Portrait of a Collection in Seoul

With Lucas Arruda, Miriam Cahn, Xinyi Cheng, Peter Doig, Marlene Dumas, Dominique Gonzalez-Foertser, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, David Hammons, Florian Krewer, Julie Mehretu, Antonio Oba, Anri Sala & Sejla Kameric, Ser Serpas, Rudolf Stingel, Pol Taburet, Tatiana Trouvé, Luc Tuymans, Danh Vo, Anicka Yi, Ji Hye Yeom and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye.

SONGEUN Art and Cultural Foundation is delighted to present Portrait of a Collection, an exhibition by the acclaimed Pinault Collection. Featuring more than 60 contemporary artworks, this groundbreaking showcase marks the first major presentation of the Pinault Collection to a Korean audience.

Inspired by the inaugural exhibition Ouverture presented by Pinault Collection at the Bourse de Commerce in Paris in 2021, Portrait of a Collection, curated by Caroline Bourgeois, aims to encapsulate the essence of the Pinault Collection. The exhibition will span various media, including video installations, sculptures, drawings, and paintings, offering a comprehensive portrait of the collection’s diverse artistic expressions. 

SONGEUN is honored to present works from both established and emerging artists, exemplifying Pinault Collection’s unwavering commitment to artistic innovation and collaboration. Visitors will encounter, though vivid dialogues, masterpieces from artists such as Marlene Dumas, Luc Tuymans, Peter Doig, Florian Krewer, Ser Serpas, Rudolf Stingel, and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. These artists, also featured in the original Ouverture exhibition, highlight the enduring relationships cultivated by the Pinault Collection over time.

A distinctive feature of the exhibition is the "companionship" approach that characterizes Pinault Collection. This long-term collaboration with artists facilitates the presentation of extensive bodies of works and detailed monographs, allowing visitors to explore the full spectrum of an artist’s oeuvre. Exemplified in the Ouverture exhibition with David Hammons, where nearly thirty pieces were showcased, more than half of which had never been publicly displayed before.

Another aspect of the Pinault Collection is its long-standing interest in what might be called singular artist positions. Thus, the exhibition at SONGEUN will begin with artworks by Danh Vo, a Danish artist of Vietnamese origin whom Pinault Collection has presented several times in the museums in Venice and Paris. Located on the first floor of the exhibition space, the selection presented here allows the audience to grasp Danh Vo’s work, strongly marked by a fundamental and original form of displacement linked to his origins. 

Then, the journey continues with the “Welcome Room” dedicated to African-American artist David Hammons, featuring five emblematic works that span his career from the late 1960s to the present, allowing visitors to embrace all the questions that have been his, from works on paper from the late 1960s to his very recent pieces.

Facing Hammons’ works, Anri Sala - an artist of Albanian origin who mainly uses moving images and to whom Pinault Collection dedicated an exhibition at the Bourse de Commerce in 2022 - specifically recomposes for the Auditorium of SONGEUN the video 1395 Days Without Red, 2011 a poignant work in the besieged Sarajevo. This work takes individuals into other realities and makes the audience feel both the madness of humanity and the beauty of hope through music that transcends time and space. 

From the 2nd to the 3rd floor of the exhibition space, the exhibition features vibrating dialogues between Miriam Cahn and Peter Doig; Marlene Dumas and Luc Tuymans; Lucas Arruda and Anicka Yi; Julie Mehretu and Rudolf Stingel. 

The ultimate experience in the underground spaces of SONGEUN is the magical and unsettling installation Opera (QM. 15) by Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, in which she embodies the mythical Maria Callas and plunges visitors into a moment of intense temporal disturbance. 

Portrait of a Collection promises to be a landmark event in Seoul’s cultural calendar, offering an immersive experience that reflects the depth and breadth of the Pinault Collection. SONGEUN invites art enthusiasts, collectors, and the general public to engage with this extraordinary exhibition and explore the rich vitality of contemporary art.

The exhibition is sponsored by Saint Laurent as the house has supported encompassing various artists across a spectrum of artistic disciplines, including visual arts, film, and music.