Seoul opens first major Wayne Thiebaud retrospective — Korea Herald
An exhibition, “Wayne Thiebaud: The Order of Things,” has opened at Dongdaemun Design Plaza in Seoul, South Korea. It is the first major retrospective of American artist Wayne Thiebaud in the country. The exhibition was organized as part of Hyundai Card’s Culture Project. According to Korea Herald, it brings together 105 works created over seven decades.
Wayne Thiebaud died in 2021 at the age of 101. He is best known for paintings depicting cakes, pie slices, confectionery display cases, ready-to-eat food counters, and gumball machines. At the same time, the exhibition presents not only these works, but also portraits, cityscapes, and beach scenes.
Works from the 1940s to 2020
The exhibition is arranged primarily in chronological order. The first section features paintings from the 1940s and 1950s, including the 1955 work “Cigar Counter.” According to Korea Herald’s description, it was executed in the thick, gestural manner of Willem de Kooning, whom Thiebaud met in New York in 1956.
Works in the exhibition include “Nickel Pinball” from 1962–1963, “Salads, Sandwiches, and Desserts” from 1962, and “Eating Figures (Quick Snack)” from 1963. Also on display is “One-Hundred-Year-Old Clown,” painted in 2020, a year before the artist’s death. It depicts the artist wearing white makeup and a red clown nose.
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The concept of the order of things
The exhibition is curated by Dieter Buchhart and Anna Karina Hofbauer. The title, “The Order of Things,” refers to a 1966 work by French philosopher Michel Foucault about invisible codes through which culture determines what can be seen and known.
At the preview, Buchhart said that everyday objects, food, spaces, and recurring rituals contain deep codes of culture. According to him, Thiebaud’s works reveal the hidden structure of ordinary things.
The exhibition “Wayne Thiebaud: The Order of Things” will run at Dongdaemun Design Plaza from September 19 through February 21, 2027.
