Art lovers will be busy in 2014 with a series of special exhibitions scheduled throughout the year.

Among the major exhibitions are the “Beyond Impressionism: the Birth of Modern Art” event and the Pompeii exhibition, both at the National Museum of Korea, a tenth anniversary exhibition at the Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, the Media City Seoul biennale at the Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA) and, finally, there will be an exhibition of work by media artist Shirin Neshat at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), Seoul.

The “Beyond Impressionism: the Birth of Modern Art” exhibit scheduled at the National Museum of Korea (www.museum.go.kr) between May and August will display hundreds of paintings, drawings, photographs, sculptures and crafts on loan from the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, France, covering the entire history of Impressionism. Among the important pieces of art to be on display are the painting “Woman with an Umbrella Turned to the Right” produced in 1886 by Claude Monet and “The Snake Charmer” by Henri Rousseau, one of the many permanent displays at the Musée d'Orsay. There will also be works by Cezanne, Renoir, Gauguin, Gogh and Degas as well as many records related to the modernization of Paris, including its urban planning schemes.


Also at the museum, the “Landscape, Seeking the Ideal World” exhibition will begin in July, bringing together traditional idealized landscape paintings from Korea, China and Japan. In December, the Pompeii exhibition will give us a peek into the great culture of the lost city of ancient Italy.

The MMCA, Seoul (www.mmca.go.kr), will be showing a retrospective exhibition dedicated to Shirin Neshat, an Iranian-born movie director, in April and another exhibition of its collections in May. There will also be an exhibition dedicated to Asian female media artists who have produced experimental art using technology. The museum will highlight the works of Danish media artist Jasper Just and the achievements of the Bauhaus school in Germany, which once taught art, crafts, photography and architecture.

In August, the Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art (www.leeum.org) is planning a special exhibition, “Correspondence,” in honor of its 10th anniversary that will showcase its collection of ancient Korean art as well as its Korean and foreign contemporary art pieces. Among the major contemporary art pieces that will be on display are “North Wall” by Do Ho Suh and “Untitled” by Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Plateau, another branch of the Samsung Museum, in central Seoul, will showcase the works of media artist Yeondoo Jung beginning in March. These include Jung’s early works that express ordinary people’s dreams as well as his recent visual work.



Celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, the Gwangju Biennale (www.gwangjubiennale.org) will once again open in Gwangju, Jeollanam-do (South Jeolla Province). Its “Burning Down the House” exhibition will run for two months, beginning in September, under the direction of Jessica Morgan, the contemporary art curator at the Tate Modern in London, U.K. Morgan is expected to showcase experimental contemporary art which, she said, will challenge conventional ideas.

Back in Seoul, the SeMA (http://sema.seoul.go.kr) will host the Media City Seoul exhibit, an international media art biennale, in September, displaying Asia-themed works. The city museum tries to introduce art from regions that have been relatively less represented in the world’s art scene. Now, the “Nordic Passion: Architecture & Design from the Nordic Countries” exhibition is underway and the “Global Africa: Political Patterns” show will be held in December.

By Limb Jae-un
Korea.net Staff Writer
jun2@korea.kr