From November 27, 2024, to January 11, 2025, PKM Gallery in Seoul will host a solo exhibition by Cuban-American artist Jorge Pardo (b. 1963). Known for his groundbreaking exploration of spatial aesthetics through the integration of design and fine art, Pardo’s return to Korea marks his first exhibition in the country in 22 years since his 2002 showcase at the same venue. This exhibition will feature over 20 new works, including paintings, drawings, lamps, furniture, and textiles, blurring the lines between art and everyday life.
Pardo’s practice is defined by his ability to transform functional materials into the language of fine art through flowing light, bold colors, and organic forms. His work seamlessly bridges the realms of art, design, interior architecture, and beyond, embodying both aesthetic beauty and practicality. He first gained international acclaim with his 1998 project 4166 Sea View Lane at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. For this project, Pardo constructed a house atop a Los Angeles hillside, using materials such as wood, concrete, and glass, and adorned its interiors with his iconic lamp installations. His Tecoh project (2012), a decade-long transformation of a historic estate in the Yucatán jungle of Mexico into a vibrant, livable artwork, remains one of his most celebrated achievements. In 2018, Pardo’s vision culminated in the opening of L’Arlatan, a hotel in Arles, France, where he meticulously designed every detail, from floor tiles to chandeliers.
The upcoming exhibition will include 14 lamp sculptures created between 2023 and 2024, along with custom-designed furniture such as cabinets, benches, and carpets. Pardo’s lamp sculptures, an ongoing series he began in the 1980s, serve multiple roles—as studies of color, as standalone sculptures, and as functional lighting fixtures. The new lamps were crafted using advanced laser-cutting techniques, with their intricate designs evoking the flexible structures of biological forms like molecules, honeycombs, and vertebrae.
Paintings and drawings will also be prominently displayed, showcasing Pardo’s unique approach to abstraction. These works deconstruct and layer historical and personal imagery, creating compositions that are simultaneously complex and open to interpretation. Titled Untitled, they intentionally reject fixed meanings, inviting viewers to discover unexpected connections and moments of serendipity. The exhibition encourages visitors to reimagine the boundaries between functionality and beauty, art and design, and even life and art, offering a transformative experience within a unified artistic environment.
Jorge Pardo was born in Havana, Cuba. He pursued biology at the University of Illinois at Chicago before earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. His work has been exhibited at prestigious institutions worldwide, including the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, the Dia Center for the Arts in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah, K21 in Düsseldorf, and the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) in Dublin. His projects have also been featured in renowned international events, such as Skulptur Projekte Münster (1997) and the Venice Biennale (2017).
Pardo has received numerous accolades, including the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award (1995), the Lucelia Artist Award from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (2001), and the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship Award (2010). His works are part of the permanent collections of major art institutions, such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and Tate Modern in London.
The exhibition at PKM Gallery offers a rare opportunity for Korean audiences to engage with Pardo’s distinctive vision, where the boundaries between art, design, and functionality dissolve. By immersing visitors in a cohesive artistic environment, the show promises to redefine perceptions of time and space, inviting them to "live inside a work of art."
Sayart / Nao Yim, yimnao@naver.com
