SEOUL.- Today, White Cube is opening their new gallery in Seoul’s Gangnam-gu district, coinciding with this year’s edition of Frieze Seoul.

White Cube Seoul’s inaugural exhibition, titled ‘The Embodied Spirit’, brings together a group of leading international artists whose works explore ideas around philosophy, metaphysics and what motivates human behaviour.

The inseparable nature of body and psyche, as suggested by the Greek philosopher Aristotle in his essay On the Soul (c.350 BCE), provides the basis for a selection of paintings and sculptures in the show.

Curated by White Cube’s Global Artistic Director Susan May, exhibition highlights include paintings by Lee Jinju (b. 1980, Busan, South Korea) who uses traditional Korean techniques to consider the psychological process of individual memory and perception, and Louise Giovanelli (b. 1993, London, UK) whose works explore heightened emotional states and rituals, as well as religion and its iconography.

Further paintings by Christine Ay Tjoe (b. 1973, Bandung, Indonesia) and Tracey Emin (b. 1963, London, UK), and sculptures by Berlinde de Bruyckere (b. 1964, Ghent, Belgium), Katharina Fritsch (b. 1956, Essen, Germany) and Marguerite Humeau (b. 1986, Cholet, France), also feature in the exhibition.

White Cube Seoul is the gallery’s second location in Asia and is led by Korean Representative and Director Jini Yang. An evening reception celebrating the opening will take place during Frieze Week’s Cheongdam Night on Wednesday 6 September.

This fall, in addition to opening in Seoul, White Cube will open its first permanent gallery in New York at 1002 Madison Avenue. The inaugural presentation, titled ‘Chopped & Screwed’, will occupy two floors of the new gallery. Curated by Courtney Willis Blair (Senior Director, US), this exhibition brings together a group of artists to celebrate methods used to reconsider well-established systems of power and value.

White Cube
The Embodied Spirit
September 5th, 2023 - December 21st, 2023
Frieze Week Cheongdam Night Reception: Wednesday 6 September, 6–10pm