In "Absorption" by Asad Raza, a field of soil covers the gallery's floor at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Seoul. Its musky earth is mixed with the likes of coffee grounds, chicken bones and ginkgo nuts — urban detritus gathered across the capital. Yonhap
What happens when art refuses to obey its most basic promise: to endure?
At the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) Seoul, an exhibition turns that question inside out, finding poetry not in permanence but in decay. Titled, “Sak-da: The Poetics of Decomposition,” it openly challenges the museum’s traditional role as a guardian of the timeless.
“Sak-da” is a layered Korean verb. Depending on context, it can mean “to rot” or “to lose vitality.” But it can also describe fermentation, a process in which time does not destroy, but transforms, producing new flavors and aromas. That dual meaning runs through the show, binding together more than 50 works by 15 artists and collectives.
The works here are made of materials that shift, weather and sometimes fall apart entirely — conditions museums typically try very hard to prevent. The institution’s conventional mission is preservation: to pass down artworks in their best condition so they may be enjoyed by future generations.
“Sak-da” deliberately pushes against that logic. Here, decay is not a flaw to be addressed but the work’s very engine. It asks a provocative question: Are museums — and we as viewers — prepared to embrace art that is meant to disappear? And does our long-held belief that a “great” artwork must remain unchanged still hold in an age defined by instability and flux?
The show also connects to a much bigger reckoning in contemporary art: a challenge to anthropocentric thinking. It unsettles the assumption that humans sit at the center of all meaning, with everything else serving our needs.
In “Sak-da,” artists step back from the role of a sole, all-powerful creator. What emerges instead is collaboration with nonhuman forces like soil, grass, mold, microorganisms and fire. These pieces don’t try to separate themselves from the rest of the world; they move within it, subject to the same cycles of growth, erosion and transformation.
One of the first sensations visitors encounter is a gallery floor that is no longer a floor at all, but a field of soil. This is “Absorption” by American artist Asad Raza.
The dark, musky earth is mixed with coffee grounds, chicken bones, pine needles, ginkgo nuts, discarded delivery boxes, scraps of electrical wiring and crumbs of fried food — urban detritus gathered from across Seoul. Once they’re added into the soil, they begin to interact with microorganisms underground, slowly transforming into something new.
Source: Korea Times News
