those moments in material form. The solo exhibition 'Frozenism: Frozen Legacy – The Legacy of Frozen Time' presents photographic images fused with transparent mediums such as resin, acrylic, and epoxy to create sculptural structures. "Frozenism," which Seongseo has been developing since 2010, is a conceptual art framework that views photographs not as flat records, but as materials where time and memory crystallize. Each image is sealed inside a transparent layer, and instead of simply looking at the photo, the viewer confronts a cross-section of time itself.

The series "Frozenism: Frozen Legacy of Time" from Seongseo. It reconstructs events that changed collective memory, from World War I to the 9/11 attacks, the Fukushima nuclear disaster, and the COVID-19 pandemic, as "Frozen Time" combining photographs with transparent materials. Khalifa Gallery

At the heart of the exhibition are major events that transformed collective memory—including World War I, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, the Fukushima nuclear accident, the global financial crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the 9·11 attacks. Rather than recreating scenes from these incidents, Seongseo presents the traces of time they left on society and individuals' lives as frozen images. Four states—preservation, stasis, disappearance, and transformation—demonstrate how memory is simultaneously fixed and continually reborn in different forms. Through August 14, Khalifa Gallery, Gangnam-gu, Seoul.

Exhibition view of Hyunyong's solo exhibition 'TRANCE.' Drawings covering the walls and floor, ceramic objects, and paintings unfold like a single ritualistic space. Samil-ro Warehouse Theater

Hainyong Invitational Exhibition 'TRANCE'

Upon entering the gallery, visitors are immediately enveloped by walls and floors covered in drawings. Hainyong's invitational exhibition 'TRANCE' creates a ritualistic space where repeated, spreading lines and shapes on paper, ceramics, paintings, and installations intermingle. Creatures of unknown origin, mythic beings, and forms reminiscent of anatomical diagrams refuse to coalesce into a single narrative. These images appear monstrous, extraterrestrial, or divine—strange and yet saturated with oddly familiar symbols. The exhibition impresses upon material the primordial sensations and existential anxiety embedded in the depths of human consciousness.

Exhibition view of Hyun-yong Ha's solo exhibition 'TRANCE.' Primitive shapes repeated on paper overlap with ceramic, painting, and installation works, creating a landscape of unfamiliar sensations. Samilro Warehouse Theater

Amidst the drawings along the walls are ceramic objects and relief paintings. On the rounded vessels, dense lines and patterns are engraved; paintings in black, gold, and blue hues overlap with the forms in the drawings to create a single unfamiliar landscape. The artist presents performances and videos in which he destroys and re-produces his own works, highlighting creation, vanishing, and reconstruction over a finished result. As the artist remarks, he seeks not to impose any meaning—before interpretation, the exhibition asks the body to respond. Through August 2, Samilro Space, Jung-gu, Seoul.

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