Co-production Palais de Tokyo (Paris) – Seoul Museum of Art

SeMA, Seoul Museum of Art, 61, Deoksugung-gil, Jung-gu, Seoul, Korea

The Palais de Tokyo and its Pavillon Neuflize OBC artist-in-residence programme have joined forces with the Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA) and the SeMA Nanji Residency to present the Urban Legends exhibition at SeMA. The show is the result of an exchange project celebrating the 130^th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Korea and France.

The exhibition presents the work of the 2015-2016 residents of the Pavillon Neuflize OBC: Alexis Guillier (FR), Hoël Duret (FR), Jean-Alain Corre (FR), Lou Lim (PHI) Ollie Palmer (UK) Ayoung Kim (KOR, a previous resident artist of the SeMA Nanji Residency) and Ange Leccia(FR), director of the Pavillon Neuflize OBC. It is the culmination of months of experimental collaboration between the two residences and a workshop conducted in Seoul by the Pavillon Neuflize OBC residents.

Urban Legends merges influences, topics and patterns from Paris, Seoul and others cities, introducing fictions, rumours and artistic dissemination. Each artist creates their own version of urban myths, playing with narratives and perspectives in the age of globalization.

From a lecture about Candyman (Alexis Guillier) to the conception of the Opéra de Paris as a vessel linked to the history of bitumen (Ayoung Kim), as well as the apparition of the Twin Towers (Ange Leccia), the works produce reflections and doubts about what is surely known.

The show presents thematic and formal contrasts, mirroring the influx of information we have become accustomed to in the Internet era.

Bread metamorphosed into jugs (Lou Lim), weird bondage for a mattress (Jean-Alain Corre), coloured paintings opening a window to the fourth dimension (Hoël Duret), a dual-screen film examining propaganda and business (Ollie Palmer); all the objects, installations and videos imply that reality is sometimes far more disturbing than screens when we step out of the frame of truth.

This project is part of the Palais de Tokyo’s ongoing mission to promote the contemporary French art scene in an international context.

Previous initiatives have included an exhibition co-produced with the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore (2015-2016), two participations at the Lyon Biennale (2013 and 2015), the itinerant exhibition Inside China (a co-production with the K11 Foundation) and projects with MoMA PS1 and the Stedelijk Museum in 2014.

www.sema.seoul.go.kr