Tokyo Gendai Article

Written by Tokyo Gendai editorial staff
Released on September 7th, 2025
Original Article: https://tokyogendai.com/connect-art-busan-x-tokyo-gendai-2025/

CONNECT Art Busan x Tokyo Gendai: 11 galleries to look out for at the fair

Sunday 7 September, 2025

Lee Kang-so, Untitled, 1993, Oil on Paper 57x75cm, Courtesy of the artist.

For this year’s Tokyo Gendai, we are proud to announce CONNECT, our partnership with Art Busan.

Through CONNECT, 11 galleries from Korea and China are participating this year at Tokyo Gendai. Check out each gallery and the artists they’re presenting at Tokyo Gendai.

EM gallery

EM gallery will show two Korean artists at this year’s fair. Both working with ink, Moonassi explores conversations and human relationships, while Cho Hwaran focuses on one of the most essential acts of life: breathing. Both studied traditional Korean painting, and while their approaches are distinct, they each build on the craft’s foundations with a contemporary sensibility.

Gallery Baton

Gallery Baton brings a group show to Tokyo Gendai, titled ‘Contemporary Abstract Art’. Among the works is a thorn-themed abstract painting by Song Burnsoo, a pioneer of Korean avant-garde art, and a mixed media piece using artificial pearls by well-known conceptual artist Koh San Keum. Plus, minimal paintings by Suzanne Song and color-fields by Jimok Choi offer a unique take on the genre.

Gana Art

Song Sumin, Floating Piece of White, 2025 Acrylic on canvas, 91 × 91 cm. Courtesy of the artist

Gana Art’s ‘Six Ways of Seeing’ brings together a collection of artists from different generations and geographies. Shim Moon Seup recalls childhood seascapes, while Huh Myoungwook layers colour to reflect the passage of time. Song Sumin combines news images, children’s doodles, and botanical patterns to explore the contradictions of visual culture, and Adam Himebauch channels memories of tornado warnings in the American Midwest into dynamic compositions. We also see Andrew Moncrief’s abstracted figures and the late Ro Eun Nim’s bold meditations on the force of nature.

Johyun Gallery

In addition to Johyun Gallery’s booth presentation, an installation by Kim Taek Sang will be on view as part of the Sato ‘Meadow’ program. For over three decades, Kim has used water as his primary medium, pouring diluted pigment onto canvas and allowing it to dry in dozens of delicate layers. Eschewing fixed outcomes, Kim’s works exist as living surfaces, responding to its surroundings and morphing over time.

PYO Gallery

Kang So Lee, Untitled, 1993 Oil on paper, 57 × 75 cm. Courtesy of the artist.

Boundaries, materiality, and the essence of being are the central themes of PYO gallery’s booth at Tokyo Gendai. Presenting six artists, the exhibition will span experimental approaches rooted in Eastern aesthetics while engaging with an international dialogue. Highlights include Kang So Lee, fresh from his recent exhibition at the MMCA Seoul, and Kim Tschang-Yeul, who returns to the fair following last year’s lauded presentation.

BANK

BANK is named after its original location at the Bank Union Building in Shanghai. It has since relocated to the Anfu road, as well as opening a New York outpost just this year. At Tokyo Gendai, BANK will show work by three Chinese artists – Liang Hao, Wang Rui, and Zhang Yibei – unified through their exploration of the body. Each of their works explore how the body shapes our experience, reflecting on the fragility of human perception.

ShanghART Gallery

Sun Xun, Original Animation Drawings of ‘Magic Atlas’ – Luocha, 2022 Coloured woodblock relief, 10 pieces: 30 × 45 cm (×3), 29.5 × 42 cm (×6), 29.5 × 84 cm. Courtesy of the artist

ShanghART Gallery presents an intergenerational line-up of over ten artists, spanning those born between 1950 and 2005. This includes excerpts from Sun Xun’s feature-length animated film ‘Magic Atlas’, and Liu Yi’s ink animation that explores the life of a Chinese chef in Japan. Elsewhere, Hu Xiangcheng’s mixed-media works explore his cross-cultural experiences in China and Japan.

The Columns Gallery

Lee Hyun Joung, The Beauty of Nostalgia, 2025 Ink and pigment on handmade Korean mulberry paper by the artist, 63 × 90 cm. Courtesy of the artist.

Jung Jong Mee is celebrated for her use of hanji, a traditional mulberry paper from Korea. In ‘Song of Fisherman’, she reinterprets a 17th-century poem by Yoon Seon Do, using traditional materials and techniques to translate its vision of a self-sufficient life into a contemporary context. Alongside this work, Columns Gallery presents three other established Korean artists: Kim Kang Yong, Lee Dong Youb and Lee Hyun Joung. Together these artists challenge convention and expand the language of Korean art and heritage.

The Page Gallery

The Page Gallery presents a solo booth by Korean artist Vio Choe. Choe’s practice is informed by his background as a game designer in New York, as well as scientific theories such as relativity and quantum mechanics. His meticulous compositions, made by squeezing paint directly from the tube, explore the connections between experience, time and space.

THEO

Wonkyo Choi, Luminous Eyes on a Round Face #03, 2024 Hand carving on digital print, 26 × 34.5 cm. Courtesy of the artist

Choi Wonkyo’s practice merges photography, sculpture, and installation. Presented in a solo booth by THEO, these works are made by cutting and layering digital images. By re-working flat photographic surfaces into tactile forms, the artist questions how we see, remember, and inhabit space in the post-digital era.

VODA gallery

Pond, Im Jaehyoung, 2023, acrylic and oil on canvas, 194x259cm ©Im Jaehyoung

VODA gallery presents Jaehyoung Im’s first international presentation, with paintings, prints, and monotype works informed by experiences of personal and collective loss. Themes of grief and longing form the emotional roots of Jaehyoung Im’s practice. Titled ‘Breaths Between Verses’, the exhibition will be designed around the rhythm of breath: slow, deliberate, and interconnected.