The Brooklyn-born artist Alex Katz, now 98, remains dedicated to capturing the present. When he was young and studying at Cooper Union, he focused on modern art and was taught to paint from drawings. The paintings he did from direct observation were mostly overlooked. This exhibition in Seoul presents small-scale works of raw perception, which date from the 1990s to the present. The flowers, forests, and people Katz depicts represent a search for “the interior light of character,” according to the history professor Ingrid D. Rowland. —Maggie Turner