[This Week's Exhibitions] Ed Atkins Solo Exhibition '1 day in space', Sohyun Ahn Solo Exhibition 'Child of the Han River', and More

Editor's NoteThis week's exhibition column introduces a selection of diverse and captivating exhibitions from around the country, curated for you to enjoy over the coming week.

Ed Atkins' '15th of May 2026, 16.0955 (Passive Mech)' is a photographic work capturing the process of a corrugated cardboard stage set installed in Zealand, Denmark, collapsing over time. Gladstone

Ed Atkins Solo Exhibition ‘1 day in space’

Although we believe that photographs capture moments from the past, the images in Ed Atkins’ work instead make the process of disappearance far more distinct. Held as the inaugural exhibition for Gladstone Seoul’s Hannam-dong space, this show expands upon the questions British contemporary artist Ed Atkins has explored between digital images and analog sensibilities, presenting new works in video, photography, sculpture, and frottage. Its centerpiece, “Passive Mech,” is a project composed of 43,200 frames and audio clips, each frame taken at one-minute intervals over the course of a month, documenting a corrugated cardboard stage set installed outside the artist’s home in Zealand, Denmark, gradually collapsing over time.

Ed Atkins' '15th of May 2026, 07.3219 (Passive Mech)'. This photographic work captures the transformation process of a cardboard stage set installed by the artist on the exterior of a Danish house over time. Gladstone

The empty stage and collapsing structures evoke both growth and death in nature, as well as the passage of time for a family, and the finitude of images. The exhibition presents unique prints derived from the video, relief works combining cereal boxes and flashcards from family daily life, and life-sized frottage of family-used bedsheets rendered in graphite. Here, the promise that photography preserves its subject is transformed into an imperfect device for reconstructing absence, traces, and private memories. Until October 31, Gladstone Seoul, Yongsan-gu, Seoul.

Willie Stewart’s "Hunted by a Freak" is a work that layers popular culture images, landscapes, and fragments of personal memories like a collage, revealing a fictional narrative created by a damaged archive. Rage Mike

Willie Stewart Solo Exhibition ‘Digital Grim Reapers Underground’

Imagine a world where memories remain, but their context has vanished. American artist Willie Stewart’s first solo exhibition in Korea, ‘Digital Grim Reapers Underground’ at Lazy Mike, deals with a future history of humanity reconstructed through damaged memory archives and digital relics. Spanning painting, sculpture, installation, video, sound, and fabricated artifacts, Stewart draws upon residues of 1980s punk and synth music, VHS tapes, album covers, and fandoms, investigating the fate of images as they age and transform over time. His past as a guitarist in the band of Ono Yoko, the notable figure of Fluxus, also infuses the work with a sense of rhythm, repetition, and citation.

Willie Stewart's I'm Too Sad to Tell You reveals the sensation of memories being preserved and simultaneously fading through faintly obscured images of people. Lazy Mike

The exhibition unfolds in a remote power plant where only technology remains after the fall of civilization. The protagonist, a former soldier and electrical engineer, encounters fragments of images containing traces of humanity’s past amid the debris of discarded synthetic humans. Ordinary gestures, landscapes, objects, and records of relationships are detached from their original timelines and are reinterpreted as new myths. The ‘Back Panels’ series, which takes the reverse of jackets as a starting point, transforms clothing into bodyless portraits, while hats and object works hold the residue of popular culture like vessels of memory. The exhibition raises the question of how history is rewritten when memories survive but their contexts disappear. Until October 31, Lazy Mike, Gangnam-gu, Seoul.

An Sohyun's solo exhibition "Child of the Han River" exhibition view. Visitors are observing artworks capturing the Han River, sunset, and natural landscapes. Galdeus

Sohyun Ahn Solo Exhibition ‘Child of the Han River’

The Han River, rather than being just a backdrop for the city, becomes a place that recalls the child who remained deep in one’s heart long ago. Sohyun Ahn’s solo exhibition ‘Child of the Han River’ poses the question, “Have you become the adult you once dreamed of?” and unravels scenes of rivers, forests, mountains, and winds through pastel tones and lyrical painterly language. Within the canvas, the Han River is a record of a real place, yet it also transforms into an inner landscape where the artist’s memories, emotions, and imagination reside.

Soohyun Ahn’s "Sunset and Child." Through everyday objects such as a child and a cat looking at the Han River and a radio, it evokes the sensations of childhood remaining within the urban landscape. Galthers

The artist has reinterpreted scenes of nature and landscape with warm and delicate colors, centering on oil paintings. In this exhibition, sunsets, river water, trees, and small figures echo real scenery, yet also revive the lingering sensation of childhood within the grown self. Visitors, standing before familiar views of Seoul, are confronted with their own passage of time and the forms of feelings they have yet to let go. Until October 25, Galdeus, Hannam-dong, Seoul.

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