Art Beyond the Museum: "Turning Everyday Life into Art"

Exhibition Installations Throughout Sejong Center and Nodel Island
Works by Four Artists Displayed Inside and Outside the Theater
On View Until December 28

On July 21, Sejong Center for the Performing Arts announced that it will host the 2025 Sejong Center Space Curating Exhibition, "Art in the Theater," at the Grand Theater stairs and lobby, the Garden of Arts, and the Nodel Island Seoul Ballet Company practice room lobby, running until December 28.

Artwork by artist Byun Gyeongsu installed in the S Theater of Sejong Center for the Performing Arts. Sejong Center for the Performing Arts

This exhibition was planned to offer the experience of everyday life transforming into art through the fleeting moments of encountering art by chance in daily surroundings. The exhibition reinterprets previously overlooked idle spaces?such as the waiting time before a performance, the corridors leading to the stage, the paths to practice rooms, and the resting lobbies?as artistic platforms. Under the idea that "an art museum does not exist only within white walls," it proposes a transformation of scenes where artistic sensibility and meaning arise, going beyond the original function of the space. This is interpreted as a new attempt to expand the physical boundaries of the art museum under the value pursued by Sejong Center: "the moving power of culture and art intertwined with everyday life."

The exhibition features four artists: Lee Sehyun, Lee Dongi, Byun Gyeongsu, and Jung Dawoon. Each artist, working with different media and sensibilities, has explored themes such as contemporary emotions, structure, loss, and fantasy. Through their unique artistic languages, they transform the physical space of the theater into a place where emotion and contemplation reside.

Eight paintings by Lee Sehyun and five paintings by Lee Dongi will be displayed on the south and north staircases of the Grand Theater. Three installation works by Byun Gyeongsu will be exhibited in the idle spaces of the Grand Theater lobby and above the S Theater in the Garden of Arts, while an installation by Jung Dawoon will welcome visitors in the lobby of the Seoul Ballet Company practice room on Nodel Island.

Lee Sehyun is well known for his "Red Landscape" series. He translates the wounds of memory?stemming from the Korean War, the loss of his hometown, and the death of his mother?into a cosmic perspective, layering the philosophy of ascension and return within the structure of the stairs.

Lee Dongi, a pioneer of Korean pop art, borrows symbols from cartoons, television, and other mass media, as well as the language of pop art, to playfully cross the boundaries between high art and low art, and between reality and fiction. Through his hands, the stairway space is reborn as a stage where sensory collisions occur.

Byun Gyeongsu captures the portrait of modern individuals overwhelmed by information overload and emotional helplessness within cute, rounded sculptures. His representative work, "Sweet Fatty," satirizes the passive self through violently saturated colors and exaggerated forms. These works are installed as if blending into the Grand Theater lobby and the S Theater in the Garden of Arts, inviting chance encounters with the audience.

Jung Dawoon uses a delicate "fabric drawing" technique that employs fabric, light, and structural elements for her installation in the lobby of the Seoul Ballet Company practice room on Nodel Island. Her work visualizes the natural light and emotional flow that change several times a day, gently embracing the rhythm of the ballet dancers preparing for performances. Citizens passing through this space can also feel a sense of relaxation, able to momentarily set down their burdens upon encountering this unexpected "stage of light."

An Hosang, president of Sejong Center for the Performing Arts, stated, "This exhibition is a meaningful experiment to open up new possibilities for the spaces within Sejong Center. I hope that visitors will encounter art in places they might have passed by without notice, and that each of these encounters will become a stage of its own."