Poster image of 《Painting-like》 ©Alternative Space LOOP
Alternative Space LOOP presents a group exhibition 《Painting-like》, introducing five emerging
painters, on view through January 31, 2026.
《Painting-like》
was organized through the curatorial collaboration of five
mid-career painters who have been actively working in the field. Initiated to
address the uneasy distance between contemporary art discourse and painting practices, the
exhibition is grounded in Alternative Space LOOP’s belief in the vitality of painterly practice and the
depth of experience it offers viewers.
One of the mid-career artists involved in curating the
exhibition, Dongwook Suh, opens the preface with a sharp perspective on the
status of painting in the Korean art scene today. While painting tends to be
marginalized within mainstream art centered on major museums and biennales, it
occupies a notably high proportion of works presented at art fairs.
Regarding this, Suh critiques “museums that privilege art
dependent on language, a narrow notion of political correctness, and sheer
spectacle,” while also condemning “the extreme commercialism in art.” He
explains that a key curatorial question of the exhibition was: “If so many
people enjoy looking at paintings, why are museums unable to recognize painting
as a serious art form?” Suh adds that “If the public sphere of art continues to
refuse to engage seriously with painting, then painting will be forced to
compromise with commercialism, guided only by the metrics of “likes” and
capital’s choices.”
In addition, the exhibition reflects on the condition of
painting in an era saturated with AI technologies, proposing a perspective that
focuses not on the ‘image’ itself but on ‘painting’ as a human bodily act and
on the materiality of the painted object.
《Painting-like》
is founded on the belief that “the
specificity of painting emerges precisely in the interplay of the painter’s
deliberate choices and inevitable failures, in the frictions, accidents,
mishaps, and revisions that arise when matter refuses to submit entirely to the
painter’s will.” Emphasizing that painting is one of humanity’s most
instinctive activities, the exhibition affirms that it remains a valid and
profoundly human mode of expression.
Participating
Artists: Myungchan Kim, Ji Myung Kim, Byungtak Oh, Kyungwon
Yoon, Joo Hanbyul
