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Art exhibition 'Proximities' presents nuanced insights into Arab world at SeMA

Published: 15 Dec. 2025, 16:29 Updated: 15 Dec. 2025, 19:09

LEE JIAN
[email protected]

″Proximities″ is on display at the Seoul Museum of Art's Main building in Jung District, central Seoul. [SEOUL MUSEUM OF ART]

Korea’s largest presentation of contemporary art curated in the United Arab Emirates is set to open Tuesday at the Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA) in Jung District, central Seoul.

Titled “Proximities,” the exhibition is co-curated with the Abu Dhabi Music and Arts Foundation (Admaf) and features 110 works by around 40 artists and artist collectives, spanning from the 1980s to the present.

The works reflect the region’s rich, layered and interconnected cultural landscape, including pieces by artists from India, Pakistan, Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt and Iran, to highlight the depth that emerges from a shared yet complex cultural milieu. According to the foundation, this marks the largest exhibition to date drawn from the collection.

″Proximities″ is on display at the Seoul Museum of Art's Main building in Jung District, central Seoul. [SEOUL MUSEUM OF ART]

“The main question we are asking — and attempting to answer — is: what does it mean to be near? And what does proximity mean beyond physical space alone?” curator Maya El Khalil said during a press preview on Monday.

“The exhibition explores how artists help us make sense of change — how we hold on to memory, how we speak about it, how we preserve it and how we imagine the future. It reflects the world we live in today: how we encounter one another, how we navigate transformation and how artists respond to and interpret these realities.”

The exhibition is divided into three sections, each curated by a different curatorial team from the UAE, offering varied perspectives from the Arab world. Together, the sections present an authentic and nuanced view of the social, industrial and psychological experiences shaping artistic practice in the UAE.

″Stone Slippers″ (2013) by Abdullah Al Saadi [LEE JIAN]

The first section examines tensions between the private and the public, and how the two realms infiltrate one another. Artists in this part often employ fabulation — in Maitha Abdalla's photographic works with animal masks, or Abdullah Al Saadi's stone slippers, for instance — not as a form of escape, but as a method for understanding realities that are difficult to grasp through conventional means.

The second section focuses on borders, migration, authority and displacement in a world in constant flux. Rather than viewing maps as instruments of control, the section reconsiders space as something shaped by relationships and power structures.

The third section underscores the developments that have occurred since the UAE’s 50th anniversary. Largely composed of works by the most recent generation of UAE artists, it presents "amphibious" practices that move fluidly across institutional and independent, artistic spheres.

″Proximities″ is on display at the Seoul Museum of Art's Main building in Jung District, central Seoul. [SEOUL MUSEUM OF ART]

“Proximities” marks the second collaboration between SeMA and Admaf, following the monthlong exhibition “Layered Medium: We Are In Open Circuit,” which opened in Abu Dhabi in mid-May and showcased works by Korean contemporary artists.

“As the title suggests, ‘Proximities' serves as an important opportunity for two countries from different cultural backgrounds — yet both part of the broader Eastern cultural sphere — to explore artistic connections that transcend cultural and geographic boundaries,” said SeMA Director Choi Eun-ju. “Through this exchange, the exhibition is expected to generate new insights and inspiration for both art scenes while further strengthening Seoul’s position as an international hub for artistic discourse."

The exhibition is open throughout the week for free, without reservations, through March 29. Tours are offered daily at 3 p.m. Multilingual audio guides are also available via SeMA's docent app and the Bloomberg Connects app.

BY LEE JIAN [[email protected]]