Damien Hirst’s first large-scale solo exhibition in Asia has opened at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) in Seoul, bringing the polarizing British artist’s signature explorations of life, death and belief to Korean audiences at a moment of intense debate over his relevance. Titled “Damien Hirst: Nothing Is True But Everything Is Possible,” the show is part of MMCA’s ongoing drive to introduce major figures of global contemporary art to the public and runs through June 28. It gathers some 50 works spanning four decades, from rarely seen early experiments to the controversial animal vitrines and recent paintings that continue to divide critics. MMCA officials acknowledged that choosing Hirst — a central figure of the Young British Artists (YBA) movement and a lightning rod for criticism over commercialization and spectacle — is a deliberate, even risky, move for a national museum. Yet, showing how Hirst persistently probes humanity’s bond with death, our drive to escape it, the money that exploits that urge and the systems that cloak such forces in