Around 50 Paintings, Sculptures and Videos Presented Alongside New Works Inspired by Gyeongju

Japanese contemporary artist Yukimasa Ida will present “Remembering You: The Act of Memory” at OAR Contemporary Art Museum in Gyeongju from Aug. 23 through March 14, 2027. The museum describes it as the artist’s first large-scale solo exhibition in Korea.

Organized around the theme of memory, the exhibition brings together approximately 50 paintings, sculptures and video works across five sections.

Born in Tottori Prefecture, Japan, in 1990, Ida studied oil painting at Tokyo University of the Arts and completed his master’s degree there in 2019. In 2017, he became the youngest artist at the time to participate in a charity auction organized by the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation. He collaborated with Dior in 2021.

Ida’s practice is based on the Japanese concept of “ichi-go ichi-e,” which refers to the unrepeatable nature of an encounter. He uses painting and sculpture to record experiences of people, places and moments that cannot occur in the same form again.

His paintings combine recognizable figures with abstract brushwork. Thick layers of paint and visible surface marks are used to register both the subject and the physical process of making the work.

The exhibition includes portraits of the artist’s family and partner. It also presents works that reinterpret paintings from art history, including Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica” and Diego Velázquez’s “Las Meninas.”

Works from Ida’s “End of Today” series, in which he completes one piece at the end of a day, will also be shown. A video documenting the burning of a canvas addresses the production and disappearance of an artwork.

New works developed after Ida visited Gyeongju will be presented for the first time. The artist translated his memories of the city’s locations and accumulated history into his established visual language.

The exhibition occupies the museum’s basement and second-floor galleries. OAR Contemporary Art Museum is open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and closed on Tuesdays.

SayArt.net
Maria Kim sayart2022@gmail.com