If you’re looking for something to do to enrich the soul in Seoul (hurr, hurr), take a look at this list of art exhibitions that are open in March 2021. I absolutely loved the Yue Minjun exhibition at Hangaram Art Museum, so definitely check that out if you get the chance! And with March weather comes cold and rainy days which means it’s the perfect time to go to the warm snuggle of an art museum. There are a few exhibitions that I’ve added to this list for the month of March like the interactive media exhibition, 2021 Delight, in Insadong, Seoul.
Don’t forget to check the museum or exhibition website in case you need to make an appointment due to COVID-19 restrictions. Fortunately, the restrictions have been a bit relaxed, and I haven’t had any trouble just walking in and buying tickets on-site. As usual, you will have to scan your QR code (via Naver) or write your contact information on a paper log when entering.
Go to recent posts on art exhibitions in Seoul
Contents
NEXT ART: Fantastic Tour to Pop Art and Media Art
You can view the Philip Colbert exhibition at the Sejong Arts Center (175 Sejong-daero, Jongno-gu, Seoul, South Korea) between March 13th, 2021 to May 2nd, 2021.
“I became an artist when I became a lobster.” – Philip Colbert
Colbert, a celebrated pop artist who is garnering attention from around the world, is collaborating with globally renowned brands to create pop art in the domains of painting, sculpture, media art, fashion, and more.
– Sejong Art Center
Lee Bul: Beginning
Lee Bul is a contemporary sculpture and installation artist that made her splash in the late 80s. Lee Bul––Beginning focuses on her works from the late 80s to early 90s and can be viewed at Seoul Museum of Art (61, Deoksugung-gil, Jung-gu, Seoul) from March 2nd, 2021 to May 16th, 2020.
Lee Bul’s work prominently uses symbols captured through exploring the inside and the outside of the body, the androcentric legacy of modernism and ideologies of Korean modernization. These motives reveal the clash of meanings between beauty, ugliness, life, death, mind, body, light and shadow. By projecting biased external gazes on society, politics, gender, class and ethnicity, her works traverse given borders. The exhibition revisits the artist’s starting point to create a new tension between two perspectives anchored in the past and the present. This narrative of return not only enriches the interpretation of Lee Bul’s artistic practice but also projects our current view over it so as to pose a few questions still valid to us.
– SeMA
Moomin: 75th Anniversary Special Original Painting Exhibition
In Boston, I had a few Finnish friends that showed me the delightful hippopotamus-looking Moomin characters! Moomins are the main characters of a series of beloved books and comic strips created by Swedish-speaking Finnish illustrator Tove Jansson.
The Moomin exhibition will be on view at Ground Seesaw (B1, Bldg. A, 49, Achasan-ro 17-gil, Seongdong-gu, Seoul) in the eastern Seoul neighborhood of Seongsu from November 13th, 2020 to November 14th, 2021. You can book ahead of time on Naver.
APMA, Chapter Three
A collection of contemporary art will be on view at AmorePacific Museum of Art (100 Hangang-daero, Yongsan-gu, Seoul) for its third installation. Reservations are required and can be made online at apma.amorepacific.com.
Over 50 works of various genres, including paintings, installations, photography, media, and crafts, are displayed in the seven exhibition rooms. Works by artists who are actively active both at home and abroad were selected, and the production period of the works was encompassed from the 1960s to 2020, allowing you to look at the current trends of major contemporary art as well as the latest trends.
– APMA
2021 Delight Seoul
If you’re looking for an immersive experience like TeamLab Borderless Tokyo within South Korea, check out this art exhibition in the Insadong area of Seoul. It’s definitely an “Instagram-able” experience, so don’t forget to bring your smartphone and/or camera!
You can become a part of this digital media exhibition, Delight Seoul, between December 18th, 2020 to June 30th, 2021 at the Insa Central Museum (B1, Anyoung Insadong – 49, Insadong-gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul). Tickets can be bought in advance on ticketlink.co.kr.
On a side note, if you do want to see TeamLab Borderless in Seoul, there’s a TeamLab: Life exhibition currently running at Dongdaemun Plaza until the end of April. Keep scrolling for more information.
Andy Warhol: Beginning
After making its way through Italy, this Andy Warhol exhibition will arrive in Korea and will be open to the public between February 26th, 2021 to June 27th, 2021. You can buy early bird tickets at tmon.co.kr. The exhibition will be held at the brand-spanking-new The Hyundai Seoul, in Yeuido (6th floor, 10B, Yeoui-daero, Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul).
The exhibition includes 153 works including Marilyn Monroe, representative of Andy Warhol, an icon of popular art, and signature prints such as flowers, as well as his drawings that were not easily seen, is released. […] This exhibition, which visits Korea for the first time after a successful tour of Italy’s major art museums, is expected to give visitors a fresh stimulus with the intensity of Andy Warhol’s peculiar intensity to daily life that is helpless due to the corona pandemic.
– Newsin
Yue Minjun, A-Maze-Ing Laughter of Our Times!
This is the first large-scale exhibition in Korea by Yue Minjun, a leading Chinese contemporary artist. His works will be on view at Hangaram Art Museum (2406 Nambusunhwan-ro, Seocho-dong, Seocho-gu, Seoul, South Korea) from November 20th, 2020 to March 28th, 2021.
Art critics have often labeled his early work “critical realism,” a term that encompassed a number of Chinese artists in the early 1990s that used satire to juxtapose capitalism and consumerism with Chinese communism.
Minjun says that the laughing character of his work was developed in response to the changes that China experienced since 1989.
“It has a lot to do with the changes brought about by China’s reform. The changes cause the changes in people’s behavior, very fast changes too. People’s emotions are different too, full and stimulating. The laughing faces represent the emotional feelings of the people.”
– CNN
Rose Wylie: Hullo hullo, following-on
It seems like Korea can’t get enough of these Rose Wylie exhibitions! This latest one will be on view from December 4th, 2020 to March 28th, 2021 at Hangaram Museum of Art (2406 Nambusunhwan-ro, Seocho-dong, Seocho-gu, Seoul, South Korea).
Lee Seung Taek’s Non-Art: The Inversive Act
Contemporary Korean artist, Lee Seung Taek, will be displaying his works from November 25th, 2020 to March 28th, 2021 at the National Museum of Contemporary and Modern Art in Korea, MMCA (30 Samcheong-ro, Sogyeok-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul 03062).
Lee Seung Taek (b. 1932) is a representative figure in Korean experimental art who has continued since the 1950s until today with a prolific body of work spanning installation, sculpture, painting, photography, land art, and performance art. Lee Seung Taek’s Non-Art: The Inversive Act is a large-scale retrospective that aims to shed new light on the sixty-year career of an artist who played a pioneering role in transforming Korean contemporary art. The exhibition title Lee Seung Taek’s Non-Art: The Inversive Act encapsulates a career spent inverting every kind of object and idea, challenging fixed notions of art. His artistic views are well expressed in his declaration, “My view was inverted. My thought process was inverted. My life in this world was inverted.”and through the concept of “non-sculpture” by which he strove to break free of existing sculptural contexts.
– MMCA
Henri Matisse: Jazz and Theater
You can see this Henri Matisse art exhibition from October 31st, 2020 to March 3rd, 2021 at MyArtMuseum (B1 Textile Center Building, 518 Teheran-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul [994-31, Daechi-dong]).
TeamLab: LIFE
If you’ve ever been to any TeamLab exhibition around the world or in Tokyo, you’ll know how delightful this immersive experience is. Take your selfies to the next level at this interactive exhibition at Dongdaemun Plaza (DDP Dongdaemun Design Plaza Museum B2F Design Exhibition Hall [M1 Gate], 281, Eulji-ro, Jung-gu, Seoul 04566) from September 25th, 2020 to April 4th, 2021.
teamLab (f. 2001) is an international art collective, an interdisciplinary group of various specialists such as artists, programmers, engineers, CG animators, mathematicians and architects whose collaborative practice seeks to navigate the confluence of art, science, technology, and the natural world.
teamLab aims to explore the relationship between the self and the world and new perceptions through art.
In order to understand the world around them, people separate it into independent entities with perceived boundaries between them. teamLab seeks to transcend these boundaries in our perception of the world, of the relationship between the self and the world, and of the continuity of time. Everything exists in a long, fragile yet miraculous, borderless continuity of life.
– DDP
Did you find this article useful?
Comment below and tell me what you think! And don’t forget to follow me on Instagram and Facebook, so I can feel all the love. If you’re feeling generous, you can also support me by buying me a coffee to keep this site alive.