John Pai

Gallery Hyundai proudly presents the solo exhibition of John Pai (b. 1937). Shared Destinies marks Pai’s first solo exhibition in Korea in over a decade following In Memory’s Lair (2013) at Gallery Hyundai, providing a comprehensive overview of the artist’s seventy-year-long career. Starting with early steel sculptures inspired by Constructivism that the artist created in the beginning of the 1960s, the exhibition introduces around forty works comprising welded steel sculptures, drawings, and paintings that represent each era of Pai’s oeuvre.

John Pai’s sculptures embark from a point or a line within empty space. Like a composer working from one note to the next to arrive at an exquisite melody, Pai grasps the moving forces of points and lines as well as their mutual relationship and principles of motion to guide the development of his work. Pai begins without a predetermined result in mind, spontaneously conversing with points and lines within space as they start to coalesce as organic forms which, when finished, can surprise even the artist in defying his expectations. The resulting works seize viewers like living beings that appear paradoxically both frozen in time and poised to transition into a different state.

Pai’s artistic journey over seven decades reflects a series of surprising evolutions. He has ceaselessly undertaken interdisciplinary inquiries spanning from art, human memory, and the subconscious to music, science, East Asian philosophy, and literature. In particular, his deep interest in music, athletics, ballet, and modern dance informs his intuition and sharpens his perception of movement within space. At this momentous solo exhibition, audiences will be invited to immerse themselves in the artist's journey of self-exploration and our Shared Destinies.