Cho Gi-Seok and his futurist aesthetics take center stage in Shanghai

One look at any image by Cho Gi-Seok and it feels as though you are being gently drawn into a lucid dream. The Korean visual artist—known for his surreal, symbol-laden compositions and collaborations across fashion and music—now brings his singular universe to Fotografiska Shanghai with a major exhibition shaped by tension, poetry, and futurist aesthetics.

Titled The Coexistence of Imperfection, the exhibition runs until March 8th, 2026, marking Cho’s first major solo presentation in Asia. It is a landmark moment for an artist whose work has come to define a new visual language within contemporary Korean and global youth culture.

Dreamscapes for the digital age at Fotografiska Shanghai

On view at Fotografiska Shanghai through early March, The Coexistence of Imperfection unfolds as a meditation on contradiction. “Imperfection is not a flaw, but a more authentic and profound state of being,” Cho notes. The exhibition invites viewers to find harmony within emotional dualities and strength within vulnerability—proposing that tension itself can be a site of beauty.

Bringing together four pivotal series—Flower Study, Bad Dream, Love & Hate, and These Days—the show explores imperfection as a generative force. Across these bodies of work, nature, technology, desire, and subconscious anxiety are interwoven into meticulously staged tableaux that feel at once spiritual and hyper-contemporary.

A wall of childlike sketches greets visitors at the entrance, revealing the storyboard process behind his fantastical scenes. Today, Cho increasingly incorporates artificial intelligence as a conceptual tool, using it to refine mood boards and visualize the more elusive edges of his imagination.

The Korean visual artist who redefines contemporary image-making

Born in Seoul in 1992, the Korean visual artist began his career in graphic design before turning to photography in 2016. Self-taught and working from a small rented studio, he quickly rose to international acclaim. His trajectory—from independent creative to global collaborator—has cemented his reputation as a multidisciplinary force working across photography, film, fashion, and now fragrance.

Cho’s visual language is unmistakable: vivid, audacious, and saturated with symbolic tension. While rooted in traditional Eastern motifs, his images fuse these elements with digital technologies and futurist aesthetics, forging what many describe as a distinctly “New Asian” sensibility. The result disrupts the quiet restraint often associated with classical Asian art, yet preserves its rhythm and spiritual undertones at a deeper level.

Often described as a “visual alchemist of the digital age,” Cho Gi-Seok conjures images that resist the visual fatigue of our hyper-saturated era. His dreamscapes feel immersive rather than overwhelming—layered with metaphor, yet precise in their emotional clarity.