Forty-eight K-pop stars are coming together for one of the largest art exhibitions the genre has ever seen. D’FESTA THE ORIGIN opens October 23 at the IFC Mall L3 MPX Gallery in Yeouido, Seoul, running through November 30 — and its lineup reads like a who’s who of contemporary K-pop.
The project unites 48 artists from nine leading teams: G-Dragon, BTS, Stray Kids, TXT, aespa, ENHYPEN, IVE, RIIZE and CORTIS, according to allkpop. Over about four months, around 30 large filming sets were built to capture new sides of the artists, going beyond music and performance to present them through photography, video, fashion and art under the theme “ORIGIN” — the dreams and passion the artists first held.
Inside the exhibition
The show is divided into several sections. THE NINEFOLD captures the personalities of the nine teams across 18 stories, while HUES OF BLACK features large black-and-white portraits — 8 meters wide and 4 meters tall — focused on each artist’s aura and gaze. The centerpiece is KANON NO. 48, a large-scale work completed by all 48 artists together, who walk across a massive structure to visually record contemporary K-pop.
Visitors can also see member drawings in THE SQUEEZE, handwritten letters and video messages to fans in LETTERS, and an interactive program, THE ENCOUNTER, that lets visitors hear the artists’ voices and take commemorative photos. An admission kit including a photo ticket comes with entry, per allkpop.
Recording K-pop’s moment
“‘THE ORIGIN’ is a project we have worked on for a long time to present K-pop’s most shining moments in an artistic form,” the organizers said. “In particular, ‘KANON NO. 48’ will be a valuable scene that records K-pop on an overwhelming scale.” The Korea JoongAng Daily, which also covered the opening, notes the exhibition traces the artists from their trainee days to global fame — a fitting monument at a moment when K-pop’s cultural footprint has never been larger.
The timing is no accident. With BTS’s reunion cycle dominating headlines and fourth-generation groups like Stray Kids, IVE and RIIZE carrying the industry’s present, THE ORIGIN frames K-pop as a continuum — from trainee days to global fame, as the JoongAng Daily puts it. For fans, it is a rare chance to see rival fandoms’ idols share a single canvas; for the industry, it is a museum-grade assertion that K-pop has become culture, not just content.
