[Gallery Walk] "Exhibitions Are Intimidating"... Why Shin Yang Park Brought 30 Tons into the Museum

Sejong Center, Shin Yang Park's Solo Exhibition "The Fourth Wall"

A Theatrical Exhibition Blending Paintings, Actors, and Visitors

An Unfamiliar Exhibition Hall Transformed with 30 Tons of Concrete Formwork

The walls of the exhibition hall feel unfamiliar. Instead of white walls, there are layers of concrete formwork, the kind of metal panels typically seen at construction sites. Approximately 1,500 panels of euro form have been installed in the underground exhibition space at the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts. In terms of weight, they total around 30 tons. Large paintings are hung on top of these structures.

Actor Park Shinyang is giving a greeting at the press conference commemorating his solo exhibition "Park Shinyang's Exhibition Show: The Fourth Wall" and the publication of "Discovery of Emotion," held on the 6th at Sejong Center for the Performing Arts in Jongno-gu, Seoul. Photo by Yonhap News Agency

Walking through the exhibition, one senses something unusual. While visitors have come to view art, the space also feels like a worksite or even a stage. Actor Shin Yang Park's exhibition "The Fourth Wall" begins with this unfamiliar landscape.

At the press conference held on the 5th, Shin Yang Park started by explaining the exhibition walls. "I thought of the exhibition hall as a studio. So I wondered how to interpret those walls. I felt that plain white walls weren't the answer." The material he chose was concrete formwork.

Euro form is a temporary structure used in architecture to pour concrete. Once the concrete sets, the formwork is removed and disappears. Shin Yang Park compared this structure to the environment of artistic creation.

He explained that, just like the narrow gap before concrete solidifies, moments of new attempts emerge between rigid and fixed concepts; creation also takes place within that kind of tension.

The exhibition is unique even in its name: it is not simply an "exhibition," but an "exhibition show." Inside the venue, actors appear—sometimes passing between the paintings, sometimes emerging and vanishing unexpectedly. Visitors, while viewing the artworks, find themselves pausing. For a moment, they may be unsure whether they are at an art exhibition or a performance.

Shin Yang Park describes this approach as "theatrical exhibition." He has worked as an actor for nearly 30 years. He explains that his experiences living on the stages of theater, film, and TV dramas have naturally extended into his painting.

"In theater, there is a concept called the 'fourth wall'—an invisible barrier that separates actors and the audience," he said.

In theater, actors are on stage while the audience watches from outside. When this boundary is broken, actors may address the audience directly or audience members might find themselves drawn into the performance. The title of this exhibition is rooted in this idea. Shin Yang Park shared that he wanted to blur these boundaries in the exhibition hall as well.

Actor Park Shinyang is introducing his solo exhibition "Park Shinyang's Exhibition Show: The Fourth Wall" at the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts in Jongno-gu, Seoul on the 6th. Photo by Yonhap News

Exhibition spaces are typically constructed with a one-way gaze in mind: the audience looks at the artwork, which simply hangs before them. Shin Yang Park wanted to alter this relationship somewhat.

To do so, he created various "situations" throughout the space. The presence of actors is set up as if they are spirits inhabiting the artist's studio—when the artist is away, the paintings and paints come alive and move about. This mechanism scatters the viewer's attention in multiple directions.

Some visitors focus on the paintings; others watch the actors; still others take in the entire space. Shin Yang Park refers to this as a "multilayered gaze."

"Usually, the relationship is simply that I look at the artwork. I wondered if it might be possible for the audience to create stories within this context," he added.

Around 150 works are on display, most of them large in scale. The artist mentioned that transporting these pieces was actually the most challenging aspect of mounting the exhibition.

"Paintings can't walk on their own. Organizing an exhibition requires a tremendous amount of preparation." He began painting a little over a decade ago. The starting point for his works was not a specific event, but an emotion. The emotion he held onto the longest was "longing."

"At first, I missed a friend. That's why I began painting my friend's face." He also pointed out that this kind of emotion is becoming increasingly difficult to discuss in modern society.

"These days, to share such feelings, you either have to be very close or drink a lot of alcohol. But I believe it's an essential emotion for humans." Inside the exhibition, it is not only the paintings that move—people move, and so do their gazes. Some viewers linger over the canvases, others follow the actors as they pass by. Some pause for a moment and take in both simultaneously.

The "fourth wall" in theater originally refers to the boundary dividing stage and audience. In this exhibition, that boundary becomes somewhat ambiguous. Visitors may arrive to view paintings, but at some point, they find themselves standing within the scene itself.

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