[Gallery Walk] Only Events Remain, the Artworks Are Nowhere to Be Seen

Tino Sehgal Solo Exhibition at Leeum Museum of Art

Art Completed by the Bodies of the Audience

Shaking Up the Audience's Experience with Art That Leaves No Record

Suddenly, someone begins to dance in the lobby of the Leeum Museum of Art. A person who seemed to be a museum staff member shouts, "This is so contemporary." Some visitors laugh, while others pause for a moment. At this point, almost everyone does something simultaneously: they reach for their phone. However, in this exhibition, the next action does not follow. Photography is prohibited.

Artist Tino Segal visits the Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul for his first solo exhibition in Korea. Photo by Yonhap News

The solo exhibition of Tino Sehgal, which opened at the Leeum Museum of Art on March 4, begins with this small moment of awkwardness. Before explaining the artwork, the exhibition first changes the way visitors engage with art. Usually, when we enter an exhibition space, we take photos before even looking at the pieces. Viewing the exhibition starts by creating a record. Sehgal's exhibition briefly disrupts that order.

British artist Tino Sehgal has pursued a single question for the past 25 years: How can art exist without material substance? He does not create paintings or sculptures. Instead, he uses the human body, voice, and the relationship with the audience as the materials of his work. The artist refers to his creations not as performances, but as "constructed situations."

Inside the exhibition hall are performers called interpreters. Some walk slowly, others dance, and some engage the audience in conversation. Visitors pass through these scenes. At certain moments, it becomes briefly confusing who is the artwork and who is the audience.

Someone quietly starts a conversation. Sometimes they share a personal story, sometimes they ask a question. The visitor pauses. They wonder whether they should respond or simply move on. That brief hesitation seems to create the sense of time unique to this exhibition.

The exhibition "Keith" (2010) held at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, USA. At the Leeum, two interpreters physically reenact this among Rodin's sculptures. Photo by AP

The representative work "Kiss" clearly demonstrates this artistic approach. Amid Rodin's sculptures, which are part of Leeum's collection, two interpreters embrace and move slowly together. Various "kiss" scenes from art history are reenacted through living bodies. With bronze sculptures and living bodies placed in the same space, the very conditions of sculpture begin to feel unfamiliar.

During a press conference, Sehgal said, "I wanted to show that a sculpture can exist without material substance." It appears to be an attempt to view sculpture not as an object, but as a scene. The posture of the bodies, the distance between the two people, and the gaze of the audience all become part of the work.

For this reason, even with the same work, Sehgal's pieces never repeat the exact same scene. The interpreters change, the audience changes, and the situation changes. The work may have the same title, but it is never the same piece. In the exhibition space, a slightly different scene is always created.

Sehgal does not leave behind material artifacts. He does not allow photography. He rarely produces exhibition catalogues. Even when selling his works, he is known for not writing contracts, instead making oral agreements in front of a notary. He says, "An artist is someone who records their era, and I am recording history in an immaterial way."

Tino Segal Exhibition Poster_Design by Kim Youngsam. Photo by Leeum

Therefore, what the audience takes away from this exhibition is not an object, but perhaps an experience. When leaving the exhibition, there is not a single photograph. Instead, there is a lingering sense of bodily awkwardness. The moments of eye contact with someone keep coming back to mind. Perhaps Sehgal's works do not remain in the museum, but rather linger briefly within the bodies of the audience.

This exhibition introduces eight of Sehgal's works. "This Entry," "This Joy," and "This YouYou" will appear sequentially, each in six-week intervals. In the museum garden, "This You," in which a middle-aged female interpreter sings to the audience, will begin on April 3.

In the exhibition hall, Sehgal has also selected and arranged pieces from the Leeum Museum of Art's collection. These include sculptures by Kyungah Ham, Osang Gwon, Sol LeWitt, and Alberto Giacometti. Sculptures from different eras stand together in the same space. Next to Sehgal's works, which deal with the body and existence, these sculptures quietly continue their age-old questions. The exhibition runs until June 28.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.