SPACE July 2025 (No. 692)
Exterior view of the Korean Pavilion. Photo by Choi Yongjoon / ©Korean Pavilion 2025
The Korean Pavilion’s opening ceremony on May 9. Image courtesy of Arts Council Korea / ©Choi Jinbo
Ahead of the official opening of the Venice Biennale, Giardini buzzes with activity during its three-day pre-opening period as national pavilions open and visitors hurriedly explore the newly unveiled expansive exhibitions, exchanging impressions. At the Korean Pavilion’s opening ceremony on the 9th of May and the subsequent special architectural forum commemorating its 30th anniversary – ‘Vision & Legacy: 30 Years of the Korean Pavilion’ – former commissioners and curators, were joined by an unusually large number of domestic and international architects and art professionals, creating a packed and vibrant event. CAC, the curator of the Korean Pavilion this year, through the exhibition ‘Little Toad Little Toad: Unbuilding Pavilion’ call on us, paradoxically beyond national borders, to rethink the history and meaning of the Korean Pavilion, which first set anchor in the Giardini thirty years ago.
Exhibition view of ‘Little Toad Little Toad: Unbuilding Pavilion’. Photo by Choi Yongjoon / ©Korean Pavilion 2025
The Korean Pavilion has always been treated like a black sheep. With an architectural footprint of just over 240m², this small pavilion – irregular in its plan and virtually transparent – has long been considered a challenging venue for exhibitions, both in terms of the biennial art exhibitions and the architecture biennales held biennially. Since its completion in 1995, hosting 15 art exhibitions and 13 architecture exhibitions, its transparent glass walls have repeatedly been obscured in various ways, even attaching installations to the exterior to assert its presence between the German and Japanese Pavil...
