Digital Promenade

Artists
(30 SeMA collections) Kim Whanki, Chun Kyung-ja, Chung Seoyoung, Lee Bul, Kim Sooja, Koo Donghee, Park Seo-bo, Park No-Soo, Kim Tschang-Yeul, Choi Young-rim, Lee Dai Won, Seundja Rhee, Chang Ucchin, Sung Neung-kyung, Park Saeng Kwang, Lee Heungduk, Lim Ok Sang, Kim Won-Sook, Wook-kyung Choi, Hwang Chang Bae, Lee Sook-ja, Yoo Geun Taek, Kim Chong Hak, Sea Hyun Lee, Bae Young-whan, Noh Sang-kyoon, Yoo Youngkuk, KIM Ho Deuk, Whang Inkie, Suk Chul-joo

(10 New commissions) Bae Yoon Hwan, CHOI Soojung, Everyday Practic, Hayoun Kwon, Ikjung Cho, Kijin Park, Sasa[44], Woong Yong KIM, Ye Seung Lee, Youngkak Cho

Curated by Kyung-hwan Yeo

In celebration of Seoul Museum of Art’s 30th anniversary, we are presenting Digital Promenade. The Seoul Museum of Art, which started at the site of Seoul High School inside Gyeonghuigung in 1988, is now in its 30th year. In 2002, the front part of the former Supreme Court was conserved and built into the current Seosomun main building, and the Nam-Seoul Museum of Art and Buk-Seoul Museum of Art opened in 2004 and 2013 respectively.

Digital Promenade is an exhibition that selects 30 pieces from the museum’s collection of around 4,700 using the keywords “nature and stroll,” and shows 10 new commissioned works of young artists in the same space, inducing new interpretation, engagement, and participation in the arts, art museums, and collections. Our society is currently in the midst of a rapid change of time in which the fourth industrial revolution, artificial intelligence (A.I), Internet of Things (IoT), neuroscience, and neo-biology are incessantly advancing. Paradoxically, this exhibition starts with the most basic questions about artwork, creation, and artists. Questions such as how art has been representing society, how artists handle mediums and create art, and what process the creation of art entails were asked, and the 30 pieces made between 1960 and 2017 were selected from our collection to find the answers.

The questions of the exhibition are followed up by the new works of 10 new commissioned artists. How will a digital environment that enhances our experience transform the existential experience of humans who stroll through it? How will art interpret these visual representations and experiences artistically, adopt them into artworks, and reflect on them with introspection? Will humans still be able to create art in the upcoming future? In the process of going through expectation and fear and through alternative interpretations and re-mediation on the artistic changes brought about by technological advancements, the young artists of this era sometimes find the future inside the past, or even realize whilst imagining the future that it has already arrived. By showing a wide spectrum of works in the same place—from traditional media such as drawing, performance, and video to the latest technologies such as speech recognition, AI deep running, robonetics, location-based video and sound interaction, projection mapping etc.—this exhibition is reflecting the mixed reality of media art. In addition, changes in visual language such as de-materialization, disembodiment, and informatization, under the broad visual influence of Internet-based digital networks and social media, can also be seen in this exhibition.

The word promenade in the title, Digital Promenade, is French for “stroll.” This exhibition offers the viewers to take a walk through the museum and the artworks that stretch across three exhibition spaces, stairways and corridors on the 2nd and 3rd floor of Seosomun main building, and into the past, present, and future that are contained in the works. Although the exhibition consists of four sections in total, each section is presented with hashtag (#) keywords taken from the works. We hope for the visitors to actively participate by each composing their own index and freely moving around making individual interpretations. This is an opportunity to experience the changes in the mind and atmosphere of the era that the works represent, for which we propose the audience to participate in the exhibition by becoming future strollers.