Moon Kyungwon and Jeon Joonho: News from Nowhere

21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa is delighted to present the first large-scale solo exhibition in Japan by the leading contemporary Korean artist duo, Moon Kyungwon and Jeon Joonho. Since their formation, Moon and Jeon have explored the social functions and roles of art while advocating for practical platforms for dialogue and collaboration among professionals from various fields.

The exhibition will focus on a new video installation depicting the struggle of future humans for survival and freedom in a poetic manner; News from Nowhere: Freedom Village, which was exhibited at the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea in 2021; as well as El Fin del Mundo, a masterpiece that captures the different time frames before and after the apocalypse and their connections in an intricate and elaborate manner.

Also showcased will be works created during their residency in the Kanaiwa area of Kanazawa City that they have been creating since 2018, presenting their thoughts and activities from multiple perspectives through video, drawings, and maquettes. This promises to be an opportunity to fully experience the world of their works, which extracts the issues facing contemporary society and poses powerful messages for us who live in the present to ponder while shuttling back and forth between the future and the past.

Moon Kyungwon: born 1969 in Seoul, South Korea 
Jeon Joonho: born 1969 in Busan, South Korea 

In recent years, the artist duo’s practice has focused on the collaborative project News from Nowhere, which centers on creating an interdisciplinary platform. Their first site-specific collaborative work was presented at documenta in 2012. Selected solo exhibitions include News from Nowhere at the Art Institute of Chicago, 2013; Migros Museum of Contemporary Art, Zurich, 2015; The Ways of Folding Space & Flying at the Korean Pavilion, Venice Biennale, 2017; Freedom Village at SCAI the Bathhouse, Tokyo, Japan, 2017; News from Nowhere at the Tate Liverpool, 2018-2019; News from Nowhere: Freedom Village at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea, 2021; and the Oku-Noto Triennale 2020+, Suzu, Ishikawa, Japan, 2021, among others. At the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Moon & Jeon have participated in Culture City of East Asia 2018 Altering Home, the 15th anniversary of the museum’s opening in 2019 with Where We Now Stand—In Order to Map the Future [I], and the 2018-2019 JICHIKU Region AIR Kanaiwa-Ono Art Project.

Organized by 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa (Kanazawa Art Promotion and Development Foundation)
Exhibition Curator: Nakata Koichi, Nonaka Yumiko

Read the press release in full here.