Hyundai Motor announces four new partners for Hyundai Translocal Series

Ulsan Art Museum, New Museum, Seo-Seoul Museum of Art and Abu Dhabi Music and Arts Foundation join initiative

Clockwise from top left: Ulsan Art Museum, New Museum, Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, and Seo-Seoul Museum of Art [Ulsan Art Museum, Courtesy New Museum, Courtesy of MBZUAI, Kim Tae-dong]

Hyundai Motor Co. announced Tuesday that four institutions have joined its Hyundai Translocal Series: Ulsan Art Museum (Ulsan, South Korea), New Museum (New York, United States), Seo-Seoul Museum of Art (Seoul, South Korea) and Abu Dhabi Music and Arts Foundation (Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates).

The Hyundai Translocal Series is a partnership program designed to build sustainable collaborative relationships between arts institutions at home and abroad. It provides broad support across the full spectrum of exchange — joint research, new commissions, exhibitions, related programs and publications. Through the initiative, arts institutions around the world explore translocal themes of shared global significance within their respective cultural contexts, generating new artistic discourse.

Ulsan Art Museum and New Museum will develop a collaboration linking Ulsan and New York around the convergence of art and technology, exploring key contemporary issues through the distinct cultural contexts of each city.

Ulsan Art Museum, which opened in January 2022, pursues a vision of a future-oriented museum grounded in digital technology, sharing creative artistic discourse through exhibitions and programs that cross the boundaries of painting, sculpture, new media and installation. New Museum, founded in 1977, has continued to champion new art and ideas by contemporary artists — most recently with the opening of its new building in March — sustaining a commitment to experimental and creative artistic practice.

The two museums will co-organize three exhibitions over three years, one per year. The shows will be site-specific works reflecting the character of each venue: the XR Lab, a dedicated media art space at Ulsan Art Museum, and the elevator screens of New Museum's new building.

The first collaborative exhibition will feature Ho Tzu Nyen, an artist known for works that traverse time and space around the theme of Asian modernity. New media artworks will be unveiled at New Museum on Sept. 24 and at Ulsan Art Museum on Oct. 22.

Lim Chang-seop, director of Ulsan Art Museum, and Reagan Grusy, acting director of New Museum, said the Hyundai Translocal Series makes it possible to share the environments and cultures of each city across physical distances and to examine together the multifaceted contexts in which contemporary art takes shape. "This collaboration will intricately intersect the temporality and spatiality of different cities, offering audiences an expanded experience of the multilayered realities connecting them to the world," they said.

In addition, Seo-Seoul Museum of Art and Abu Dhabi Music and Arts Foundation will pursue a multi-year collaboration grounded in today's environment of technological innovation — including AI — examining from multiple perspectives how changes in the technological landscape interact with society, culture and the environment.

Seo-Seoul Museum of Art, which opened in March as the first public art museum in southwestern Seoul, presents critical discourse and experimental practice through new-media-focused exhibitions and research programs that explore new mediums and artistic languages. Abu Dhabi Music and Arts Foundation, established in 1996, has long supported local artists, creative activities and public engagement while promoting cultural exchange, contributing to the expansion of Abu Dhabi's international cultural ties.

The two institutions will invite four artist teams whose work engages with the changing artistic environment brought about by technological advances, including AI, and will run a multidisciplinary residency program in collaboration with Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence. New commissioned works will then be presented through jointly organized exhibitions scheduled to open sequentially in Abu Dhabi in 2027 and Seoul in 2028.

Choi Eun-ju, director of Seoul Museum of Art, and Huda AlKhamis-Kanoo, founder of Abu Dhabi Music and Arts Foundation, said they were pleased to join the Hyundai Translocal Series, a global initiative and platform for cultural dialogue that transcends borders. "At the intersection of art, technology and society, this collaboration will support artists' experimentation with highly advanced technologies such as AI and serve as an opportunity to explore the future artistic environment," they said.

The Hyundai Translocal Series, which launched last year, previously presented its first exchange exhibition — "Hyundai Translocal Series: Interlace and Interweave" — through a collaboration among the 2025 Cheongju Craft Biennale (Cheongju, South Korea), the Whitworth (Manchester, United Kingdom) and the National Crafts Museum of India (New Delhi, India). An exhibition co-organized by Nam June Paik Art Center (Yongin, South Korea) and Pinacoteca (São Paulo, Brazil) is set to open in November.

A Hyundai Motor official said it was meaningful to welcome Ulsan Art Museum, New Museum, Seo-Seoul Museum of Art and Abu Dhabi Music and Arts Foundation as new partners in the Hyundai Translocal Series. "We hope this will lead to meaningful collaboration connecting different regions and cultures, grounded in an exploration of diverse relationships within a rapidly shifting cultural landscape," the official said.

Meanwhile, Hyundai Motor is continuing its support for the arts and culture sector. The company recently sponsored the Classical Bridge International Music Festival, held to mark the 140th anniversary of diplomatic relations between South Korea and France, and will support the Avignon Festival — the world's largest performing arts festival — running from July 4 to July 25 in and around Avignon, France.

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