'Art Spectrum,' which has served as a platform in support of emerging Korean artists, is making a transition in line with the rapidly changing contemporary art scene. This iteration of Art Spectrum expands beyond the previous award system, and widens the scope of participants to other parts of Asia, bringing together 26 artists/teams from diverse cultural and artistic backgrounds.

2024 Art Spectrum Dream Screen departs from the idea that artists in the Millennial and Post-Millennial generations have come to perceive the physical world differently in an era where experiences mediated through screens—the internet, games, films—have increasingly become commonplace. The title “Dream Screen” is a neologism that combines the dream, a fictional realm that is nevertheless a poignant indicator of the subconscious and the screen through which (in)direct experiences take place. It also refers to a device that facilitates fantastical remnants behind the screen. Taking this term for its title, the exhibition presents how the new generation of artists navigate the conditions of life and weave together their own stories based on screen-mediated experiences and fragmentary afterimages when the grand narrative and the myth of linear progress no longer provide a reliable prospect for the future.

The exhibition focuses on horror, constructed and shared through the screen constantly overloaded with information, sensory stimuli, and narratives. Horror, in this sense, is removed from reality yet operates as a channel that allows for an understanding and reconstruction of the conditions of reality. As a reflection of this symptomatic horror, the exhibition adopts the structural motif of the notoriously “haunted” Winchester House. Built in the late 19th century, this house in the US city of San Jose was designed by the matriarch of the Winchester family—which had earned its wealth through firearms—with an intricate and unpredictable structure so that the spirits of the weapons’ victims would not haunt her. Inspired by the complex structure of this piece of architecture, a house is built across the Leeum Museum of Art’s Black Box and Ground Gallery, with a courtyard, entrance, hallways, living room, and around 20 other independent rooms. The path through this structure is like finding one’s way through a maze—a reflection of the loss of direction and sense of isolation of this generation, as well as an opportunity for the viewers to navigate across a myriad of artwork.

The participating artists belong to a generation that grew up encountering the internet, subcultures, games, and popular culture with a foundation in the Asian region’s local contexts and cultures. Twenty-three of the sixty artworks are commissioned works premiering in this exhibition. Unfolding their artistic practice in the face of the refracted and scattered image of the future, they reinterpret historical heritage through a contemporary lens, oscillate between the world(s) across various screens, and explore how to be together in a time of physical and psychological isolation. Presenting these stories individually yet together, the exhibition allows a multitude of pathways across a fabric of varying time(s) and space(s).