Current Exhibitions

Wearing Being: On the Matter of Clothing

2026-03-19 ~ 2026-06-28

Wearing Being: On the Matter of Clothing

Everyone wears something each day. Most of us have, at least once, asked ourselves, “What should I wear today?” You may have found yourself asking the same question before setting out to visit this exhibition. Although it may appear to be a simple choice, deciding what to wear is shaped by multiple contexts—our roles and relationships, the situations we enter, and the attitudes we carry. We select garments that protect the body, remain attentive to social position and the gaze of others, and consider whether an outfit suits our appearance, mood, or plans for the day. In this way, what we wear is closely tied to where we belong, how we are positioned, and what we wish to express or reveal.

Wearing Being: On the Matter of Clothing, the Suwon Museum of Art’s thematic exhibition for the first half of the year, begins with this familiar act of “wearing.” While clothing often appears to result from personal choice, it has long been shaped by overlapping structures that differentiate gender, class, labor, consumption, individuality, and collectivity. Through garments, outward appearance, and elements that attach to or interact with the body, the exhibition examines how wearing is deeply entangled with social and industrial conditions that have shaped bodily function, sensation, and role. The works presented here address the relationships between norms and institutions, technology and the body, fashion and consumption, drawing attention to the conditions under which clothing is produced, circulated, and worn. In doing so, the exhibition traces how expectations around what one could wear—and what one was expected to wear—have been formed within social structures and conventions.

The participating artists approach “wearing” from diverse perspectives. In some works, clothing operates as a device through which social identity is performed; in others, tools and apparatuses worn on the body recalibrate sensation and modes of bodily operation. Industrially produced garments, discarded materials, and standardized forms of dress are transformed through artistic inquiry into questions of the body, power, control, and expansion. Across these practices, wearing emerges not as a matter of personal taste alone, but as an act continually shaped by social conditions, technologies, and institutional frameworks.

Wearing Being invites viewers to look again at the things they have put on and taken off without much thought. At the point where protection and expression, belonging and control, and freedom and regulation intersect, the act of wearing expands beyond the surface to encompass questions of relationship, power, identity, and industry. The question “What am I wearing now?” ultimately leads to another: “Who am I?” This exhibition hopes to prompt ongoing reflection—not only within the gallery, but beyond it—on how we have dressed ourselves and what meanings, expectations, and structures have shaped those choices.