Jon Klassen & Mac Barnett

As leading artists of postmodern picture books, Jon Klassen and Mac Barnett garnered a lot of attention since the early days after their debuts, winning the Caldecott Award, the Kate Greenaway Award, and the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award. Their work exhibits characteristics of postmodern picture books, such as simplicity of expression, open-endedness, metafiction, and paratext. These characteristics make their work a new art form that captures the imagination of children and adults alike. In particular, their storytelling style has no set answers and is open to interpretation. This allows readers to create endless stories of their own, blurring the lines between real and fictional worlds.

In addition to publishing picture books, both artists actively engage with readers through fun trailer videos featuring themselves, book tours, and live broadcasts on social media. It’s also interesting to see the results of their collaborations with other fields that have expanded on the picture book, such as a theatrical play at the National Theater in the UK and animated series on Apple TV.

The current exhibition of John Klassen & Mac Barnett features the artists’ idea sketches, handwritten manuscripts, original drawings, and related projects spanning their careers from the earliest works to upcoming publications, which are presented for the first time in the world. Exhibition Hall 1 features artworks from picture books written and illustrated by John Klassen and Mac Barnett, and Exhibition Hall 2 presents artworks related to picture books created in collaboration between the two artists. The exhibition introduces the works and their creative processes that can only be seen on the pages of picture books. This allows us to understand both artists’ expanding practices and to experience the picture book artists’ work in a new way in the museum. We hope that the exhibition will provide creative inspiration not only to our young visitors but also to older visitors who come to the exhibition.

HYUNDAI MUSEUM OF KIDS’ BOOKS & ART
5F, Office H, Hyundai Department Store PanGyo, 20, PanGyoyeok-ro 146beon-gil,Bundang-gu, Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi-do, Korea
031-5170-3700

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