[This Week's Exhibitions] Jung Sungjoon Solo Exhibition 'The Next Stop Is Tomorrow', Kwon Yongrae Solo Exhibition 'BECOMING', and More

Editor's NoteThis week's exhibition guide introduces a variety of engaging shows scheduled nationwide that visitors can enjoy over the coming week.

Seongjun Jeong's "A Romantic View." This work depicts the unstable present of human civilization amid the climate crisis and the possibility of coexistence through a sunken Statue of Liberty, melting ice, and animals boarded on a small boat. Atelier Aki

Jung Sungjoon Solo Exhibition 'The Next Stop Is Tomorrow'

Tomorrow isn’t a destination but more like a direction that emerges as we move together. In Jung Sungjoon's works, polar bears, emperor penguins, red pandas, and lemurs board trams and pilot boats through cityscapes reminiscent of human civilization. In previous works, these animals were travelers seeking a utopia that would embrace them. Now, they have transformed into companions journeying alongside humans to create new tomorrows. Rather than directly representing climate disasters through imagery of devastation or fear, Jung poses questions about what kinds of relationships to form and what choices to make amidst the crisis we are already facing. Among the 15 new pieces, the large-scale painting 'A Romantic View,' measuring about 3 meters wide, most succinctly captures this shift.

Jung Sungjun's 'The World Seen Through Their Eyes' allegorically explores the relationship between nature and civilization by overlapping the symbols of consumer culture onto a scene where animals and humans ride the city's tram together. Atelier Archi

On a small boat adrift on dark waters, animals are scattered, and the Statue of Liberty stands alone among melting ice. As this monument—once a symbol of freedom and progress—is submerged, human civilization’s confidence is shaken. Yet the animals on the canvas do not remain mired in despair. They carry ice, help each other, and sometimes accept ice cream cones as they move forward. The familiar urban scene, even intermingled with markers of consumer culture like Starbucks and Nike, thus feels comical, yet slightly unsettling. For Jung, coexistence isn’t about grand salvation, but starts with the smallest acts of recognizing one another's presence while the last remaining ice endures. The exhibition runs through October 17 at Atelier Aki in Seongdong-gu, Seoul.

Oh Yoon's Talchum (1973). This work engraves the exaggerated gestures and excitement of the traditional mask dance with rough lines and strong black-and-white contrasts, bringing the vitality of the people and communal energy onto the canvas. Korea Smart Cooperative

Oh Yoon 40th Anniversary Special Print Exhibition 'From Engraving to Imprinting: The Trajectory of Oh Yoon, 1946–1986'

The marks left by a knife carving through wood remain enduring, even 40 years later. This comprehensive retrospective assembles 187 of Oh Yoon’s prints in a single exhibition. It encompasses both prints struck by Oh during his lifetime as well as posthumous prints produced from the same plates by his family. From the titular work of his first and only solo show in May 1986, 'Song of the Knife,' to 'Dancing Tiger' and the 'Grandmother' series depicting market-goers, visitors encounter these familiar images not just as illustrations from books, but as direct impressions of paper and knife marks. In July of that year, Oh Yoon passed away at the age of forty.

Exhibition view of Oh Yoon's 40th anniversary special print exhibition "From Engraving to Imprinting: 1946-1986, The Trajectory of Oh Yoon." A total of 187 prints left by Oh Yoon are showcased together, including prints created during his lifetime and reprinted editions by his family. Korean Smart Cooperative

For Oh Yoon, printmaking was not merely a technique for producing unique original artworks, but a way to share images with as many people as possible. He chose replication and sharing over rarity, omitting edition numbers from his works for this reason. His art first met audiences through books and in the streets, long before reaching museum walls. The print that graced the cover of Noh Hae Park’s debut poetry collection "Dawn of Labor" is also featured in the current exhibition. Oh’s dynamic carvings of workers, farmers, masks, tigers, and bodies moving, working, and worn out, rendered in bold, rough lines, transcend being mere records of the 1980s. Considering Oh’s attitude—that the more prints produced, the wider the path to communication—illuminates why these images have endured for so long in public memory. The exhibition continues through October 12 at Dongduk Art Gallery in Jongno-gu, Seoul.

Kwon Yongrae's 'Light in Light-Blue.' It is a work that stacks numerous stainless steel units on a canvas, capturing the moment light reflects and scatters into a shimmering blue form. Gallery Joeun

Kwon Yongrae Solo Exhibition 'BECOMING'

Metal transforms into an image at the moment it touches light. Kwon Yongrae hammers individual, laser-cut stainless steel pieces to form subtle contours, applies pigment, and affixes hundreds or even thousands of these onto a canvas prepared with gesso. Although the material is cold and hard, the surface undulates and shifts in color as viewers move around it. The solo exhibition 'BECOMING' presents 16 new works by the artist, who has long investigated the relationship between light and metal, moving fluidly across painting, sculpture, and installation. The exhibition title focuses less on a finished outcome and more on the ongoing state of "becoming."

Yongrae Kwon's 'Light in Light-Golden'. Light spreads through the hammered stainless steel sculpture with curves, and the golden light patterns continuously change depending on the viewing angle. Gallery Joeun

In the representative piece 'Eternal Flame,' light diffuses and reflects between the small metal units, erupting in a fleeting blaze. However, there is no set shape of a flame—the image emerges and recedes depending on the viewer’s position and the lighting angle, as the brightness and shadows shift across the metal’s surface. For Kwon, light is not merely an external condition illuminating the work, but the final crucial material that completes it. The repetitive labor of affixing identical metal units is, in reality, a delicate process of variation, as the hammer's force, angle, and the spacing between units change each time. By drawing ever-shifting scenes from unchanging metal, Kwon questions the very limits of painting as a flat medium. The exhibition runs through October 31 at Gallery Joeun in Yongsan-gu, Seoul.

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