Between Past and Future spotlights six works of sculpture produced by five artists—Ryu In, Shim Moonseup, Jannis Kounellis, Choi Manlin, and Choi Insu—among the 62 new items acquired by the Pohang Museum of Steel Art (POMA) over the past two years.

The original Korean title of the exhibition is 20이일(異日), which imparts dual meaning. The Korean text, pronounced “ee ill,” can be understood to refer to the year 2021, but it can also be taken to refer to a “different day” in the past or future. In other words, 20이일(異日) is at once a reference to POMA’s present, past, and future.

The exhibition’s English title Between Past and Future is taken from the title of a 1961 book by German-born Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt (1906–1975). Arendt focused the inherent temporality of the human condition, re-examining what exists “between” the past and future within the time frame that we inevitably possess as human beings. This collection is similarly something that exists within POMA’s past, present, and future, pushing its way in between the past and future to make the present worthwhile.

Every collection illustrates an art institution’s identity. This identity is established in a way that reflects an institution’s foundational guiding philosophy. The identity it chooses determines the direction of its future acquisitions and acts as a measure. POMA has focused its acquisitions on three types of artwork: artwork reflecting its specialized identity as a steel art museum, artwork that contributes to establishing regional art history, and artwork by artists who have participated in past special exhibitions.

Among those three categories, this exhibition focuses on reinterpreting artwork that was acquired to reflect POMA’s identity as a steel art museum. Rather than offering basic interpretations of the featured artwork, the exhibition attempts to broaden its research scope by including other works associated with each participating artist, recontextualizing their work so that it can be viewed from a new perspective. By transporting the regional cultural theme of steel into an art museum setting, POMA created the new artistic genre steel art. The past may be irreversible, but the museum works to define steel art by assigning new meaning to that past. This exhibition can be seen as complete once the artwork exists “between” past and future.