"Not Just an Exhibition, but an Artistic Site Itself"... The Strange and Unfamiliar "Language of the Enemy" Exhibition

Art Sonje Center Transformed into a Sculptural Ecosystem
Adrian Villar Rojas Presents His First Solo Exhibition in Korea
Entire Art Sonje Center Building Becomes the Exhibition Space
No Labels Used to Eliminate Artificial Boundaries

The Art Sonje Center in Jongno, Seoul, has transformed into a site that explores the complex relationships between diverse life forms amid the current and future crises facing humanity. Through "Language of the Enemy," the first solo exhibition in Korea by Argentine-Peruvian artist Adrian Villar Rojas, the museum building has been converted into a large-scale, site-specific and environment-specific space that functions as a sculptural ecosystem.

Installation view of "Adrian Villar Rojas: Language of the Enemy" held at Art Sonje Center. Photo by Seomideum

In this exhibition, the artist presents the museum not as a space for preservation, but as a wild and unstable environment where decomposition, mutation, and succession occur through non-human, post-human, and synthetic beings. Although the exhibition has a nominal title, there are no guides, labels, or conceptual introductions in the actual exhibition space. The artist explained, "I feel that labels confine the artwork within a frame. This format separates the audience from the work, saying, 'You are the viewer, and this is the artwork.' To break free from such constraints, I decided not to attach any labels in this exhibition." This reflects the artist's desire for visitors to enter into the work itself, rather than viewing it from an artificial boundary.

The exhibition encompasses the entire building. From the basement level to the third floor above ground-including hallways, staircases, restrooms, and the theater-it dismantles the institutional devices and structures accumulated at Art Sonje Center over the past 30 years. The original entrance has been blocked with a mound of soil, and the white temporary walls of the white cube have been removed, exposing the building’s concrete framework. The temperature and humidity control systems in the exhibition hall have been deliberately switched off, leaving the space exposed to the external environment. Natural elements such as soil, fire, and plants have been brought inside, blurring the boundaries between the museum’s interior and exterior, as well as between institutional space and the Earth's ecosystem.

Installation view of "Adrian Villar Rojas: Language of the Enemy" held at Artsonje Center, the entrance of the exhibition hall was blocked with soil. Photo by Seomideum

The exhibition centers on Rojas’s ongoing series "The End of Imagination," which he has been developing since 2022. Strange and hybrid sculptures that seem to come from the ruins of a distant future radiate an unfamiliar and chilling atmosphere. On the upper floor, "Time Engine," based on works previously shown at the 2023 Helsinki Biennale and the 2024 Basel Beyeler Foundation, is on display. This complex structure, composed of layers of metal, concrete, plastic, soil, glass, resin, salt, tree bark, and car parts, reveals traces of both human and machine labor. The changing biological states over time are also part of the exhibition. A tree suspended upside down from the ceiling gradually dries out, but some stems draped over the installation continue to grow thanks to a moisture supply system. Rojas elaborated, "It is not humans who impose form on the world; rather, the world acts on its own to create reality, and that reality, in turn, creates new material."

On the afternoon of the 2nd, the artist Adrian Villar Rojas from Argentina and Peru spoke at a press conference for his first solo exhibition in Korea, "Language of the Red Army," held at the Art Sonje Center in Jongno-gu, Seoul. Photo by Seo Mideum

Regarding the title "Language of the Enemy," the artist stated, "The enemy is a linguistic manifestation of otherness that surrounds us. The enemy refers to the other, not the self," adding, "It reminds us of the love-hate relationships inherent in all connections." He continued, "I also wanted to relate this to the geopolitical history of the Korean Peninsula, which, despite being divided for a long time, shares the same language with compatriots in the North." The exhibition runs until February 1 next year.