The Art Sonje Center Seoul's exhibition off-site presents six emerging artists working in sculpture and installation beyond the white cube spaces of the Center. The exhibition is curated by Heehyun Cho, and the practices on display include the artist group GRAYCODE jiiiiin, Jong Oh, Yona Lee, Jungyoon Hyen, Hyun Nahm, and Choi Goen.

off-site presents a glimpse of material experimentations in what the press release identifies as "spaces beyond traditional exhibition halls, especially functional areas." It builds on the Center's history of exploring non-traditional exhibition formats, going back to Ssak, a site-specific exhibition that took place prior to the building's construction in 1995. Ssak was a group show that featured works by Ahn Kyuchul, Choi Jeong-Hwa, Geonbyung Yook, Hong Sungmin, Keumhwa Choi, Kong Sung-Hun, Dongi Lee, Lee Bul, Mo Bahc, Nakbeom Koh, Hyoung-Kuhn Oh, Park Young-Sook, So Young Park, Sunmyong Choi, Wooil Kim, Kim Yoo-sun and Yun Suk Nam, and utilised the spatial characteristics of a traditional Korean home that was situated on the museum grounds. The curator tells STIR that this marked “the beginning of the Art Sonje Center's history.”

Returning to off-site, the exhibition also offers a dialogue with the white cube itself. As Cho explains, “Even within the conventional white cube exhibition spaces, I believe each venue holds a unique spatial quality. While white cube exhibition spaces are meticulously designed with pristine white walls and minimalistic settings for the presentation of artworks, each space possesses a distinctive character that is often shaped by the passage of time, its historical journey, and unique architectural features. Hence, even when presenting the same artwork, the context of the work changes depending on the specific white cube in which it is exhibited, ultimately impacting the viewer’s experience.” Per her curatorial vision, off-site also exposes the relationship between artworks and their surroundings, albeit in a vivid manner.

The participating artists have attempted to connect the entire building of the Center through the exhibition. Cho tells STIR, “The Art Sonje Center's architectural design embraces a vertical structure, spanning three floors, each dedicated to exhibition spaces. For off-site, non-exhibition spaces such as staircases and architectural facilities, as well as the outdoor locations including the inner garden and rooftop garden, have been repurposed to serve as exhibition platforms. The works presented within these spaces push the boundaries of sculptural language, establishing a cohesive connection throughout the entire building.”

Hyun Nahm’s Chain Link Strategy connects sculptures to pipes and ducts in the isolated mechanical room, and Yona Lee’s installation Fountain in Transit creates fountains in the museum's pond, in the inner garden. Meanwhile, Jong Oh’s Room Drawing Light #2 alters the existing lighting within the museum’s staircase with LED sculptures, connecting each floor of the Art Sonje Center, and Choi Goen’s Sunbake uses the industrial pipes embedded within the Center’s concrete walls to create sculptural elements on the rooftop garden. Jungyoon Hyen’s Dancing Spiral 2 and Dancing Spiral 3 activate the art hall's backstage and dressing rooms with sculptures resembling deformed bodies, which Cho explains are evocative of a scene of performers preparing for a theatrical act. She concludes her overview of the works displayed at off-site, saying “On the opposite side, at the stage of the Art Hall, GRAYCODE jiiiiin presents +3x10^8m/s, beyond the light velocity and 35 to 20,000, media art works that heighten the audience's awareness of the tangible aspects of invisible phenomena beyond our universe.”

Some of the aforementioned pieces were created in response to the spaces they are placed in. For example, 35 to 20,000, which is named after the frequency range of the speaker systems in Art Sonje Center’s Art Hall, is a piece of music that uses the ambient sounds emitted by the systems. Other works such as Chain Link Strategy existed prior to the exhibition and were adapted to the spatial conditions of the Art Sonje Center, presenting audiences with fresh perspectives on these pieces.

Visitors to the Art Sonje Center are led by a curated map, to spaces within the Center that would usually be closed to the public. The journey has been designed to “encourage exploration of both horizontal and vertical dimensions within and outside the art museum,” as Cho explains. This experience is intended to generate a renewed appreciation for the building, and the exhibition possibilities it possesses. Cho also identifies the audience as critical to the activation of the works displayed at off-site, and concludes her interview with STIR, saying “As the viewers engage with the sculptural works, their physical presence becomes an integral part of the sculptural connection bridging the interior and exterior spaces of the museum.”