siren eun young jung: resistant theatre

With resistant theatre, the Württembergischer Kunstverein presents a major solo exhibition by the South Korean artist siren eun young jung.

The exhibition focuses on the latest and final part of jung’s theatre trilogy, featuring three new video installations on view outside South Korea for the first time. The trilogy draws on the artist’s long-standing engagement with Yeoseong Gukgeuk—a genre of musical theatre popular in South Korea in the 1950s, in which all roles, including male characters, are performed by women. In the performances, videos, and archival installations resulting from this artistic research, jung creates trans* and queer-feminist spaces of discourse and action beyond Western narratives.

The first part of the trilogy, trans theatre, examines the first generation of performers of male roles in Yeoseong Gukgeuk and offers a queer reading of the related archives. The second part, deferral theatre, was developed in close collaboration with contemporary artists from the LGBTQIA+ community and explores questions of performativity and representation.

resistant theatre now foregrounds the present-day political agency of marginalized individuals, as well as queer and trans* models of citizenship. It asks how such politics might be durably inscribed into state processes and everyday practices—practices that imagine a future not yet realized.

The backdrop to this third part is the wave of civilian protests in South Korea in 2024 and 2025, which opposed President Yoon Suk-yeol, who had declared martial law on December 3, 2024. LGBTQIA+ groups were visibly and significantly involved in these protests. Yoon was ultimately removed from office and sentenced to life imprisonment for insurrection and abuse of power.

A central motif of resistant theatre is the physical presence and movement of resistant bodies in public space. jung explores the fundamental forms and grammars of protest: singing and chanting, flags and picket lines, rallies and marches. The newly created works are large-scale, immersive video installations that bring into relation the city, the body, and resistance.

The exhibition presents all three parts of the theatre trilogy, with resistant theatre at its spatial center. Its three video works, recalling the silhouette of a metropolis, are arranged around a deliberately left empty center, creating the impression of an open piazza. It includes another central element of the exhibition: a platform that serves as a stage for various performances while also functioning as an open forum for multiple voices. It is one of several locations inside and outside the Kunstverein where the accompanying public program takes place.

One of the program’s highlights is a music and video performance by the electropop musician KIRARA on July 10, 2026. KIRARA openly addresses in her work her experiences as a trans* person. She is involved in several of jung’s recent works. Both artists have been working together since 2016, including on jung’s presentation in the South Korean Pavilion at the 2019 Venice Biennale.

Curator
Nathalie Boseul Shin, Seoul
in collaboration with
Hans D. Christ, Iris Dressler

Curatorial assistant
Anne Volk