GROUP EXHIBITION: IRREVERENT FORMS
In a new group exhibition in Seoul, Gladstone brings together Korean artists across three generations who defy the tradition of ceramics: Hun-Chung Lee, Juree Kim, and Dan Kim.
November 20, 2025 – January 03, 2026
Through clay—the most elemental artistic material—each artist embraces imperfection, fosters a spirit of experimentation, and explores ideas of inclusivity. Irreverent Forms is on view November 20, 2025, through January 03, 2026. Building on Gladstone’s previous exhibitions of ceramics across its global program, the show further deepens the gallery’s engagement with the Korean arts landscape.
The artists in Irreverent Forms embrace the inherent chance, fracture, and cyclical nature of ceramics to contemplate destruction and repair, and ultimately the “recovery” of art and society. Their works reveal what finished objects so often conceal: the vulnerability of matter, accentuated through the processes of making the kiln’s unpredictable transformations, the erosions of water, and the moments when cracks and flows appear. This approach defies the ideals of ceramics, which have historically embodied a sense of completeness: the poised curves of a moon jar, the upright silhouette, and the hardened surface tempered in fire have long stood as emblems of ceramic “perfection.” Instead, they transform the rhetoric of imperfection into a language of renewal through the poetics of the working process.
A multidisciplinary artist who works beyond the limits of clay, Hun-Chung Lee draws on motifs from furniture to architecture as a means of breaking away from perfect symmetry. Among his works on view is Untitled (IJIL), found on the lower level, which presents a single channel video displaying a clay moon jar slowly disintegrating in water, becoming a metaphor for the delicate cycles of human life.
Through clay sculptures and installations, artist Juree Kim explores the dualities of existence and transforms natural processes into metaphorical and geographic signifiers. Her Clay Tablet series, on view on the lower level, evokes both the linguistic origins of ancient Sumerian clay tablets and the physical laws of the Earth itself, through dispersed clay fragments eroded and scattered by water that are then pressed together with Kim’s hands. When fired at [,IKJ degrees, each tablet becomes a trace of time and energy, leaving space for someone in the future to form their own interpretation. Additionally, Kim’s Hwigyeong series captures the vanishing landscapes of Seoul’s neighborhoods, reshaped by urban redevelopment through sturdy, miniature unfired clay sculptures—recalling those built during Korea’s rapid economic growth of the 1980s.
Dan Kim’s works reflect his practice of embracing the fragility of ceramics—treating them as generative materials that can produce unfamiliar surfaces. Among his works featured in the exhibition, found on the ground floor, is Persona #2 (2021), a broken moon jar that becomes a constellation of fragments, reconstructing dignity through fragility, thus challenging the ethics of a singular ‘normality’ constructed within Korean society.