Ryoji Ikeda, the artist who works between France and Japan, launched his largest-ever solo exhibition in Korea on Thursday, September 24, 2026, at Jeju Island’s alternative space, House of Refuse. Set within a concrete ruin left abandoned for more than 20 years before its renovation, the exhibition presents large-scale sensory installations, including three new works and two new versions making their world premieres. Here, we report on the exhibition in full, alongside scenes from Ikeda’s live performance on site.
One of the exhibition’s highlights is The Critical Paths, a work born from collaborative research with the Estonian Genome Center at the University of Tartu. Genomic data from 100,000 people is transformed into light and sound, while suspended LED screens and floor-to-ceiling mirrors create an endless corridor of data. As visitors move through this space, where the accumulated history of human change converges, they themselves become part of a vast fragment of data.
Also making its world premiere, the irreducible fills a pitch-black gallery with millions of digits displayed on a massive LED screen and extended infinitely through mirrors underfoot. Though physically visualized, it presents the realm of the “mathematical sublime”—something the human eye and brain can never fully process. Other works include the irreducible [nº13], which prints more than one million digits onto 35mm film inside a light box that at first appears to be a still image, and Spin, where an ultra-high-precision laser rotating at high speed creates the illusion of a three-dimensional structure. Together, these works vividly reveal the limits of human perception in today’s data-driven society.
The opening also featured a rare live performance by Ikeda himself. Dressed entirely in black and wearing sunglasses, he operated 10 turntables simultaneously for the first time in roughly 20 years. In contrast to the meticulous calculation and precision of his works, the mechanical sounds and high frequencies generated by turntables spinning at different speeds collided in complex ways, creating an acoustic space shaped by chance. Against the backdrop of untouched forest, the impersonal concrete structure of the former ruin, and data and light calculated to an almost excessive degree, this exhibition is undoubtedly one of Asia’s most essential media-art experiences right now.
RYOJI IKEDA — Solo Exhibition
Dates: Thursday, September 24, 2026–Sunday, January 18, 2027
Venue: House of Refuse (735 Haso-ro, Aewol-eup, Jeju, South Korea)
Hours: 10:00 a.m.–7:00 p.m. (last entry at 6:00 p.m.)
Admission: KRW 23,000
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