Pace Gallery will host “The Return,” a significant solo exhibition by the American artist James Turrell, at its Seoul gallery. The exhibition, his first solo presentation in the city in over fifteen years, will feature five recent large-scale installations. The event is a key component of the gallery’s 65th-anniversary celebrations, which highlight artists with whom Pace has maintained long-standing relationships.
The exhibition will occupy all three floors of the gallery, offering a comprehensive look at Turrell’s recent work. A central feature will be a new, site-specific Wedgework installation, a series in which projected light forms illusory planes, lending the immaterial medium a tangible presence that appears to alter the dimensions of the room. The presentation will also bring together several pieces from the artist’s Glassworks series, including large-scale curved, circular, and diamond-shaped examples. The concurrent display of these varied forms offers a notable opportunity to experience the breadth of this body of work.
A key figure of the Light and Space movement, Turrell has dedicated his career to an investigation of light and perception. His practice, which he describes as “perceptual art,” moves beyond the traditional object to create immersive environments where light itself is the medium. These works are designed to provoke a state of reflexive perception, or what the artist terms “seeing yourself seeing.”
Complementing the installations will be a selection of works on paper that illuminate the artist’s process. The exhibition will include a new series of Wedgework prints that explore the formal and chromatic possibilities of the installations. Further context will be provided by works related to Turrell’s monumental and ongoing Roden Crater project—a large-scale artwork and naked-eye observatory within a dormant volcano in Arizona—as well as aquatints and woodcuts connected to his 2014 installation Aten Reign at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.
James Turrell (b. 1943, Los Angeles) began his relationship with Pace Gallery’s founder, Arne Glimcher, nearly sixty years ago, with the gallery formally representing him since 2002. His work is held in major institutional collections globally, including the Museum SAN in Wonju, the Bonte Museum on Jeju Island, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
“The Return” will be on view from June 14 to September 27, 2025.
