Taekwang Group’s Sehwa Museum of Art revisits the theme of “city” following “Wonder City” in 2018. This is the first step in our attempts to hold city-themed exhibitions on a regular basis. Through the series, Sehwa Museum of Art will highlight the locational characteristics of the Museum at the heart of the city around Gwanghwamun and discourse on various sides of “city”. While the last year’s Wonder City, an introduction to a long journey ahead, borrowed the stance of the flâneur (saunterer), who observed the wonderful scenery of modern cities, Phantom City focuses on the light and color of cities that disturb our vision, featuring observed images of the city in observations.

Inspired by Acadee Project, an unfinished work of Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) as an attempt to compile culture, politics, and thoughts of the modern city by portraying various sides of the metropolitan Paris which emerged in the late 19th century, Phantom City showcases phantasmagoria of the city represented by lights and colors. A city is, in its nature, a mass of visual illusion that gradually grows enormous. A metropolis is a space where people are likely to lose their existence as they constantly chase illusions, and utopian fantasies with concentrated consumeristic desires are reflected on the outer surface of the city. How do contemporary artists interpret and portray such images of the city in their work?

Susan Buck-Morss, a U.S. researcher specializing in Water Benjamin’s work, said, “The images are not subjective impressions, but objective expressions,” as she published a book on the unfinished Arcadee Project. In other words, a city as a social formation gains readability through Benjamin’s images of metropolis. We hope that the images of cities showcased by nine teams of artists in Phantom City—Yong Rae Kwon, Lovot Lab, Changwon Lee, Heejoon Lee, Jeong Ju Jeong, Sung Rok Choi, Eun Jeong Choi, Hye Ja, and Sungwoo Hong—serve as guides for people living in cities, and helping people can reason thoroughly about the city itself.