Currently running from March 3 through June 28, the Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul is hosting a transformative exhibition by Tino Sehgal.
Tino Sehgal, an artist born in London in 1976 with a background in choreography and political economics, challenges the very foundation of contemporary art by asking how art can genuinely exist without material objects. He creates entirely immaterial works, strictly prohibiting any physical creations,
photographs, or traditional documentation. Instead, he orchestrates what he calls "constructed situations." These are living, breathing artworks brought to life through movement, language, and spontaneous interaction between the audience and "interpreters" who may sing, dance, or unexpectedly strike up a conversation.
This unique exhibition features eight of Sehgal's constructed situations, including a brand-new piece, unfolding simultaneously across the museum’s entrance, garden, lobby, and M2 space.
Because these works exist solely in the present, no two moments are ever exactly alike.
Sehgal brilliantly weaves his ephemeral performances into a dialogue with carefully selected sculptures from the Leeum collection, creating distinct atmospheres in different areas of the museum.
The entire lower-level gallery is transformed by the presence of Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s iconic green bead curtains. Within this shifting environment, three of Sehgal's situations will rotate every six weeks.
The strict, dictated arrangement of the beads perfectly mirrors Sehgal’s own aesthetic of passing down art through repeated gestures and spoken words.
Moving into another dedicated space, visitors are surrounded by Auguste Rodin’s historical masterpieces while a couple performs Sehgal’s acclaimed 2002 work, Kiss.
This intimate performance serves as the artistic origin of the exhibit, acting as a bridge that pulls the historical context of traditional sculpture into the immediate present.
Up on the first floor, visitors will encounter the solo choreography piece titled Instead of allowing some thing to rise up to your face dancing bruce and dan and other things from 2000.
This striking piece is performed alongside figurative and abstract human sculptures that seem to stand silently, waiting for a conversation to begin.
As you make eye contact with the sculptures, brush past the bead curtains, and engage directly with the interpreters, you cease to be just a passive viewer. Instead, you become the active catalyst that makes the art happen.
In a hyper-digital era where nearly every moment is captured and commodified, Sehgal’s absolute refusal to be recorded forces a profound pause.
Unmediated by screens or electronic devices, these encounters will survive exclusively in the memories of those who lived them.
Ultimately, this exhibition proves that the truest value of art lies in raw human connection and shared, unrepeatable presence.
