The exhibition’s central figure is Nam June Paik, whose 1986 satellite project “Bye Bye Kipling” directly challenged British writer Rudyard Kipling’s famous line that East and West could never meet, presenting instead the possibility of communication across borders and cultures. Paik studied aesthetics and art history in Japan in the 1950s and built close ties with Japan’s avant-garde art scene, where he met his lifelong partner and artistic collaborator Shigeko Kubota. Alongside Paik’s work, the exhibition presents Kubota’s video work “Broken Diary: Korean Trip,” which documents Paik’s return to South Korea after 34 years abroad.
The exhibition traces artistic exchange through several historical periods. Its first section, “In Between: Zainichi Koreans’ Gaze,” examines the lives of Korean artists who remained in Japan after liberation. Cho Yanggyu’s “Sealed Warehouse” depicts a dark, enclosed labor site and reflects both the reality faced by Zainichi Koreans and the wounds left by national division.
After the section on Zainichi Koreans, the exhibition explores the growth of artistic exchange after South Korea and Japan normalized diplomatic relations in 1965. Works by Lee Ufan, Park Seo-bo, Yun Hyong-keun, Jiro Takamatsu, and Kishio Suga show how artists in the two countries influenced one another as modern art movements developed across borders.
Later sections focus on the 1990s, when exchange expanded from official institutions to personal networks and collaborative relationships. Works by Masato Nakamura, Takashi Murakami, and Lee Bul reflect this shift. Lee Bul’s “Cyborg W5” presents a futuristic but incomplete body, questioning boundaries between humans and machines and between male and female identities. The work reflects shared concerns about technology and identity that shaped Korean and Japanese contemporary art after the 1990s.
The exhibition’s final section shifts from past exchange to present-day solidarity. Koki Tanaka’s “Vulnerable Histories: A Road Movie” links the massacre of Koreans after the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake to more recent anti-Korean demonstrations in Japan, asking viewers to consider histories of discrimination and exclusion. Jung Yeondoo’s “Magician’s Walk” reflects on landscapes after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and explores the possibility of empathy and solidarity with the suffering of others.
The exhibition extends to the museum’s outdoor sculpture park in Gwacheon. Six sculptures by Korean artists based in Japan and Japanese artists, including Duckjun Kwak, Quac Insik, and Lee Ufan, highlight the museum’s role as an important site of Korean-Japanese artistic exchange.
Kim Sung-hee, director of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, said the exhibition revisits “historical moments experienced by the two countries and the traces of artistic exchange formed within them.” She said she hopes the exhibition will offer visitors a chance to rediscover “the status and possibilities of Korean and Japanese contemporary art.”