Installation view of 《Still/ Moving: Korean Video Art Based on Performances》 ⓒ SONEGUN Art and Cultural Foundation
The SONGEUN Art and Cultural Foundation presents the traveling
exhibition 《Still/Moving: Korean Video Art Based on Performances》 at the Korean Cultural Center in Italy through June 5.
Organized to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the SONGEUN Art
Award, this exhibition focuses on the moment when works by video- and
performance-based artists—whom SONGEUN has discovered and supported over the
years—encounter new audiences across different regions and come to life once
again.
The exhibition will be presented sequentially at the Korean
Cultural Center in Italy (April 9 – June 5, 2026) and the Korean Cultural
Center in Austria (October 1 – December 11, 2026), introducing these works to
international audiences. By expanding key currents of contemporary Korean art
into a platform for global cultural exchange, the project aims to support the
international advancement of Korean artists and foster sustained global
collaboration.
Installation view of 《Still/ Moving: Korean Video Art Based on Performances》 ⓒ SONEGUN Art and Cultural Foundation
Under the subtitle “Korean Video Art Based on Performances,” the
exhibition explores how performance-based video works construct narratives and
rethink the relationships between body, time, and space.
Here, “performance” refers to the broader process through which
relationships—such as labor, care, and memory in everyday life—are enacted
through the body. By revealing otherwise unseen movements, the works invite
reflection on social labor and suppressed emotions, prompting viewers to
reconsider what has been overlooked or ignored.
Within the works, the “body” emerges as both a site where
experience and memory are inscribed and a field in which social orders
intersect. Viewers are thus encouraged to encounter the condensed sensibilities
of contemporary life embedded in everyday gestures, and to reconsider the
relationships between body, time, and space.
Installation view of 《Still/ Moving: Korean Video Art Based on Performances》 ⓒ SONEGUN Art and Cultural Foundation
On the first floor of the main exhibition space, eight
artists—Bona Park, Junebum Park, Ji Hye Yeom, Min Oh, Jaye Rhee, Sojung Jun,
Youngjoo Cho, and Young-jun Tak—past recipients of the SONGEUN Art Award,
present multilayered works that explore the performativity of the body from
diverse perspectives.
Meanwhile, on the ground floor, visitors can encounter video
works by Hyewon Kwon, Rae Jung Sim, Sojung Jun, and Seung-Hye Hong, who were
selected for the public art program of the same title, 《Still/Moving》 (2025). This program
investigates how art can attain publicness at the intersection of digital media
and urban architecture through the language of moving images, and was first
presented on SONGEUN’s media wall.
The spatial characteristic of the ground floor—where the
interior is visible from outside—resonates with the program’s conceptual
premise that “digital images support architecture.” Through this, the
exhibition rearticulates its original intention of redefining the threshold
between everyday life and art within the local context of Italy.
Participating Artists: Youngjoo Cho,
Seung-Hye Hong, Sojung Jun, Hyewon Kwon, Min Oh, Bona Park, Junebum Park, Jaye
Rhee, Rae Jung Sim, Young-jun Tak, Ji Hye Yeom
