Korean contemporary artists Suki Seokyeong Kang, Michael Joo, Byron Kim, Park Chan-kyong, Yeondoo Jung, and Kyungah Ham are participating in the group exhibition The Shape of Time: Korean Art after 1989 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This exhibition marks the first large-scale Korean contemporary art show in the United States since 2009, presenting diverse works by 28 artists that encapsulate their collective memory of the significant societal changes occurred during the late 1980s in Korea.

Having lived through the transition from an authoritarian regime to democratic freedom, the artists visually portray Korea's past, present, and future using various mediums such as painting, photography, embroidery, installation, video, and performance. While their works embody individual experiences of complex and diverse cultural encounters, rapid urbanization and industrialization, political tensions with North Korea, and the integration of traditional Korean techniques in contemporary art, such distinctly Korean narratives, at the same time, also evoke universal resonance for all.

Among the works on view, Byron Kim’s Synecdoche (1991-ongoing), which records the unique skin colors of his acquaintances, and Michael Joo’s Headless (2000), a series of Buddha sculptures sitting beneath hanging plastic doll heads, address the theme of identity. Kyungah Ham's series of embroidered paintings that depict chandelier figures on silk, titled What you see is the unseen / Chandeliers for Five Cities (2016-2017), embeds the invisible realities of the division of Korea, including censorship, smuggling, codes, and tension, manifested through its collaborative process with North Korean craftsmen carried out across the border via China. Park Chan-kyong's photographic work Power Passage (2004-2007) and Yeondoo Jung’s video Eulji Theater (2019) similarly capture the ongoing history that continues to impact Korea’s identity as a divided nation. The exhibition also features works by Suki Seokyeong Kang, who reinterprets tradition with a contemporary twist, inspired by the geometric shapes of jeongganbo, a traditional musical score originating from the Joseon dynasty, and hwamunseok, a mat used to demarcate the floor area of a traditional one-person court dance. The exhibition continues through February 11, 2024.