ART BUSAN 2026

Kukje Gallery will present a solo booth dedicated to the acclaimed British contemporary artist Julian Opie. Following his solo exhibition OP.VR@Kukje/F1963.BUSAN at Kukje Gallery Busan in 2023, Julian Opie returns to this port city to unveil some thirty new and recent works spanning a variety of media. Throughout his practice, Opie has been exploring technology, materiality, and art history, reinterpreting everyday subjects through his distinctive formal language and inviting viewers to reconsider the familiar from a new perspective. While his previous exhibition with the gallery focused largely on passersby drawn from Busan’s urban streets and beaches, this year’s ART BUSAN presentation embodies Opie’s shifted gaze toward the streets of London, the artist’s hometown. Featuring new works depicting pedestrians in motion—including children, who have rarely appeared in his earlier works—this presentation evokes the sensation of stepping onto a busy city street or playground.

Among the works on view, the new sculpture Coat. (2026) exemplifies Opie’s reduced visual style. Stripped of facial expression, the figure is rendered in bold contours and flattened planes of color that simplify the body to a graphic sign, while the mode of making—direct to media printing on metal—itself references street signage.

The booth also features Angel couple 5. (2026), in which a white acrylic background visually extends onto the surrounding wall, creating the illusion that the figures are part of an endless, flowing crowd. Opie’s The Angel series—named after The Angel Islington district in North London where the artist lived for decades—is drawn from photographs of anonymous passersby traversing the area’s bustling streets. The series captures the fleeting moments of the urban landscape. Opie writes: “This kind of people watching and anonymity is only possible in a big city where you are surrounded by strangers willing to ignore you. Those I draw are looked at while they go about their business oblivious of being watched. They seem noble and even magnificent in their personal worlds striding past and disappearing forever.” Initiated in 2025, the Children Walking series marks a shift in the artist’s attention toward children, a subject that has not previously been explored to this degree in his practice. Drawn to the idea of a different human scale and taking inspiration from small wooden figurative sculptures from Indonesia, Opie collaborated with a London school to photograph groups of children between the ages of 3 and 9. Muhammad 2. (2025), presented in the booth, captures a child in his confident yet playful stride, while Malia. (2026), a painted stone portrait, elevates the small scale of the subject through the emphatic medium of etched stone, evoking decorative friezes on the walls of ancient temples. Alongside works of varying heights that reflect the proportions of actual children and adults, the presentation also highlights how similar visual motifs take on different materials across stone, wood, metal, and acrylic panels.

This July, Opie will present new LED and VR works in a solo exhibition at Ulsan Art Museum (UAM) in Korea.

In the meantime, Kukje Gallery Busan is currently presenting Hong Seung-Hye’s solo exhibition, On the Move, running through June 14. Centered on video works, the exhibition offers a multifaceted exploration of “movement,” a recurring theme that has long permeated the artist’s practice. As part of ART BUSAN 2026’s program, there will be an artist talk “MEET THE ARTIST: Hong Seung-Hye” at Kukje Gallery Busan on May 23 at 4pm, offering audiences an opportunity for deeper engagement with her artistic vision.