PLATEAU, Samsung Museum of Art strives to promote and reinterpret contemporary art with new vision by continuous reexamination and discourse of its complexity. As part of such efforts, (Im)Possible Landscape explores the diverse developments in contemporary art through the familiar theme of landscape, and furthermore hopes to examine the various experiences of understanding our reality through its metaphor. Landscape is not simply a “scene of land” but constructs the very backdrop of our lives, which artists capture, edit and recreate according to their will. While the past believed that one may visually grasp the world through representation, the fiction of human knowledge ultimately overlooked the invisible uncertainties of life. In contemporary art, the realm of landscape has become much more broad and fluid by shifting the viewpoint to the hidden spaces of everyday life, reassembling the fragments of experience and information, as well as extending its scope beyond representation of visible reality. Consequently, the act of observing the landscape becomes equivalent to the recognition of reality itself. The 14 participating artists in the exhibition, Kang Hong-Goo, Kong Sung-Hun, Nayoungim & Gregory Maass, Dong-Yeon Kim, Kim Beom, Sora Kim, Kim Hong Joo, Moon Beom, Yongseok Oh, Kibong Rhee, Lee Bul, Lee Seahyun and Chung Seoyoung, represent different generations and artistic styles, and their works also demonstrate the multiple directions in contemporary art branching from the common interest in the “contemplation of landscape”. The infinite possibilities of the theme proposed by the artists in this exhibition will not only provide a more approachable understanding of contemporary art but reinterpretation of the traditional genre will also provide a meaningful opportunity for broadening its horizon.

*image (left)
Acceptance neon lights,
Nayoungim & Gregory Maass
steel, 780 x 570 x 200 cm, 2012
© Nayoungim & Gregory Maass