267 Itaewon-ro
Yongsan-gu
Seoul
Monday: Closed
Tuesday: 11 AM – 6 PM
Wednesday: 11 AM – 6 PM
Thursday: 11 AM – 6 PM
Friday: 11 AM – 6 PM
Saturday: 11 AM – 6 PM
Sunday: Closed
seoul@pacegallery.com
+82 2 790 9388
On View
Apr 16 – Jun 5, 2026
Seoul
Pace will present an exhibition of sculptures—many of them never-before-seen—by renowned Light and Space artist Peter Alexander at its Seoul gallery from April 16 through June 5. Marking his first solo show in Korea, the presentation will spotlight a selection of works created by the artist in 2020, just before his passing.
Known for his translucent, meditative sculptures that appear to emulate light from within, Alexander spent his decades-long career exploring the perceptual relationships between light and color. A key figure in the Los Angeles art scene in the 1960s—when he developed his iconic polyester resin sculptures—he was a vanguard of the California Light and Space movement alongside James Turrell, Robert Irwin, and others. Evoking the unique atmosphere and natural landscape of his native Southern California, as well as art historical references to Mark Rothko’s bold use of color and Johannes Vermeer’s sensitive depictions of light, his work inspires personal contemplation and encourages sustained looking on behalf of the viewer.
In Seoul, Pace will present urethane sculptures created by Alexander between 2012 and 2020. Putting aside polyester resin in the 1970s due to its toxicity, he began working with urethane in the 2010s. Featuring prismatic block and wedge sculptures along with vibrant wall-mounted works, a number of which will be publicly shown for the first time, this exhibition will provide a focused overview of the artist’s nuanced approach to the interplay of light, shadow, reflection, and color. The four works dated to 2020—Out of Sight (Green Pink Bar Combo), Cat’s Meow, Cold Hands Warm Heart, and 3/9/20 Tangerine Box C—represent the culmination of his life’s practice.
Alexander’s ethereal 2/5/18 (Flo Yellow Needle) from 2018 will also figure prominently in the presentation. The last sculptural shape that Alexander investigated in his career, the needle is emblematic of his singular ability to transform space. Possessing both ephemeral and tactile qualities, the sculpture completely changes form depending on the environment in which it is being viewed, its translucent edges appearing and disappearing from different vantage points.
This will be the first solo show of Alexander’s work in Korea, situating his work within a cultural context that unlocks new resonances and shared affinities with a Korean aesthetic tradition privileging restraint, perception, and the experiential qualities of objects rather than overt gesture. In Seoul—a city defined by its interplay between density and openness, tradition and technological advancement—Alexander’s work invites viewers to slow down and engage with light as a physical and emotional presence. This sensibility also aligns with the legacy of Dansaekhwa and Korean artists’ broader engagement with phenomenology and materiality. In this way, Alexander’s work can be understood not only as historically integral to the Light and Space movement but also as art that is remarkably multivalent and contemporary.
Over the course of his career, Alexander showed his work at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the San Diego Museum of Art; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; and other international institutions. His work can be found in many of these collections as well as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California; and other major museums.
On View
Apr 16 – Jun 5, 2026
Seoul
Pace will present Mary Corse: Primary Light, an exhibition of new Diamond paintings by Mary Corse, at its Seoul gallery from April 15 through June 5. Also featuring a light box work in a separate viewing space, the presentation will center on Corse’s sensitive, decades-long inquiries into the nature of human perception.
A California native, Corse has lived and worked in Los Angeles since 1964. Over the course of her distinguished career, she has investigated the perceptual and spatial properties of light through abstract works that combine aesthetic refinement with scientific rigor. Employing an empirical and materially attentive approach in her practice, she explores the ways in which light can operate simultaneously as both subject and material within the pictorial field.
Though she has embraced various modes of making, including sculpture and installation, Corse has maintained a deep commitment to the medium of painting throughout her storied career. Her new body of Diamond paintings, which are the focus of her presentation at Pace’s Seoul gallery, recall the early shaped canvases she created in the mid 1960s. Revisiting these formative works in recent years, the artist has continuously revamped her experiments with atypical geometric supports by introducing new elements, including a spectrum of primary colors and glass microspheres.
Corse discovered glass microspheres—an industrial material used in street signs and dividing lines on roadways—in 1968, after incorporating various reflective substances, including silver flakes and Murano glass paint, into her compositions. Applied to the surfaces of her works with acrylic paint, these tiny glass beads create a shifting, illuminative effect, responding to their surrounding environment and creating “a triangle between the surface, the viewer, and the light.”
Though Corse’s first diamond-shaped paintings were rendered in all white, her new works incorporate inner bands that bifurcate the compositions in vibrant red, yellow, and blue hues. The introduction of primary colors into her oeuvre, like the microspheres, grew from her enduring interest in the phenomenological possibilities of art.
“Going deeper into white light, you’re going to find color,” Corse has said. “I always liked moving deeper inward." She has also stated that she is “interested in a painting that is about itself. . . just a pure perceptual experience of the moment, the experience before the idea.”
In addition to new Diamond paintings, Pace’s presentation will include the artist’s light box work Untitled (Electric Light) from 2021. Like her shaped canvases, Corse came to the light box form—or “light painting,” as she calls it—early in her career as a means of rethinking and reimagining the possibilities of painting. Inspired by quantum physics, this austere, glowing installation consists of a three-dimensional Plexiglas square, suspended by monofilaments and powered wirelessly by Tesla coils—high-frequency generators that transmit electromagnetic fields. Emitting a radiant white light, this work serves as an anchor in the exhibition, an otherworldly presence within a constellation of canvases.
In 2021, Corse was the subject of a major one-artist exhibition at the Long Museum, Shanghai, which traveled to the Amorepacific Museum of Art in Seoul in 2022. Mary Corse: A Survey in Light, the artist’s first one-artist museum survey, was presented at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2018 and 2019, respectively. Comprehensive catalogs were published with both surveys. A focused presentation of Corse’s work was on view at Dia: Beacon in New York for four years, highlighting historical works from the collection.
In 2025, Corse’s work was included in the exhibition Minimal at the Borse de Commerce in Paris. In 2023, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art presented Light, Space, Surface, in which Corse’s work was exhibited. She was also included in Long Story Short at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2023–2024), as well as the major presentation Pacific Standard Time: Crosscurrents in L.A., Painting and Sculpture, 1950-1970 at The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles in 2011.
The artist’s work can be found in the permanent collections of Amorepacific Museum of Art, Seoul; The Art Institute of Chicago; Dia Art Foundation, New York; The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Long Museum, Shanghai; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Menil Collection, Houston, Texas; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among other institutions.