[Gallery Walk] The Vanished Rooms of Women Reopened

Leeum's "Into Other Spaces: Synesthetic Environments by Women Artists 1956-1976"

Restoring 20 Years of Synesthetic Environments by Women Artists

As you step into the black shroud, a layer of smoke hangs low. Sirens blare, and lights graze your face. Voices emerge from the darkness: "You are now inside my work." Here, the viewer is no longer someone who simply observes the artwork, but rather someone who has entered into it.

Jeong Kangja_Muchejeon. Leeum Museum of Art

This is "Muchejeon," a 1970 work by Jeong Gangja. It was her first solo exhibition, held at the National Public Information Hall, and an early environmental art project attempted by a Korean female artist. However, the exhibition was dismantled midway. The authorities, seeing avant-garde art as political agitation, shut down the room. All that remained were a few news articles, the artist’s notes, and fragments of memory. After 56 years, Leeum Museum of Art has reconstructed this vanished room.

The special exhibition "Into Other Spaces: Synesthetic Environments by Women Artists 1956-1976," opening on May 5 at Leeum Museum of Art in Yongsan-gu, Seoul, begins with this scene. Saying that the exhibition "introduces forgotten women artists" would not be enough. More precisely, it re-questions art forms that were at risk of being lost—art that cannot be hung on the wall, is difficult to sell, and is dismantled after the exhibition ends. What does it mean for art to exist as something that is hard to endure both as a work and as history?

Art was no longer an object hanging on the wall. It became a place that enveloped the body, disoriented you, and stimulated your skin, ears, and eyes all at once. The problem was that such art was difficult to preserve. Once the exhibition ended, it was dismantled; it rarely entered the market, and records were scattered. With the added condition of being a woman artist, their works were erased from art history once because of their gender and again due to the physical disappearance of their works.

Yamazaki Tsuruko_Red. Leeum Museum of Art

The exhibition covers roughly 20 years, from Yamazaki Tsuruko’s "Red," presented at the 1956 Gutai Art Exhibition in Japan, to "Environment/Art" at the 1976 Venice Biennale. The environmental works of 11 women artists—including Judy Chicago, Lygia Clark, Laura Grisi, Aleksandra Kasuba, Jeong Gangja, Lea Lublin, Marta Minujin, Tania Mouraud, Nanda Vigo, Yamazaki Tsuruko, and Marian Zazeela—have been reconstructed at full scale.

"Environment" here was not a format where the viewer stands outside the work. Instead, one entered inside and experienced light and sound, color and air, wind and tactile sensations with the whole body. This is closer to a prehistory of the now-familiar "installation." Yet, when writing this history, the names of women artists were often omitted. Their works were difficult to preserve, documentation was scarce, and the focus of art history still pointed toward painting and sculpture, male artists, and institutional narratives.

Thus, the core of this exhibition is restoration. But it is not restoration in the sense of perfectly recreating the original. Rather, it is a restoration that endures the impossibility of complete recovery. Andrea Lissoni, Artistic Director of Haus der Kunst, and Marina Pugliese, Director of MUDEC Milan, traced old magazine articles, exhibition layouts, photographs, and artist estate materials. They communicated directly with surviving artists, and for deceased artists, they pieced together works through families and archives. At a press meeting, Director Lissoni referred to this process as "forensic"—less like creation and more like investigation.

Aleksandra Kasuba_Spectrum Passage. Leeum Museum of Art

"Muchejeon" most clearly reveals these difficulties. There were no precise blueprints, measurements, or lighting angles left behind—only clues such as black plastic curtains, smoke, beams of light, and the artist’s voice. Leeum reconstructed the space based on newspaper articles, the artist’s notes, and testimonies from family members. Because the actual voice of Jeong Gangja from that period does not remain, an AI-generated voice was created using audio materials provided by her family. Can we call this the original? It is not easy to say yes, but the question itself becomes an important part of this exhibition.

If Jeong Gangja’s room is time interrupted, then "Dream House" by Marian Zazeela, La Monte Young, and Choi Jeonghee is time continued. Conceived in 1962 and first realized in a New York loft in 1966, this environment of sound and light continues to evolve. The Leeum exhibition presents this work in Asia for the first time. One room was forcibly closed; the other has endured. By placing the two side by side, Leeum shows two timelines of environmental art—the time of restoration and the time of continuation.

In the exhibition space, there are many moments when the body responds before the mind. Yamazaki Tsuruko’s "Red" is a red structure that requires you to crouch down to enter. Lygia Clark’s "The House is the Body" is a physical device that takes you through the process of conception and birth. Marta Minujin’s "Live Rolling!" is a playful and provocative space made of mattresses. In front of Laura Grisi’s "Sirocco," actual wind pushes visitors away. Judy Chicago’s "Feather Room" fills the space not with hard materials and the authority of straight lines, but with light, fluttering materials.

Judy Chicago_Feather Room. Leeum Museum of Art

However, this exhibition is different from a "hands-on exhibition." It is not simply because the lights are beautiful or the spaces are unfamiliar; it is because sensation itself serves as an assertion. Soft cloth, feathers, wind, smoke, and sound are not decorations. They displace the traditional place of painting and sculpture in art history and place the viewer’s body at the center of the work. The fact that these are works by women artists is also significant here. They did not choose peripheral forms because they were on the margins—they opened up spaces that could not be created using the language of the existing center.

Kim Sungwon, Deputy Director of Leeum Museum of Art, described this exhibition at a press meeting as "professional, art-historically valuable, and popular at the same time." In reality, both children and art historians can respond to the exhibition on their own levels. Yet behind that easy response lies a weighty question: Why are some works preserved for a long time, while others disappear first? Why do some artists remain in art history by name, while others are only restored belatedly?

"Into Other Spaces" presents not only the stories of 11 women artists, but also a belated questioning of what art history has recognized as "artwork," and what has been considered worthy of documentation. Even after leaving the exhibition, the most persistent afterimage is not a trace of light, but the realization that there are still many once-closed rooms in our art history. The exhibition runs through November 29.

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