Collections from 7 Jeonbuk Museums... "Off-Modern" to be held in Seoul

Collections from seven public museums in the Jeonbuk region will gather in one place in Seoul. This exhibition does not merely stop at introducing the works each museum has collected, but weaves them together under a single theme to view contemporary society.

The Jeonbuk Museum of Art will hold the city/county public museum collaborative exhibition "Off-Modern" at its Seoul branch from the 17th to October 11. Participating institutions include the Jeonbuk Museum of Art, Iksan Arts Center Museum, Jeongeup Museum of Art, Kim Byung Jong Art Museum Namwon, Gimje Byeokcheon Museum of Art, Choi Buk Museum of Art, and Sunchang Public Museum of Art.

This exhibition was prepared based on the city/county public museum collaborative project that the Jeonbuk Museum of Art has continued since September 2022. While previous efforts focused on sharing the collections of each regional museum and maintaining exchanges between curatorial staff, this time the collections have been reconfigured within a single theme and discourse.

The exhibition title 'Off-Modern' is taken from the concept proposed by the Russian cultural theorist Svetlana Boym. It carries the meaning of looking at the present through a perspective that deviates from the central flow of modernity.

The exhibition takes the theme of 'Fading Utopia, Materializing Dystopia.' Through the collections of the participating institutions, it examines today's reality where expectations for an ideal future are weakening and social anxieties and problems are becoming more concrete.

Through this exhibition, the Jeonbuk Museum of Art plans to explore the possibility that regional museum collections can be utilized as materials that address contemporary social questions beyond being individual institutional assets.

An official from the Jeonbuk Museum of Art stated, "While previous cooperation focused on connecting and sharing collections, this exhibition is a place to examine how those collections can respond to today's questions. We intend to use this as an opportunity to confirm the potential for thought held within regional museum collections and to seek directions for continuous cooperation."

The exhibition is free to view.