KITSCH & POP: Korean Pop Art Now at Korean Cultural Center, Shanghai and Hong Kong
Graphic design: Everyday Practice.
HONG KONG.—
Co-organized by the Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA, Director Choi Eunju) and the Korean Cultural Center, Shanghai (Director Kang Yong-min), KITSCH & POP: Korean Pop Art Now is presented as part of the “Touring K-Arts” project, supported by the Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and Korean Foundation for International Cultural Exchange (KOFICE). This exhibition will be held at the KCC in Shanghai from June 27 to September 13, 2025, and at the KCC in Hong Kong from October 2 to November 22, 2025.
KITSCH & POP: Korean Pop Art Now revisits Korean Pop Art—an important yet often under-recognized current in the history of Korean contemporary art—within the broader context of global contemporary art shaped by the worldwide rise of K-pop and K-culture. The exhibition brings together two generations of artists. It features younger artists active in the post-internet era since the 2010s, including Don Sunpil, Chu Mirim, Noh Sangho, Sim Raejung, Sungsil Ryu, and Jeongsu Woo, alongside Kyoung Tack Hong, Son Donghyun, MeeNa Park, and Kim Shinhye, who began exploring Korean Pop Art in the early 2000s. This intergenerational dialogue highlights how the visual language of Pop has been reinterpreted and expanded in a Korean context.
The exhibition also engages critically with the shifting and still-undefined terrain of contemporary art history. A central curatorial question arises from the exhibition’s very title: why Korean Pop Art instead of Pop Art in Korea? This phrasing reflects an awareness that Pop Art, even in its Western origins, has always been shaped by local histories and cultural specificities. In choosing the term Korean Pop Art, the exhibition signals an open field—still evolving and actively under construction—rather than a fixed genre. It recognizes that questions around the origins, conditions, and identity of Pop Art in Korea remain open-ended, inviting continued reflection and reinterpretation.
This exhibition focuses on how the aesthetics of Korean Pop Art have evolved in the works of younger artists, particularly those born in the 1980s, within a rapidly changing media environment shaped by the internet, mobile technology, social media, and artificial intelligence. Using the idea of “cool-kitsch” as a central thread, it explores how these artists reinterpret pop sensibilities in response to contemporary digital culture. The exhibition aims to foster a sense of familiarity by presenting recent works alongside representative Korean Pop Art pieces from the 2000s. By highlighting this generational continuity, it invites viewers to approach the evolving landscape of Korean Pop Art with greater ease and connection. It also provides an opportunity to reflect on how the earlier phase of Korean Pop Art, shaped by mass consumer society, globalization, and postmodernism, can be understood through the idea of “individualized pop”—allowing for a more intuitive comparison between different eras and media sensibilities.
Ultimately, KITSCH & POP: Korean Pop Art Now presents “cool-kitsch” and “individualized pop” as key attributes of Korean Pop Art, revealing that the genre is situated within inherent contradictions and paradoxes. It suggests that these very tensions are fundamental to the nature of Korean Pop Art. Tracing these paradoxes and seeking to understand their underlying structures becomes the starting point for a long and ongoing journey.
Participating artists: Chu Mirim, Don Sunpil, Jeongsu Woo, Kim Shinhye, Kyoung Tack Hong, MeeNa Park, Noh Sangho, Sim Raejung, Son Donghyun, Sungsil Ryu
Curated by Kyung-hwan Yeo (Curator at SeMA) together with Haewon Kim and Hyewon Shin (Exhibition Coordinator)
