○ Title : 2022 Y Artist Project Funky-Funtion
○ Period : Nov. 8 (Tue.), 2022 ~ Jan. 15 (Sun.), 2023
○ Venues : Daegu Art Museum Galleries 4, 5
○ Artists : Dew Kim, Haneyl Choi, Yun Choi, Minhee Kim, Sungsil Ryu, Wonje Kang


South Korea’s popular culture is writing a new history through the K-syndrome in several genres. Notably, today’s K-pop transcends genre and builds a world to make various cultural functions organically operate within.

This year’s Y Artist Project, Funky Function, views K-pop as a complex and subtle cultural phenomenon and focuses on its hidden functions (operations) to seek out how it is spoken of by contemporary art. The six exhibiting artists wisely consume K-pop’s attractive elements through their own tastes, and they pay close attention to the operation of various intangible elements such as the fans’ ardent wishes and growth narratives inducing sentimental restlessness, and not just to what is visually shown on the screen or stage. Furthermore, they discover K-pop’s function of revealing awareness of sociopolitical issues and interpret the entertainment industry’s structure of creating new idols to infiltrate the fans.

Begun from the epistemological meditation on how to view the current, broad waves of K-culture and what to build the discourse around, this exhibition re-queries within the art realms of six contemporary artists exploring the reverse side of popular culture. We hope this will be an opportunity to reconsider the suggestions discovered through this and the K-somethings functioning variously as a medium between pop culture and contemporary art.