The Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA) will be holding its 12th Seoul Mediacity Biennale and a collection exhibition highlighting important works by Korean artists in the 1970s and 1980s. 

The last edition of the Seoul Mediacity Biennale was postponed to 2021 due to COVID-19. The 12th edition will be held from September 21 to November 19 this year at various locations in Seoul, including the SeMA Seosomun Main Building, Seoul Museum of History, and SeMA Bunker.

Over the past 25 years, the biennale has featured various contemporary artworks by artists from home and abroad that reflect the continuously changing urban and media environments, and the participating artists have worked with various experimental ideas that reflect contemporaneity.

Rachael Rakes has been appointed as the artistic director of the 12th edition of the Seoul Mediacity Biennale. For the first time in the biennale’s history, the appointment of the artistic director for the 2023 edition was conducted through an international open call. Rakes served as the curator for public practice at BAK in the Dutch city of Utrecht from 2019 to this year and was the head curator and manager of the curatorial program at de Appel in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, from 2017 to 2019.

The upcoming edition is envisioned to connect the existing physical and geographical conditions with the aesthetics of media infrastructures and find alternative concepts of mediating and mapping. Prior to its opening, the biennale will hold public programs for international visitors during the KIAF and Frieze Seoul art fairs. The main theme and details, along with the list of participating artists, will be announced in February 2023.

As SeMA’s Art Archives (SeMA AA) is scheduled to open its doors in 2023, the new branch will hold a collection highlight exhibition showcasing archival materials of artists who changed the course of Korean contemporary art history in the 1970s and 1980s, including Kim Yong-Ik, Kim Tchah-Sup, and Rim Dong Sik.

References

• 서울시립미술관(the Seoul Museum of Art)