Marian Zazeela, La Monte Young, Jung Hee Choi, “Leeum 26 IV 29 Seoul Dream House: Sound and Light Environment.” Site-specific Installation, 2026. Sound, fresnel lights, aluminum, wood, white carpet, colored light filters, video projections, neon. Dimensions variable © Cheolki Hong.
At a moment when museums around the world are reexamining whose stories shape contemporary art history, Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul is spotlighting the women artists who helped pioneer immersive installation decades before the medium entered the mainstream canon. Inside Other Spaces: Environments by Women Artists 1956–1976 revisits a radical era in postwar art through sensory environments that dissolve the boundaries between artwork, architecture, and viewer participation.
Organized in collaboration with Munich’s Haus der Kunst, where the exhibition first debuted in 2023, the Seoul presentation expands the original project with additional works by Korean and Asian artists. Running through November 29, 2026, the show gathers reconstructed environments created between 1956 and 1976 by women artists across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, many of whom reshaped experimental art while remaining overlooked in traditional art historical narratives.
Rather than asking visitors to simply observe, the exhibition invites them to physically enter the works. Long before “installation art” became institutional language, artists used the term environment to describe immersive spaces activated through light, sound, movement, texture, and atmosphere. The exhibition traces how these experimental works emerged during the postwar decades as artists rejected the static conventions of painting and sculpture.
Among the featured artists are Brazilian Neo-Concrete pioneer Lygia Clark, Argentine conceptual artist Marta Minujín, Italian artist Nanda Vigo, and Japanese Gutai member Tsuruko Yamazaki, whose 1956 work Red is the earliest environment included in the show. Visitors move through installations composed of mirrors, translucent materials, sound frequencies, air currents, and tactile surfaces that transform the body into an active part of the artwork itself.
The exhibition also places important focus on Korean avant-garde artists, including Jung Kangja’s Muche-Jeon (Incorporeal Exhibition), an experimental work incorporating light, sound, and sensory interaction. By placing Korean practices alongside international movements, Leeum reframes immersive art history as a global conversation rather than a Western-centered narrative.
What makes the show especially compelling is its emphasis on reconstruction and archival recovery. Many of the original environments were temporary or poorly documented, requiring curators to rebuild the works through photographs, sketches, letters, and historical records. The result feels less like a conventional exhibition and more like an act of restoration, recovering a lineage of experimental practices that history often sidelined.
At a time when immersive exhibitions dominate contemporary museums and digital culture alike, Inside Other Spaces offers a deeper historical perspective on participation and sensory experience in art. More importantly, it restores visibility to the women artists whose radical experiments helped shape the immersive language contemporary audiences now take for granted.
Leeum Museum of Art’s new exhibition revisits the immersive environments women artists created between the 1950s and 1970s, long before installation art became a global phenomenon.
Tsuruko Yamazaki, “Red.” Outdoor Gutai Art Exhibition, Ashiya Park, Ashiya, Japan, 1956. Bolts, light bulbs, metal fixtures, vinyl, wires, wood. 270 × 360 x 360 cm. Reconstruction National Museum of Art, Osaka, 1985. Loan from the Estate of Tsuruko Yamazaki, courtesy of LADS Gallery, Osaka and Take Ninagawa, Tokyo, Japan © Cheolki Hong.
Jung Kangja, “Muche-Jeon (Incorporeal Exhibition).” National Public Information Center, Seoul, Republic of Korea, 1970. Artificial leather, low fog machine, colored lights, moving lights, spotlights, light bulbs, loudspeakers, artist’s voice. 500 × 500 × 500 cm. Reconstruction Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul, 2026. © Cheolki Hong.
Lygia Clark, “A casa é o corpo. Penetração, ovulação, germinação, expulsão.” Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, 1968. Aluminum, balloons, balls, deforming mirror, elastic fabrics, foam, metal, PVC, wood, yarn. 332 × 720 x 226 cm. Reconstruction Haus der Kunst München, 2023 © Cheolki Hong.
Marta Minujín. “¡Revuelquese y viva!” Instituto Torcuato Di Tella, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1964. Hand-painted fabric, loudspeakers, nails, sound, synthetic foam, wires, wood ca. 270 × 245 × 335 cm. Replica Haus der Kunst München, 2023 © Cheolki Hong.
Visitors move through reconstructed spaces filled with light, mirrors, sound, texture, and movement that transform the viewer into part of the artwork itself.
Judy Chicago, “Feather Room.” Rolf Nelson Gallery, Los Angeles, United States, 1966. Aluminum, cruelty -free goose feathers and down, fabric, LED lights. 400 × 684 × 770 cm. Replica Haus der Kunst München, 2023 © Cheolki Hong.
Tania Mouraud, “We used to know.” Centro Apollinaire, Milan, Italy, 1970. 500w floodlamps, glass doors, loudspeakers, rubber, sound, stainless steel, tripods, wires, wood. 381 × 515 × 422.5 cm. Replica Haus der Kunst München, 2023 © Cheolki Hong.
Nanda Vigo, “Ambiente cronotopico vivibile” Galleria Apollinaire, Milan, Italy, 1967. Aluminum, neon crystal tubes, patterned industrial glass, Plexiglas, switches, wood. 200 × 300 × 300 cm. Reconstruction Haus der Kunst München, 2023 © Cheolki Hong.
Aleksandra Kasuba, “Spectral Passage.” M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, United States, 1975. Cables, loudspeakers, neon tubes, nylon fabric, Plexiglas, ropes, rug, sound, wood. 550 × 1390 x 2920 cm. Reconstruction Haus der Kunst München, 2023 © Cheolki Hong.
Laura Grisi, “Vento di Sud-Est (Wind Speed 40 knots).” Galeria La Tartaruga, Rome, Italy, 1968. Wind machines, wood. 273 × 728 × 566 cm. Reconstruction Haus der Kunst München, 2023 © Cheolki Hong.
By recovering these experimental works through archival reconstruction, the exhibition restores visibility to the women artists who helped shape the future of immersive contemporary art.
Installation view of Inside Other Spaces: Environments by Women Artists 1956-1976. Leeum Museum of Art, 2026 Photo: Cheolki Hong.
Lea Lublin, “Penetración/Expulsión (del Fluvio Subtunal).” Il Bienal de Arte Coltejer, Medellin, Colombia, 1970. Foam, hooks, painted and unpainted t-shirts, pipes, TPU, radial compressor, valves, water, wood. 200 × 2000 cm (Penetración/Expulsión), 275 × 275 × 275 cm (Phalus Mobilis). Reconsturction Haus der Kunst München, 2023 © Cheolki Hong.
The exhibition brings together pioneering artists from Brazil, Japan, Argentina, Italy, and Korea, revealing how women across the world were simultaneously redefining art as a physical, immersive experience.
Installation view of Inside Other Spaces: Environments by Women Artists 1956-1976 Leeum Museum of Art, 2026. Photo: Cheolki Hong.
Marian Zazeela, La Monte Young, Jung Hee Choi, “Leeum 26 IV 29 Seoul Dream House: Sound and Light Environment.” Site-specific Installation, 2026. Sound, fresnel lights, aluminum, wood, white carpet, colored light filters, video projections, neon. Dimensions variable © Cheolki Hong.
Installation view of Inside Other Spaces: Environments by Women Artists 1956-1976. Leeum Museum of Art, 2026. Photo: Cheolki Hong.
