Seoul exhibition brings 6 decades of American artist Lynn Hershman Leeson

Seoul will host Lynn Hershman Leeson's first solo exhibition in Asia, a six-decade retrospective of the pioneering American media artist, according to the Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA). Titled "Lynn Hershman Leeson: First Person Plural," the exhibition opens on Wednesday and will feature approximately 200 works spanning painting, photography, sculpture, and media installations.

Lynn Hershman Leeson, born in 1941, is renowned for her innovative use of emerging technologies like video, the internet, artificial intelligence (AI), and genetic engineering. In the 1970s, she embarked on a multi-year performance art project, assuming the identity of Roberta Breitmore, a fictional alter ego she created. During the 1980s, she presented the interactive piece "Lorna," allowing viewers to engage with the artwork using a remote control to shape the narrative.

The SeMA exhibition is divided into six sections, enabling visitors to explore how individual identities are influenced by social connections, media networks, and biological transformations through genetic engineering. For this Korean exhibition, Leeson's interactive media artworks, originally created in English, will be translated into Korean for the first time. To further highlight her multifaceted career, the museum will screen her feature films in collaboration with Seoul Art Cinema.

The exhibition, "Lynn Hershman Leeson: First Person Plural," will be on display at the Seosomun branch of SeMA until February 21.