The Evanescent and the Eternal, a solo exhibition of Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010), is currently on view at the Hoam Museum of Art in Yongin, Korea. Marking the artist’s first exhibition in Korea in 25 years and the largest museum retrospective ever organized in the country, the show presents 106 works—spanning painting, sculpture, and installation—of one of the most influential artists of the 20th century.

The title of the exhibition is borrowed from Bourgeois’s own writings, reflecting her lifelong exploration of memory, the body, and time. Themes of love, fear, abandonment, and the tensions and conflicts within the family—along with the inner fractures born of trauma—permeate her entire body of work. The exhibition captures and mirrors this psychological terrain. Moreover, through the dual concept of “the evanescent and the eternal,” the exhibition captures identities and emotions that waver continually along the boundaries between male and female, past and present, the unconscious and reality.

The exhibition brings together a large body of works, including Bourgeois’s early paintings from the 1940s and the Personages series; the groundbreaking installation The Destruction of the Father (1974), a symbolic stage of imagined revenge against a domineering father figure; the bronze sculpture Janus Fleuri (1968), which merges male and female forms; Red Room (Parents) (1994), one of the most significant works from her Cells series that began in the 1990s; Cell (Black Days), a powerful condensation of melancholy and sexual tension; and her late fabric works, spanning over seven decades of artistic practice.

The exhibition also showcases Bourgeois’s diaries, personal writings throughout her life, and psychoanalytic notes, illuminating the deep connections between her inner psyche and art. It further presents a projection by conceptual artist Jenny Holzer, who reinterprets excerpts from Bourgeois’s texts, thereby deepening viewers’ experience of the exhibition. The exhibition runs through January 4, 2026.

Contemporary artist Haegue Yang’s solo exhibition, Haegue Yang: Quasi-Heartland, is currently on view at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Missouri, USA. Returning to the American Midwest in nearly 15 years since her 2011 exhibition at the Aspen Art Museum in Colorado, the artist presents a curated selection of sculptures along with a new commission work throughout the museum.

Yang has worked through multifaceted and multidisciplinary installations, dissociating everyday objects and materials—including Venetian blinds, metal bells, artificial straw, and plastic twine—from their mundane roles to recast them in multi-component sculptures or sensory experiences. Especially, the artist, who explores diverse fields spanning art history, political history, and folk culture, offers a fresh reinterpretation of common themes of quasi-migration such as artistic exile, postcolonial diaspora, social mobility, and the liminal space between figuration and abstraction. 

In particular, the large-scale commission work created for the exhibition, Mound Vehicles (2025), reflects the artist’s consistent interest in movement and performativity. Inspired by the form and historical background of CAM’s proximity to Cahokia Mounds, the work pays homage to ancient civilizations and enduring traditions by mimicking the shape of its mounds. Throughout the exhibition period, the work will be activated intermittently to embody and execute its innate mobility.

The exhibition title, Heartland, refers to the central inland region of the United States—areas not adjacent to the Pacific or Atlantic oceans—including the Midwest centered around St. Louis. It conveys both the cultural distinctiveness of the area and the position and identity of the artist as an ”outsider.” Connecting the artist to the landscapes of region and layered history while interweaving the museum’s architecture into the viewer experience, the exhibition runs through Feb 8, 2026.

Gimhongsok participated in the collaboration project Our Set 2025: Gimhongsok × Kiljong Park at Suwon Art Space Gwanggyo. An annual program that pairs artists from different genres since its launch in 2022, this year’s edition of Our Set highlighted the experimental media practices of Gimhongsok and Kiljong Park. Divided into four sections—“Running Time,” “Open Stage,” “Intermission,” and “Backstage”—the exhibition offered a glimpse into the artists’ shared landscape of imagination and playful wit through their works.

In the section “Open Stage,” Gimhongsok made visible the workings of power and social hierarchy through the invisible, positioning his practice as an interface in which diverse elements interact dynamically. Among the works on view, Oval Talk (2000, recreated in 2006–2007) is an installation that shifts its form depending on the viewer’s position and angle. The idea for this work was raised from the artist’s questioning of his own preconceptions of the sphere as a “perfect” form. Gimhongsok transforms this reflection into a mythic narrative, conveyed through a speaker placed inside the installation. The visual experience thereby extends to that of auditory, deepening its layered meaning. Other works on view included Solitude of Silences, Public Blank, MATERIAL (2014) which invites the viewers to explore the artist’s critical yet humorous exploration into the core themes of his practice—hierarchy, labor, and regulations.

“Intermission” introduced both artists together, presenting brief information and interview footage on their practices shaped by different times and environments. Gimhongsok’s Four Gracious Plants-231234 (2023) is an experimental work that dismantles the border between East and West. Using Western materials such as acrylic paint and modeling paste, the artist paints the Four Gracious Plants (plum blossom, orchid, chrysanthemum, bamboo; 梅蘭菊竹), which was long regarded as symbols of the virtuous man in East Asian culture. Not only does he reconstruct these motifs to blur the distinction between East and West, but he also attributes authorship to a fictional artist named “Kosnoh Mig” (an anagram from his own name). Grounded in his critical perspective from the periphery rather than the center of art, Gimhongsok fluidly repositions the subject of creation.

Our Set 2025: Gimhongsok × Kiljong Park moved beyond conventional modes of collaboration and focused on the artists’ experiments in expanding and redefining their respective mediums. By bringing social and artistic orders to the surface, the exhibition created a space for visitors to newly recognize the orders of objects.

A major retrospective of the iconic American contemporary photographer Robert Mapplethorpe (1946–1989), Robert Mapplethorpe. Le form del classico, is on view at Le Stanze della Fotografia, situated on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, Italy. Presenting over 200 photographs, including works making their Italian debut, the exhibition highlights Mapplethorpe’s exploration and (re)interpretation of “classical aesthetic.”

The exhibition explores the beauty of the human body, where classical and contemporary aesthetics converge, bringing together Mapplethorpe’s early collage works alongside his nudes, still lifes, portraits, and self-portraits. In Mapplethorpe's works, male and female body illustrate perfect sinuosity, blending sensual and sacred beauty, which these contrasting elements are boldly unified throughout his oeuvre.

Notably, Mapplethorpe's early collage works from the late 1960s—many of them never shown before—incorporate drawings, images from pornographic magazines, and various found objects, reflecting his persistent exploration of identity. The exhibition also highlights his artistic partners and muses, including Patti Smith, whose presence embodies diverse codes of popular culture captured through photography, and Lisa Lyon, whose sculpted physique helped Mapplethorpe build his reputation as a cult photographer. Through these works, Mapplethorpe transcends traditional notions of gender while simultaneously revealing the beauty and vulnerability of human body. Moreover, his self-portraits present identity as fluid and mutable, positioning himself both as subject and object.

On view through January 6, 2026, this exhibition marks the beginning of Mapplethorpe’s solo exhibition trilogy. The second exhibition Robert Mapplethorpe. Le forme del desiderio will be held in Palazzo Reale in Milan, featuring a curated selection of his most iconic and bold images. The finale, Robert Mapplethorpe. Le forme della bellezza, will open later the same year at Museo dell’Ara Pacis in Rome, highlighting Mapplethorpe’s pursuit of “beauty” through classical harmony.

Jean-Michel Othoniel, Julian Opie, and Korakrit Arunanonchai participate in Ditto and Veto, a special exhibition on view at a multi-cultural art space HEREDIUM in Daejeon, Korea. Featuring 27 works by 19 contemporary artists, the exhibition highlights timely issues and sheds light on themes closely tied to social dilemmas through a range of media, including painting, sculpture, and installation.

The exhibition title Ditto and Veto combines two words: “Ditto,” meaning “the same,” and “Veto,” Latin for “to forbid.” These two seemingly opposing terms suggest a complex view that goes beyond binary divisions within the structures of approval and disapproval in contemporary society. Creating a space where diverse values can coexist, the exhibition is organized around five themes: ‘Modern Society and Human Alienation,’ ‘The Intersection of History and Identity,’ ‘Direct Speech on Socio-Political Issues,’ ‘Personal Experience and Social Prejudice,’ and ‘Subculture and Popular Culture.’

Among the exhibited works, Jean-Michel Othoniel’s Gold Lotus (2021), a stainless-steel bead sculpture cast in gold leaf, evokes empathy and recovery from discrimination and marginalization, like a lotus blooming from the mud. As an extension, Julian Opie’s two LED works from the Old Street Couple series align with the theme of alienation in contemporary society, evoking the emotions and stories of contemporary city dwellers through their continuous walking motions. Korakrit Arunanonchai presents Untitled (History Painting) (2021), a painting on denim scorched in flame in the process. The resulting work comprises the remnants of the burnt painting, ash, and photographs documenting the fire, revealing reflections on human history, memory, and Western-centric globalization and labor.

Setting a platform for dialogue and reflection through artworks that explore a wide range of themes including politics, economics, human rights, and culture, the exhibition runs through August 17, 2025.

Jean-Michel Othoniel’s solo exhibition, OTHONIEL COSMOS or the Ghosts of Love, unfolds across the city of Avignon, France. This unprecedented project—his largest solo exhibition to date—features the artist’s poetic and symbolic sculptural language developed over the past thirty years, installed across ten venues in the city. Of the 260 works on view, 160 are being shown in France for the first time.

The exhibition is conceived in celebration of the 25th anniversary of Avignon’s designation as the European Capital of Culture and the 30th anniversary of its listing as a UNESCO World Heritage site. Taking the city's historical and literary heritage as its starting point, the project activates Avignon’s cultural landmarks through contemporary art, proposing new forms of engagement with public space and suggesting novel possibilities for site-specific art. Rooted in the city’s unique identity—shaped by its 14th-century papal history—Othoniel’s artistic intervention weaves together classical and contemporary elements, spiritual symbolism, and material experimentation on an ambitious scale.

At the heart of the project is the Palais des Papes, where 133 works are displayed across 15 spaces, including 106 new works created specifically for this historic site. These include Les Constellations, a series of suspended mirror-glass and gold-leaf sculptures representing the twelve signs of the zodiac; COSMOS, monumental golden sculptures hung like a mobile from the ceiling; and La Fontaine des Délices, a fountain adorned with Murano glass and gilded bronze, and many others, placed throughout the palace.

Beyond the Palais des Papes, the exhibition extends to other major sites across the city, including the Pont d’Avignon, the Petit Palais – Louvre Museum, the Calvet Museum, the Requien Natural History Museum, and the Lapidary Museum. At each location, Othoniel’s works—ranging from sculpture and painting to installations crafted from glass and gold—transform the city into a vast operatic stage. OTHONIEL COSMOS or the Ghosts of Love is on view through January 4, 2026.
 

Ha Chong-Hyun presents a solo exhibition Light Into Color at Château La Coste, a historic vineyard and cultural space located in Aix-en-Provence, France. Marking his first solo exhibition in southern France, the exhibition presents 18 paintings from his iconic Conjunction series from the past decade at the Renzo Piano Pavilion. 

The Renzo Piano Pavilion is located at the heart of Château La Coste’s vineyard. The gallery is uniquely set six meters below the ground, creating a valley-like setting that harmonizes with the surrounding landscape. The trapezoidal shape of the building blends into the horizon, and natural light streaming through the glass windows illuminates the works. The exhibition sheds new light on Ha's work in the light and panoramic landscape of the pavilion.

Conjunction, a representative series ongoing since the mid-1970s, endows the flat surface with spatiality, subverting the stereotypes and conventional practices of painting and breaking down the binary boundaries of tradition and contemporaneity, Western technique and Eastern spirit, two-dimensional and three-dimensional. The works presented in this exhibition, ranging from Korean monochromes to diverse colors, offer a comprehensive insight into Ha's oeuvre.

Ha Chong-Hyun commented on the exhibition as follows: "My practice of Conjunction is not simply about assembling materials but about tracing the echoes of time, allowing surfaces to breathe with history. At Château La Coste, I hope my works will not only exist within the space but become part of its rhythm, engaging with its air, light, and memory. What we see is fleeting, but meaning unfolds in layers, revealing itself over time. This exhibition is a crossing point—where my lifelong inquiry meets the quiet persistence of this land." The exhibition continues through September 1, 2025.