Last updated: September 2026
Quick answer: Lynn Hershman Leeson — the American media artist and filmmaker whose 60-year career spans video, film, robotics, and AI — opens her first solo museum survey in Asia at the Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA)‘s Seosomun Main Branch in October 2026. It’s the headline international show in SeMA’s 2026 program, built around the museum’s “technology” theme, and it runs at a free-admission municipal museum right in the middle of downtown Seoul.
Table of Contents
- Who Is Lynn Hershman Leeson, and Why Does This Show Matter?
- When Does the Exhibition Run, and Where?
- How Do You Get to SeMA’s Seosomun Main Branch?
- What Else Is New in Seoul’s Museum Scene?
Who Is Lynn Hershman Leeson, and Why Does This Show Matter?
Lynn Hershman Leeson, born in 1941, is one of the pioneering figures of media art — an artist and filmmaker who has spent six decades working across video, interactive installation, biotechnology, robotics, and, more recently, artificial intelligence, almost always circling back to questions of identity, surveillance, and what it means to be a self in a world of recording devices. Her work has had major surveys at the New Museum in New York and ZKM in Germany, but according to SeMA’s official announcement of its 2026 exhibition program, the Seoul show is her first solo museum exhibition anywhere in Asia. SeMA has billed it as the flagship “international representative artist” exhibition of a year themed around technology — a fitting pairing, given how directly her work anticipated today’s arguments over AI, data, and the surveilled self.
When Does the Exhibition Run, and Where?
The exhibition opens in October 2026 at SeMA’s Seosomun Main Branch — the museum’s flagship building in central Seoul, housed in the former Gyeongseong District Court, a colonial-era courthouse repurposed as a museum in 2002. Korean art-press coverage of SeMA’s announcement has reported a run of roughly four months, into early 2027, which would put it on view through the fall foliage season and into winter. Because a specific closing date for a headline show like this can still shift as installation dates firm up, it’s worth checking SeMA’s official exhibitions page for the confirmed daily dates and any timed-entry details before you plan a visit around it.
How Do You Get to SeMA’s Seosomun Main Branch?
The Seosomun Main Branch sits at 61 Deoksugung-gil in Jung-gu, a couple of minutes’ walk from City Hall Station (Line 1, Exit 1, or Line 2, Exits 10–12); Line 5’s Seodaemun (Exit 5) and Gwanghwamun (Exit 6) stations are also within walking distance. General admission to the museum’s building is free, though special exhibitions like this one may carry a separate ticket price. The museum is open Tuesday through Sunday — Tuesday to Thursday 10am–8pm, Friday until 9pm, and weekends and holidays until 6 or 7pm depending on the season — and closed on Mondays and January 1st. The location puts it within easy walking distance of Myeongdong, so it’s simple to fold a visit into a day of shopping and street food rather than treating it as a special trip across town; our where-to-stay-in-Myeongdong guide covers hotel options in the neighborhood if you want to base yourself nearby for the run of the show.
What Else Is New in Seoul’s Museum Scene?
This isn’t the only major international survey to land in Seoul this year. Koo Jeong-a’s largest solo show in Korea is running at Leeum Museum of Art through the end of 2026, and Jonas Wood’s first Asia museum survey continues at the Amorepacific Museum of Art in Yongsan into early 2027 as well. SeMA itself runs across eight branches citywide — its newest, the Seo-Seoul Museum of Art in Geumcheon-gu, opened earlier in 2026 with a focus on digital and new media work, which makes for a natural pairing with the Seosomun branch’s Lynn Hershman Leeson show if you’re planning a museum-heavy day. Taken together, it’s one more reason a Seoul trip built around contemporary art has more to offer this year than in most.
Exhibition dates, ticketing, and admission details are set by SeMA and can change — check the museum’s official site before you visit.