[Gallery Walk] Unique Aesthetics Breaking the Boundaries Between Daily Life and Art

PKM Gallery, Jorge Pardo Solo Exhibition
Artist Breaking Boundaries Between Art, Architecture, and Design

In 1993, artist Jorge Pardo, commissioned for an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) in Los Angeles, proposed his entire house as the artwork. His single-story, horseshoe-shaped home made of red cedar was closed off to the street but featured window structures open to the sea and garden at the back. Pardo personally designed every element inside the house?including furniture, lighting, tiles, kitchen, and garden?to complete the new work. When the exhibition opened in 1998, visitors toured his home as if on a real estate tour. After the exhibition ended, Pardo lived in the house himself, proving that his work was both art and a living space.

Installation view of Jorge Pardo. Photo by PKM Gallery

PKM Gallery in Samcheong-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul, is hosting a solo exhibition of Cuban-American artist Jorge Pardo until January 11, 2025. This exhibition marks his first solo show in Korea in 22 years since 2002, highlighting Pardo’s unique artistic world that explores art, design, and spatial aesthetics through about 20 new works.

Jorge Pardo is an artist who expands functional materials using light, color, and organic forms into the language of fine art. When MoCA invited him to exhibit, the reason he gained attention for presenting his home as an artwork was that Pardo studied biology before pursuing fine arts. Despite lacking formal education in architecture or design, he built a unique body of work combining art, architecture, and design, often described as “functional sculpture.”

Jorge Pardo, Portrait, 2022 [Photo by PKM Gallery]

The artist says his work is not merely an artistic ideal but the result of personal inquiry and experimentation. Now residing in M?rida, Mexico, where he has integrated his workspace and residence into a complex space, he emphasizes his artistic philosophy as “starting from practicality but pursuing possibilities concretized in reality rather than mere fantasy.”

His work crosses the boundaries of design, architecture, interior, and fine art, embodying both aesthetic beauty and functionality. This exhibition presents his signature lamp sculptures alongside design elements such as storage units, benches, and carpets, transforming the space into a singular artistic experience.

Installation view of Jorge Pardo. Installation view of Jorge Pardo
Photo by PKM Gallery

The lamp sculptures are a series Pardo has developed since the 1980s, uniquely combining sculptural elements while maintaining lighting functionality. The works introduced in the exhibition employ laser cutting technology to realize organic forms reminiscent of molecular structures, honeycombs, and spines, exploring the flow of light and harmony of colors.

The accompanying paintings and drawings abstractly deconstruct and reconstruct art historical or personal images. These works are uniformly titled “Untitled,” functioning as a device to encourage viewers to discover new meanings rather than convey specific messages.

Pardo’s long-standing theme of harmonizing nature and interior spaces, displayed throughout the exhibition, evokes his “TECOH” project?a transformation of a 17th-century farm ruin in the Yucat?n jungle of Mexico, where he currently resides, into a modern space. Commissioned earlier by Mexican billionaire entrepreneur Roberto Hern?ndez and his wife, “TECOH” has become a complex art space and a holistic artwork that harmonizes Maya culture with contemporary design, traditional crafts with advanced technology, and natural environment with fantastical interiors.

Jorge Pardo, Tecoh, 2012, Tecoh, Mexico. ?Jody Asano

Through his works that dissolve the boundaries of time and space, life and art, visitors encounter a comprehensive opportunity to experience how art can expand and be reinterpreted within life itself.