"Another Debut Beyond the Stage": Actors and Musicians Head for the Gallery

Beyond acting and music... time for creation across genres
Different forms, different attitudes... three "canvases" that seem alike yet differ

When the lights on the stage go out, the actor wipes off the makeup. When the microphone is lowered, the singer returns to silence. In that stillness, some people unfold a canvas.

Actor Park Shinyang.

According to the art world on the 13th, actor Park Shinyang, musician Kim Sucheol, and artist-actor Baek Hyunjin, who have stood at the forefront of popular arts, have recently been holding solo exhibitions one after another or are about to do so. They are often grouped together under the term "art-tainer," but this current trend is hard to reduce to the simple disclosure of celebrities' hobbies. It is a process in which the sensibilities and training accumulated in their primary careers are being translated into another medium.

Park Shinyang, an actor’s language crossing over into a "Jeonsi-sshow"

The title of Park Shinyang’s upcoming exhibition, which opens at the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts on March 6, is provocative: "Park Shinyang’s Jeonsi-sshow <The Fourth Wall>".

"The fourth wall" refers to the imaginary wall between the stage and the audience in theater. The actor is aware of that wall and, at the same time, breaks it down. It is a boundary that is open toward the audience yet ultimately cannot be crossed. Park Shinyang has taken that theatrical concept as the title of his exhibition.

This exhibition is not a simple presentation of paintings. The materials describe it as "Korea’s first theatrical exhibition." Instead of hanging works in a static manner, the plan is to turn "the exhibition into a single scene" through flow lines, spatial composition, and programming. A special lecture program has also been announced. The naming "Jeonsi-sshow" is not an exaggeration but a hint at formal experimentation.

Park Shinyang has already unveiled more than ten years of painting practice through solo exhibitions in 2023 and 2024. He has said that he painted every night, describing that time as one of "longing" and "self-questioning." Thickly layered paint, traces of overpainting and erasure, recurring figures and faces. If the craft of acting is oriented toward the other, his painting lies on the opposite side.

An actor performs the life of another. A painter pushes up his own emotions. This "Fourth Wall" is an attempt to place the two together in a single space without separating them. The actor’s training - the process of immersing in a role, putting on a mask, and taking it off again - is brought into the exhibition format. Before the works themselves, the structure of the exhibition becomes a scene in its own right. The key point to watch will likely be less what Park Shinyang has painted on the canvas and more how he draws the audience "onto the stage."

Singer Kim Soochul. Yonhap News Agency

Kim Sucheol, what remains when sound is set down

Kim Sucheol, by contrast, erases sound. He is a musician who has designed the nation’s sound for major international events such as the Seoul Olympics and the World Cup opening ceremony. His solo exhibition "Sound Painting," which opens at the Hangaram Design Museum at the Seoul Arts Center from the 14th, is the first large-scale public showing of painting work he has continued for more than 30 years. Over 160 self-portraits and color ink paintings will meet the audience in the exhibition space.

The working environment is a particularly intriguing point. Kim Sucheol said, "A kitchen of about 2 pyeong (about 6.6 square meters) was my studio." There is even an anecdote that, because he had no space to spread out a size-200 canvas, he laid it on the floor next to the gas stove to work on it. If music is an art of the stage and the studio, his paintings were born in the space of everyday life.

Although the exhibition is titled "Sound Painting," he has said he will not rely on the power of music this time. There will be no performances and no background music. It is a stance that painting will stand solely as painting. His fame as a musician may be an element that draws in visitors, but within the exhibition it is rather set aside.

Kim Sucheol’s canvases contain rhythm. Bold strokes and overlapping colors, and recurring structures evoke a musical sensibility. However, they are closer to the result of translating into color and texture the energies of nature, the universe, and life that he has contemplated over a long period, rather than a visualization of sound. It is an occasion where a maker of sound shows what he leaves behind in silence.

Writer and actor Paek Hyunjin is answering reporters' questions at a press conference for his solo exhibition 'Seoul Syntax' held at the PKM Gallery in Jongno-gu, Seoul on the 3rd. Yonhap News

Baek Hyunjin, the present tense of a genre-crossing creator

Within this trend, Baek Hyunjin is the most natural fit. He is a creator who has worked simultaneously in music, acting, and visual art. It is hard to say that one particular genre is his main occupation and the others are side jobs.

The paintings and drawings encountered at his solo exhibition currently underway at PKM Gallery are rough and direct. The expressions of the figures are exaggerated and distorted. Color is pushed through without hesitation. The energy revealed in his music and performances is repeated on the canvas. It is work in which the process of painting seems more important than a finished image.

Baek Hyunjin’s exhibition is not a "move" but an "extension." A creator who has already crossed multiple media is opening yet another scene along that same continuum. For him, the gallery is not an unfamiliar space; it is another variation of the stage.

Recently, the art world has seen a series of exhibitions by figures with broad public recognition. It is certainly a draw when creators whose names are already widely known stand in galleries. However, it is difficult to explain these exhibitions solely as a star effect.

All three have brought to the forefront work they have long pursued alongside their primary careers, and each in their own way has expanded the boundaries of genre. The actor’s training in performance has been carried over into an exhibition format; the musician’s sense of rhythm has been transformed into structures of color and line; the multi-media artist’s experiments have been moved into the space of painting.

The term "art-tainer" may be able to encompass this trend, but these exhibitions go one step further. This additional debut outside the stage is not the disclosure of a hobby; it is the opening of another scene in an accumulated body of creation.

One exhibition curator said, "These days, people tend to lump everything together under the term 'art-tainer,' but in reality, many cases involve organizing and presenting work that has been carried on for a long time," adding, "The very process by which the language of the stage is transferred onto the canvas is fascinating." The curator went on to say, "Visitors will see for themselves whether it is an exhibition where the work, not the name, is what remains."