Installation view of 《Index Asia》 © Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art
Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art presents a special exhibition 《Index Asia》, celebrating its 20th anniversary, on view through February 14,
2027.
Gyeonggi-do
is a place layered with histories of industrial labor, migration, as well as
lingering memories of disaster. Its home city, Ansan, is a vibrant crossroad
where residents from over a hundred countries live side by side, their lives
intertwined with one another.
Over
the past two decades, the Museum has translated these local conditions into a
visual discourse while remaining closely attuned to the surrounding community.
Extending this longstanding practice, the exhibition seeks to situate the
Museum and its immediate geography within the broader horizon of contemporary
Asia.
Installation view of 《Index Asia》 © Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art
Here, Asia is not treated as a fixed
geography bound by pre-existing borders. Rather, “Asia” serves as a name for
the traces left on particular bodies and lands by Western modernity, capital,
and state power. The exhibition indexes, site by site, where these traces
remain.
What is brought to light are the marks left
by history and time. Fourteen artists and collectives based in eight Asian
nations retrace them through the intersecting realms of politics, ecology,
labor, gender, and disaster. Their engagement with the legacies of empire and
colonialism evokes histories shared across Asia.
Installation view of 《Index Asia》 © Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art
The exhibition also follows the far-reaching
flows of capital, the labor and migration they set in motion, and the love and
conflict that emerge in their wake. By taking up the poet’s call to “do
Asia”—turning a history of passivity into an active practice—the exhibition
extends a gesture of solidarity toward the Other.
Participating Artists: YoungEun
Kim, Nho Wonhee, Lieko Shiga, Marcos Kueh, Bagus Pandega, Yagwang, Wang Tuo,
ikkibawiKrrr, Boyun Jang, Chu Hao Pei, Kei Imazu, Tuan Andrew Nguyen, Ho Rui
An, Hira Nabi
