SPACE December 2025 (No. 697)
The erosion of the genre boundaries across the arts – and indeed across many other fields – has become a defining phenomenon of our time. Hybridity, diversification, and decentralisation no longer signal rupture but rather the unremarkable or routine. Exhibition spaces, too, have expanded beyond the conventional white cube, stretching into emergent project spaces, the metaverse, VR, and various online realms, forming an open ecosystem that embraces artistic practices across mainstream and non-mainstream lines. ‘Wreath and Towel’ is one such platform: an online and offline exhibition initiative that welcomes texts of many kinds, unfolding them into layered, spatial forms. Its contributors include analytic aestheticians, comics critics, designers, writers of independent publications, as well as researchers of spatial culture, and contributors who work in areas such as coding, or sign-language literature—anyone who conveys ideas through alternative textual methods. Within Wreath and Towel, each contributor is intended to be newly ‘read’ through their own idiosyncratic mode. What follows is an exploration of the platform that is rewriting the rules of contemporary exhibition culture. Editor
Exhibition view of ‘Text Buffet’ (2024)
‘Parts Hypothesisum’ (2025)
Interview Lee Yehyun director, Wreath and Towel × Kim Hyerin
Kim Hyerin (Kim): What prompted you to establish and operate an exhibition platform?
Lee Yehyun (Lee): I studied Fine Art in the Netherlands and Belgium during my undergraduate years. However, I eventually withdrew from this sphere, mainly because I struggled to see a sustainable economic future in conventional artistic practice. Upon returning to Korea, I wo...
