Installation
view of 《Figuration
Circuits: Dong-A Art Festival and Its Era》 ⓒIlmin
Museum of ArtThe Ilmin Museum of Art is presenting its second-half 2025
exhibition 《Figuration Circuits: Dong-A Art Festival and Its Era》 (hereafter Figuration Circuits) through October 26.
This exhibition revisits the 《Dong-A Art Festival》 (first held in 1978), which sparked the first discussions of
“figuration” in Korean art, and explores how the aesthetic experiments of that
time are connected to the newly emerging trends in contemporary figurative art.
The exhibition features 98 works by 17 artists, including related holdings from
the museum’s Dong-A Art Festival collection.
Installation
view of 《Figuration
Circuits: Dong-A Art Festival and Its Era》 ⓒIlmin
Museum of Art《Figuration Circuits》 focuses on the artistic
pursuit of finding an aesthetic approach that could “directly impact reality,”
a movement described as a “figurative impulse.” This reflects an effort to
ground art firmly in reality through its inherent capacity to generate images
that are weighty and unhurried.
The exhibition traces this trajectory through the works of
Dong-A Art Festival prize-winning artists—Byun Chong Gon, Lee Seung-taek, Park
Jang Nyun, Han Unsung, and Kwack Jung-myung—alongside contemporaries who shared
the spirit of the times, such as Georg Baselitz, Markus Lüpertz, and Jung
Kangja. It also presents artists who carried out significant practices within
the terrain of the “Dong-A Art Festival era,” including Kong Sung Hun, Jung
Seokhee, Leeje, Park Gwangsoo, Ho Sangun, Kim Seeun, Shim Hyeonbeen, Nadya
Jiwa, and Kim Hyunjin, offering a multifaceted reading of this historical flow.
Installation
view of 《Figuration
Circuits: Dong-A Art Festival and Its Era》 ⓒIlmin
Museum of ArtThe exhibition title “Figuration Circuits” refers both to art’s
capacity to momentarily connect with reality and spark light, and to artistic
practices that emit their own radiance within circuits marked by different
distances and temporalities.
Participating
Artists: Kong
Sung Hun, Kwack Jung-myung, Kim Seeun, Kim Hyunjin, Markus Lüpertz, Georg
Baselitz, Park Gwangsoo, Park Jang Nyun, Byun Chong Gon, Shim Hyeonbeen, Lee
Seung-taek, Leeje, Jung Kangja, Jung Seokhee, Nadya Jiwa, Han Unsung, Ho Sangun
