Gallery Hyundai's 'Sauve Qui Peut' spotlights 8 artists exploring artistic conviction in the AI era
What does it mean for an artist to remain true to instinct in an era when artificial intelligence, social media and political polarization continue to reshape how people perceive reality?
Gallery Hyundai's exhibition "Sauve Qui Peut" brings together eight Korean artists born after the 1980s whose works span contemporary reinterpretations of East Asian painting, AI-assisted figurative painting, abstraction, sculpture and installation.
The exhibition takes its title from French New Wave filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard's 1979 film "Sauve qui peut (la vie)" ("Every Man for Himself"), in which labor, relationships and even art become increasingly commodified under capitalism.
"Rather than selecting artists whose work revolves around the latest buzzwords or trends, I wanted to bring together those who have built distinctive artistic worlds of their own," Kim Min-soo, director at Gallery Hyundai, told The Korea Herald.
"Here, 'saving' can mean preserving one's own artistic conviction. It could also refer to those who go on to reshape the paradigm of the future — or perhaps simply a voice crying out that no one hears."
The exhibition responds to a moment in which AI, social media and political polarization have accelerated the fragmentation of the grand narratives, historical genealogies and aesthetic canons that once underpinned the art world.
"While contemporary art has arguably become freer than ever before, it has also become increasingly uncertain," Kim said.
Spotlighting artists born after the 1980s — Kim Ju-young, Park Min-ha, Park Jung-hae, Ahn Hyun-jung, Lee Hye-in, Jung Jin-hwa, Cho Lee-sop and Sun Woo — the exhibition seeks to reflect on both the current condition and possible futures of contemporary Korean art. It unfolds across three thematic sections: "Movement, Intervals, and Drift," "Female Abstraction: Languages of Sensibility" and "Unruly Subjects."
Extending its inquiry beyond the visual arts, Gallery Hyundai has collaborated with musician Kim Oki, whose genre-defying musical practice similarly resists easy categorization. His new full-length album, "Sauve Qui Peut," expands the exhibition's central themes into the realm of music.
The exhibition runs through July 26.
yunapark@heraldcorp.com