French artist Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster's "OPERA (QM.15)" (2016) / Courtesy of Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster / ADAGP, Paris – SACK, Seoul, 2024
Upon descending into the dark, cavernous basement of SongEun Art Space in Seoul, one is immediately enveloped by the haunting echoes of arias. But whose voice is filling the air?
The answer awaits those bold enough to venture deeper into the shadows, with the bodiless voice as their sole guide. What eventually greets them is a ghostly apparition — an ethereal hologram bathed in blood-red light.
This is Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster's “OPERA (QM.15),” a spectral projection where the French artist embodies the role of Maria Callas (1923-77), one of the most iconic divas of the 20th century.
The holographic body, draped in a red dress that recalls Callas' final performances during her vocal decline, belongs to the artist. Yet, the voice soaring through the space, belting out arias from “La Traviata,” is that of a younger Callas, captured at the height of her vocal prowess.
As a result, this single image weaves together multiple temporalities — the opera singer at both the peak and decline of her career; the 21st-century body of an artist reenacting the performance of a 20th-century diva; and the emotional connection visitors today form with an intangible audio recording from the past after it has been given a new physical presence.
Emma Lavigne, director of the Pinault Collection / Courtesy of SongEun Art and Cultural Foundation
“The (disembodied) voice is reconnected to the body; the ghost and memory of Callas are reconnected with our own. It's about how her spirit and voice could find another body to continue living on in our memory,” Emma Lavigne, director of the Pinault Collection, told The Korea Times.
“And I can frankly tell you that the display of ‘OPERA' in this building is one of the best I have ever seen.”
Lavigne's assurance comes from her extensive experience working with Gonzalez-Foerster, including curating the Paris-based artist's major retrospective at the Centre Pompidou in 2015.
After her roles as the director of the Centre Pompidou-Metz and president of the Palais de Tokyo, Lavigne now heads the esteemed Pinault Collection — an eclectic assemblage of over 10,000 contemporary artworks amassed by the French billionaire François Pinault. (Pinault is the founder of the Kering luxury group, the parent company of brands like Gucci and Saint Laurent. He also owns the auction giant Christie's.)
Installation view of "Portrait of a Collection" at SongEun in southern Seoul, which features over 60 paintings, sculptures and video installations from the esteemed Pinault Collection / Courtesy of SongEun Art and Cultural Foundation and the artists
And it is at SongEun that his famed assemblage has made its return to Korea, following an initial mini-exhibition 13 years ago.
“Portrait of a Collection” — featuring over 60 pieces by the likes of Miriam Cahn, Marlene Dumas, David Hammons, Julie Mehretu, Rudolf Stingel, Luc Tuymans, Danh Vo and Anicka Yi — aims to encapsulate the essence of the international collection that can be “a kind of eco-chamber of today, even if the works are from 20, 50 years ago,” according to the director.
For the Korean audience, the show is an introduction to a number of fresh names who are exhibiting for the first time in the country.
It's also an unexpected bridge that connects the distinct contemporary art spaces of Seoul and Paris: SongEun and the Bourse de Commerce, the monumental grain exchange-turned-museum operated by the Pinault Collection.
Installation view of Kimsooja's recently wrapped-up exhibition, "To Breathe — Constellation," at the Bourse de Commerce in Paris / Courtesy of Pinault Collection
This connection is most apparent when observing the breathtaking rotundas of the two buildings — SongEun's cave-like basement featuring Gonzalez-Foerster's operatic video installation, and the Bourse de Commerce's vast cylindrical room, which, until last week, housed Korean artist Kimsooja's ethereal mirrored floor.
Part of their shared sublimity stems from the decision to leave the expansive space empty, aside from a singular artwork.
“Museums sometimes crowd the space with a lot of great artworks, but I think it's equally important to have this emptiness, like a public piazza, that can propose an experience to visitors to feel and think with their body, without (the need for) language,” Lavigne said.
Albanian artist Anri Sala's film "1395 Days Without Red" (2011) / Courtesy of SongEun Art and Cultural Foundation and the artist
This invitation to feel the art without language continues upstairs, where Anri Sala's film “1395 Days Without Red” plays on a loop.
The film follows a young musician navigating the streets of besieged Sarajevo during the Bosnian War (1992-95), as she quietly hums Tchaikovsky's “Pathétique” symphony while making her way to an orchestra rehearsal.
In one tense moment, she steadies her breath and sprints across the street, narrowly escaping a sniper's bullet.
Unlike Gonzalez-Foerster's red-robed opera diva Callas, whose voice can still be heard through the open ceiling of the museum's basement, the citizens in Sala's film avoid wearing red altogether to reduce the risk of being targeted by sharpshooters.
Though these two works are unrelated, the exhibition's display creates a potent contrast; for one artist, red becomes a symbol of artistic grandeur and intensity, while for the other, it represents mortal peril amid the quiet suspense of war.
Ryan Gander's "The End," the final work in the British artist's peculiar trilogy of prophetic, animated mice / Courtesy of SongEun Art and Cultural Foundation and the artist
Korean artists and audiences
Miriam Cahn's "baumwesen, 22.5 + 31.8 + 10.9.19" (2019) / Courtesy of Jocelyn Wolff
Lavigne described the Pinault Collection as a polyphonic constellation of artworks, free from the constraints of specific movements, ethnic backgrounds or market trends.
“Pinault used to say that when he discovers or loves an artist, he never asks for their passport,” she said. “He started building the collection some 50 years ago, and is still very curious to discover new, young artists.”
Even when it comes to works by the giants of the art world, he continues to collect pieces from periods when those masters are no longer aligned with iconic historic movements and may therefore not be considered the most “bankable.”
“He's more concerned with the capacity of an artwork to resonate with the present moment, where we are now in the world (regardless of when it was produced.)”
This emphasis is what gives the collection a personal seal of Pinault identity, she added.
Installation view of "Portrait of a Collection" at SongEun / Courtesy of SongEun Art and Cultural Foundation and the artists
“Portrait of a Collection” at SongEun showcases several Korean-born creatives, including holographic paintings that emerge from Anicka Yi's collaborations with biology-inspired AI algorithms, as well as rising talent Yeom Ji-hye's surreal video “AI Octopus.”
“I love this element of fantasy that is part of the young generation of Korean artists,” the director remarked about Yeom's piece, which envisions a scenario where the sea creature develops its own “Octoficial Intelligence.”
Lavigne is equally fascinated by the enthusiasm Korean audiences show for experimental, contemporary art.
Much to her surprise, Koreans ranked second only to Americans in terms of the number of foreign visitors to the Bourse de Commerce.
“And here in Seoul, I really enjoyed the way the audience reacted during the first days of the Pinault Collection show. They are so curious and open-minded, eager to understand artists who are new to them. This is also the feeling I got in the Paris museum with Korean visitors.”
“Portrait of a Collection” runs through Nov. 23 at SongEun.
The Bourse de Commerce, the monumental grain exchange-turned-museum in Paris redesigned by the Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect Tadao Ando, is one of the three museums across Europe operated by the Pinault Collection. Courtesy of Pinault Collection