Seoul and Pyongyang, Patterns of Two Cities: Kim Taegyun's Ornament | SAF Online Gallery
Seoul and Pyongyang, Patterns of Two Cities: Kim Taegyun's Ornament
Artist Stories · 2026-04-20 · 씨앗페 매거진
Kim Taegyun's *Ornament* collages Seoul and Pyongyang highway interchanges into one pattern. Six years between Stuttgart and Seoul; held by Seoul MoA and Busan MoCA.
From afar, Kim Taegyun's Ornament #3 looks like a tangle of plant tendrils or blood vessels.
Come closer and this ornament is entirely highway interchanges. Not one city's interchanges but a photo-collage overlaying interchanges collected from Seoul and Pyongyang onto one frame.
"The new ornamental form made as these roads meet and abut each other expresses an artistic reading of the geopolitical character of the Korean peninsula and a poetic metaphor for a new future."
The artist's note. Inside this vine-like image with no visible exit or entry, the two cities' roads point at one another and rotate together.
Six Years in Stuttgart
Kim Taegyun's record passes at length through Stuttgart, Germany.
2006 Kunstprojekt Vor Part, Birkenwaldstrasse, Stuttgart
2009 Zart, curated by Jan Hoet, Galerie ABT ART, Stuttgart
2010 Die Natur verbindet, Villingen-Schwenningen city park
2011 No Limits, Wirtschaftshaus Stuttgart
Featured Artworks
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2011 Shadow of Landscape, Ehingen Municipal Museum of Art, Germany — curated invitational (solo)
2012 60 Works for Baden-Württemberg, Singen Municipal Museum
Jan Hoet is the famed Belgian curator who led Documenta IX (Kassel, 1992). Being selected for his curated show signals that Kim Taegyun had established a place within the German-speaking contemporary-art scene. The Ehingen Municipal Museum invitational solo sits in the same context.
After Return: Seoul MoA and Kim Chong Yung Museum
In 2013, Kim Taegyun was selected for Seoul Museum of Art's Emerging Artists and held Eternal Vacation at Space Can. That year he also joined Events at MMCA Goyang Art Studio. Major group shows after:
2014 BETWEEN WAVES, Amorepacific Museum of Art APMAP, Osulloc Museum, Jeju
2015 Salon de SeMA, Seoul Museum of Art New Acquisitions
2017 Boundary 155, Seoul Museum of Art main building
2019 Busan Museum of Contemporary Art New Acquisitions Formula of Imagination
2019 Kim Chong Yung Museum Creation-Support solo Edited Territories
2022 Time of Buffer, Gyeonggi Cheonnyeon-gil Gallery
2023 "Observe Peace", Jeon Tae-il Memorial Hall Gallery
2025 Yesterday Is the Future of the Past, Songwon Art Center
That his work sits as new acquisitions at both SeMA and Busan Museum of Contemporary Art means he is already positioned inside key domestic public collections.
Square 100×100 cm. Photo-collages of two cities' interchanges. Another note from the artist:
"The image of vehicles traveling their paths, with exits and entries invisible, seems to resemble the Korean peninsula's political relations where connection and communication look distant, and at the same time metaphorically expresses the invisible attempt to place each other's roads together to make a new road."
Overlaying interchanges of two cities closed to each other, unexpectedly, a new ornament arises. That is Ornament. A word meaning decoration paradoxically turns the geopolitical tension of Korea.
Where Roads Touch
84.9% of Korean artists are excluded from institutional finance. Sales of works by SAF-exhibiting artists cycle into a mutual-aid fund, returning as low-interest loans to fellow artists.
The message Ornament carries is clear. Even roads that cannot meet become a pattern when placed on the same surface. SAF's fund moves on similar principle. An artist and a collector unknown to each other, one artist and another artist unknown to each other, meet through one sale and one loan. Without direct intersection, they uphold one another inside the same structure.
Where a New Pattern Arises
If two cities cannot meet, they can at least meet on one photograph.
Kim Taegyun's practice is the visualization of that impossible meeting. SAF 2026 sits in a similar place. If artists and institutional finance cannot meet, they can at least meet on the structure of mutual aid. Like two cities becoming a pattern on one frame.
