Jon Klassen & Mac Barnett
April 25(Tue) - September 10(Sun), 2023

Jon Klassen and Mac Barnett garnered much attention from the outset of their debuts, winning the Caldecott Award, the Kate Greenaway Award, and the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award. The characteristics of postmodern picture books, such as concise expression, open endings, metafiction, and paratext, draw the reader into the book, let their imagination run wild, and participate as part of the picture book as an active viewer. The two artists actively engage with readers beyond publishing picture books, be it a fun trailer featuring themselves as artists, a book tour, or a live social media broadcast. In recent years, their picture books have expanded to collaborations with other fields and genres, such as the plays of the National Theatre in the United Kingdom, and the Apple TV animated series, allowing their works to be understood in different ways.

The exhibition of Jon Klassen and Mac Barnett presents the two artists’ idea sketches, autographed manuscripts, original drawings, videos, and projects that encompass their first picture books to upcoming books to be published for the first time to the Korean audience. Exhibition Hall 1 is populated with picture books written and drawn by Jon Klassen and ones written by Mac Barnett, followed by Exhibition Hall 2 with works related to picture books created in collaboration between the two artists.

In the exhibition, children can not only appreciate the two artists’ works, but also enter their works by creating drawings and writings, making things, and participating in theater plays, becoming the very protagonists of the picture books and understanding them in more interesting ways. Jon Klassen and Mac Barnett drew us into the world of picture books through their postmodern picture books. In a similar manner, this exhibition will communicate with the audience in a new way, inviting them to experience picture books anew and create more stories.