Asian Women Artists Take Prominent Role in Expansive Seoul Exhibition
The historical context gives the exhibition significant weight. Featuring approximately 130 works by around 60 Asian women artists from 11 countries and territories across East, South, and Southeast Asia—Korea, Japan, China, Singapore, Indonesia, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, and India— “Connecting Bodies” surveys works from the 1960s, when women’s art began to emerge in the region, to the present.
Certainly, names like Yayoi Kusama, Yoko Ono, Lee Bul, and Cao Fei are well-known in the global art world today. But what about those artists who are in-between, or those who have not received the same level of exposure internationally or even regionally? How do they differ? Do they share any common ground?
An ambitious and expansive exhibition like this offers a great opportunity to examine these artists and their practices while reflecting on the transformation experienced over the past six decades. This period, coincidentally, corresponds to the sexagenary cycle that forms the foundation of the lunisolar calendar that is still widely used in many parts of Asia. In a way, the opening of this signifies the return to the starting point of these 60 cycles, an appropriate time to review and contextualize the rich materials from the past to present.
As I explored the exhibition occupying two galleries located on the museum’s basement level, the theme of “bodies” on display was quite evident. From the image of Korean artist Jung Kangja’s iconic performance The Transparent Balloons and Nude (1968), the country’s first known female nude performance featuring the artist covering her naked with transparent balloons, to Philippine artist Agnes Arellano’s surrealist sculpture Carcass Cornucopia (1987), which depicts the body of a woman horse feet hung upside down, with her torso ripped revealing a baby inside, and the captivating video work Dance with Farm Workers2001 by Chinese artist Wen Hui, bodies are not merely part of the artwork, but also a conduit and a point convergence.
Works selected for this project live up to the expectations outlined by Bae Myungji, MMCA’s curator who also curated this ambitious show, which “focuses on the values of communication, connection, and solidarity associated with the body.” It explores works “through the lens of corporeality,” the curator said. “The body is a place where various ideologies and situations intersect, and it also represents a locus where one can explore the existential possibilities of difference and diversity.”
Rather than organizing works in chronological order and categorizing works and artists by region, the show is made up of six thematic sections, with each featuring a selection of works to echo the respective theme, each punctuated by bold works and rarely seen pieces.
Chinese artist Guo Fengyi’s drawings from late 1990s to 2000s referencing the intersections between humans and beings of a higher realm set the tone for “Bodies · God(desse)s · Cosmology.” Paintings by artists such as Pacita Abad from the Philippines, Kim Insoon from Korea, and Fitriani Dwi Kurniasih from Indonesia explore femininity borrowing images from folklores and mythologies.
“Street Performances” is a collage of rare documentation of important performances by women artists from past to present. The show concludes with “Bodies as Becoming–Connecting Bodies,” dedicated to works that transcend the rigid boundaries and hierarchies that have long marginalized women. Among the highlights are Thai artist Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook’s video work The Class (2005) and Korean artist Kim Nahee’s newly commissioned illustration and video installation piece Gossip Girl Protocol (2024).
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