National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Collaborates with San Marco Art Center
"For All That Breathes on This Land" Exhibition
On View Until July 13
The exhibition "For All That Breathes on This Land: Jung Youngsun and Collaborators," hosted by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art and co-organized with Italy's San Marco Art Center, has opened to great acclaim at the San Marco Art Center in Venice, Italy, following its run in Seoul.
This exhibition is an international touring version of "Jung Youngsun: For All That Breathes on This Land," the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art's first-ever landscape architecture exhibition held in 2024. The tour was initiated after representatives from the San Marco Art Center, who visited Korea last year and viewed the exhibition at the Seoul venue, invited it as the institution's special opening exhibition.
The San Marco Art Center, which is hosting "For All That Breathes on This Land: Jung Youngsun and Collaborators," is housed in the Procuratie, a 16th-century Venetian administrative building restored by British architect David Chipperfield. David Chipperfield, the 2023 laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize?often referred to as the Nobel Prize of architecture?collaborated with Jung Youngsun on the "Amorepacific Headquarters" (2017) and is participating in this exhibition.
The exhibition focuses on Jung Youngsun's work, which highlights "resilience" and "sustainability," and introduces for the first time in Italy the unique philosophy of Korean gardens and landscapes, as well as the history of landscape architecture that parallels Korea's modern and contemporary history. Marking the "Year of Korea-Italy Intercultural Exchange (2024-2025)," the exhibition also carries significant meaning for cultural cooperation between the two countries.
On the evening of May 7, more than 600 visitors, including domestic and international stakeholders, attended the exhibition's opening event in Venice. The opening was attended by participating artists such as Jung Youngsun, David Chipperfield, and Cho Minseok, as well as the Deputy Mayor of Venice, the Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to Italy, the Vice Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Director of the Korean Cultural Center in Italy, and key representatives from major art museums worldwide.
Lee Jihye, the curator who organized the exhibition, commented, "It is meaningful to present Jung Youngsun's work, which has emphasized the importance of water circulation and wetlands, in Venice, the 'city of water.' In line with the character of the Renaissance-era building, where rooms are interconnected, it was necessary to create an entirely new exhibition space design so that the seven themes of the exhibition would be revealed according to each space. Through a 32-meter-long continuous archive display space that passes through old doors, we have connected 50 years of landscape architecture history."
Kim Sunghee, Director of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, stated, "It is moving to see the enthusiastic response in Venice following the exhibition in Seoul," adding, "We will continue to do our utmost to ensure that a wider variety of Korean art genres can meet many visitors at leading art museums." The exhibition runs until July 13.
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