Kwanhoon Gallery, one of the most influential institutions in the history of Korean contemporary painting, has joined forces with immersive media art platform Theatre des Lumières to present Korea's first gallery-based immersive exhibition collaboration. The project introduces Korean contemporary painting into an immersive media environment previously dominated by exhibitions centered on European masters, offering a new interpretation of local artistic heritage through digital technology.
The special exhibition, Theatre des Lumières × Kwanhoon Gallery Special Exhibition, is jointly organized by Theatre des Lumières, the immersive art venue operated by Timonet, and Kwanhoon Gallery, a leading force in Korean contemporary art. The collaboration marks a significant milestone as the country's first immersive exhibition project built around a gallery partnership, expanding Theatre des Lumières' ongoing efforts to reinterpret Korean art through contemporary visual language.
Kwanhoon Gallery has established itself as a major platform for Korean contemporary art since opening in 1979, hosting more than 700 exhibitions while continuously supporting emerging artists and experimental projects. This exhibition brings together the accumulated history of Korean painting and the possibilities of immersive media technology within a single environment.
The exhibition is designed to guide visitors through both physical and digital encounters with art. In the introductory gallery space, audiences can closely examine original paintings, appreciating brushwork, texture, and material presence. Inside the main theater, the colors, forms, and visual languages of each artist expand through large-scale projections, music, and immersive lighting. Visitors first engage with the details of the original works before experiencing those same images transformed into an environment that envelops the entire space.
Rather than replacing the originals, the project uses them as a point of departure. The physical works preserve the traces of the artist's hand and the materiality of paint, while the immersive installations translate those qualities into a new spatial scale. Participating artists include Lee Heung-deok, Byun Geon-ho, Park Eun-tae, Kim Hyung-dae, and Yoo Geun-young, each representing a distinct artistic language while collectively reflecting the breadth of Korean contemporary painting.
Lee Heung-deok reinterprets fragments of everyday life through a theatrical sensibility. His figures and objects appear rooted in reality while simultaneously taking on the presence of performers on a stage. Within Theatre des Lumières, the tension between the ordinary and the dramatic gains a new spatial dimension.
Byun Geon-ho's paintings explore materiality and vitality through abstraction. His flowing colors and forms evoke internal energy rather than specific subjects, and the immersive environment extends that sensation beyond the boundaries of the canvas.
Park Eun-tae is known for documenting labor and industrial landscapes through painting. His works capture the structures of industrialization, the rhythms of production, and the physical realities of work. Combined with light and sound, these themes acquire a renewed sense of movement and atmosphere.
Kim Hyung-dae has long investigated the depth of Korean abstraction through layered color and light. His paintings build density through color relationships and spiritual order rather than figurative representation. The immersive format magnifies those chromatic fields into architectural experiences.
Yoo Geun-young creates intensely colored worlds shaped by instinctive forms and emotional landscapes. Rather than depicting external nature, his work visualizes an inner sense of the natural world. Reimagined within Theatre des Lumières, his colors move beyond the canvas and spread throughout the surrounding space as atmosphere and rhythm.
The exhibition also raises a broader question: how can painting be revived within digital immersive environments? The answer extends beyond simply animating static images. More importantly, it concerns how the materiality, temporality, and artistic language embedded in the original works can be preserved and transformed through spatial content.
Over the years, Theatre des Lumières has redefined how audiences experience art through the integration of light, music, and digital projection technologies. Timonet introduced France's renowned immersive exhibition concept to Korea with the opening of Bunker des Lumières in Jeju in 2018, followed by Theatre des Lumières at Walkerhill in Seoul in 2022. This latest project represents a meaningful expansion from exhibitions centered on Western masterpieces toward Korean contemporary art.
The collaboration between Kwanhoon Gallery and Theatre des Lumières narrows the distance between traditional gallery painting and immersive media platforms. The gallery space displaying original works and the main theater presenting digital content do not compete with one another; instead, they offer complementary ways of experiencing the same artistic world. Together, they invite audiences to encounter contemporary painting through different scales, densities, and sensory dimensions.
The Theatre des Lumières × Kwanhoon Gallery Special Exhibition will be held from June 4 to June 21 at Theatre des Lumières, located within Walkerhill Hotel & Resort in Seoul.
Reported by News Culture M.J._mj94070777@nc.press
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