GROUP EXHIBITION

As a project organized upon the museum’s annual institutional agenda, the exhibition proposes different methods of interpreting this year’s theme, “action.”

This exhibition pays close attention to the less visible undercurrents that may go unnoticed or ignored in society, refraining from approaching these “not-so-visible gestures” through binary contrasts like center versus periphery, and instead pursuing a polycentric and flexible viewpoint.

Talking Heads, which features a total of 21 artists (teams) from 6 countries, unfolds around five key themes: “The Art Museum and the Institution: Between the Rigid and the Flexible,” “Slippery Language,” “Erased or Yet-to-Come Histories,” “Existing Without Presence,” and “Tracing Traces: Shells-Skin-Ashes.” As the presentation aims to establish new contexts that interweave and interact between the works, the exhibition space itself is not strictly organized along these themes.

By addressing issues both within and beyond the museum, Talking Heads aims to create a space where a diverse polyphony of voices can resonate to create layers of narratives that encompass the art museum, the artworks (and artists), and the audience. Hence, the exhibition will operate not just as an exhibition, but as a dynamic, multilateral project where the exhibition and its accompanying programs function as interwoven, evolving components.

With an aim to enhance overall engagement, the exhibition also encourages visitors to trace invisible movements and subtle sensations through its interpretive tools. These “Exhibition Enhancer” include handwritten texts displayed on the walls, “word sculptures” made from the artists’ own words, “audio (pairing) guides” designed as an essential part of a more dimensional viewing experience, and magnifiers.

The gesture initiated by the word sculptures will eventually take shape as pocket-shaped goods and publication as a collection of words.

Eunju Choi, Director of SeMA, remarked that “This exhibition may serve as an opportunity to reconsider the museum and the exhibition space not as rigid or static environments, but as arenas for action and engagement.”