New Museum will work in the Yeouido district, one of the key business centers of the South Korean capital. On April 3, French President Emmanuel Macron, Culture Minister Catherine Pegar, and Centre Pompidou President Laurent Le Bon visited the construction site.
The opening of the museum in Seoul is part of the international “Constellation” program that the Pompidou Center is implementing in France and abroad during the renovation of its historic building in Paris.
In the coming months, the institution will open two new locations at once - in Seoul and Brussels, which will be an important milestone in its history.
In the summer of 2023, with the support of the French Ministry of Culture and the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, a partnership agreement was signed to create the Centre Pompidou Hanwha in South Korea.
Photo: Hanwha Foundation
The new exhibition space, covering an area of over 11,000 square meters, designed by the architectural firm Wilmotte & Associés, will be located in the iconic 63 Building.
The choice of Seoul as a partner city is not accidental: over the past decade, the city's cultural and museum infrastructure has expanded significantly, and exhibitions annually attract a large national and international audience.
Eight major exhibitions in five years
As part of the collaboration, eight monographic and thematic exhibitions will be presented in Seoul during the reconstruction of the Paris Pompidou Center - two each year for five years.
All exhibitions will be based on the collection of the Centre Pompidou National Museum of Modern Art. Each year, the Korean branch will present two large-scale exhibitions dedicated to key artists and art movements of the 20th century.
Emphasis on Korean contemporary art
In parallel, the museum will host a series of contemporary art exhibitions with a focus on Korean artists, combining global art narratives with local cultural context.
The program aims to create a dialogue between art history and contemporary art. In addition to exhibitions, the space will include an educational program and a special area for young audiences, where visitors can interact with the artworks.
Space of the future
The new museum is conceived as a future-oriented institution that continues the French museum’s tradition of innovation. Each exhibition will be created based on collaborative research by French and Korean curatorial teams.
We previously wrote that Kengo Kuma designs a new building for the National Gallery in London.
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