Though separated by roughly 6,000 miles, the New Museum and Korea’s Ulsan Art Museum have never been closer.
The two institutions today announced a multi-year partnership as part of the Hyundai Translocal Series, an initiative by the Hyundai Motor Company. The collaboration begins with a new commission by Singaporean multimedia artist and writer Ho Tzu Nyen. The work will be installed in the glass elevators of the New Museum’s recently inaugurated OMA redesign, and in Ulsan, a coastal city north of Busan.
Ho is one of Singapore’s most visible living artists, having represented the city-state at the 2011 Venice Biennale with his multi-channel video installation The Cloud of Unknowing. The work interweaves South and Southeast Asian mythologies and histories with Western cultural touchstones—from canonical artists to sacred texts—often with a deliberate sense of unease. In 2024, he was awarded the Chanel Next Prize and was the subject of a mid-career survey at the Singapore Art Museum, which brought together two-decades worth of animation, film, and performance.
In a joint statement, Regan Grusy, acting director of the New Museum, and Changsub Lim, director of the Ulsan Art Museum, said, “We are delighted to participate in the Hyundai Translocal Series, which allows us to transcend physical distances, share the unique cultural and environmental fabrics of our two great cities, and collectively explore the push and pull of the global and the local in contemporary art.”
Launched in 2025, the Hyundai Translocal Series is a 10-year project intended to connect art institutions worldwide through joint commissions, residency programs, and touring shows. Its expanding list of participants includes Korea’s Cheongju Craft Biennale, the Abu Dhabi Music & Arts Foundation, and Whitworth in the UK.
“This collaboration” the statement continued, “will serve as a bridge that connects our cities and their respective art communities, resulting in new works of art that offer audiences a transformative experience of a multilayered reality that connects us all beyond a single location.”
