Korean media art to be featured in Paris during summer Olympics

“Wrap Around the World" by Paik Nam-june (Courtesy of Electronic Arts Intermix, New York)

Korean media art will be presented in Paris in July to coincide with the 2024 Summer Olympics featuring video art founder Paik Nam-june and leading Korean contemporary media artists.

The exhibition “Decoding Korea, La Coree Decodee” will be held from July 26 to Aug. 25 at the Grand Palais Immersif, an art center dedicated to digital art in Paris, hosted by the South Korean Culture Ministry and organized by the Korea Arts Management Service.

A total of 18 media artworks by 11 artists will be shown at the art center. Among the works is “Double Poser” by Kim Hee-cheon, which raises philosophical questions about our understanding of time, according to the art center. Kim is the winner of the 20th Hermes Foundation Missulsang in 2023.

"Inside Dream" by Roomtone (Courtesy of the artist)

The special section dedicated to Paik will show the half-hour video “Global Groove” created in 1973. The media art features a video collage, showing a mixture of elements from different cultures.

Another work by Paik, “Wrap Around the World,” revealed a week before the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, shows pop singers and avant-garde artists mingling together for the show. The work is considered meaningful as eleven broadcasting stations across the globe, including those from Russia and China, took part in the project as the Cold War was coming to an end.

A VR artwork by Roomtone titled “Inside Dream” digitally reconstructs the artist’s personal dreams and shares them with the audience.

"Crow’s Eye View" by Jung Yeon-Doo (Courtesy of the artist)

Other joining artists are Lee Lee-nam, Park June-bum, Lee Yong-baek, Kwon Ha-youn, Kang Yi-yun, Jeong Yeon-doo and Ram Han.

The exhibition is part of the ministry’s Korea Season 2024 project that promotes Korean culture globally with a particular focus on Paris, the host city of the 2024 Summer Olympics.