'Encounters between Korean Art and Literature in the Modern Age' - Night at the Museum

For Korean culture, those were troubled and fascinating times; times of repression and expression, times of Western influences, Japanese occupation, and Korean affirmation. 

Those were modern times, and yet intemporal times. 

When young stars didn't just remain neatly aligned in their respective constellations. When pens and brushes blurred the lines between literature and modern art. With such a conjunction of talent, despair, hope, and urgency.

In a brilliant exhibition, MMCA brings us back to that era in - what better symbol? - its Deoksugung branch.

We see young minds avidly embrace the avant-garde, experiment with sometimes a French touch (Rene Clair, Jean Cocteau, JEONG Ji-yong's 'Cafe France'), we see painters and writers meet and collaborate, we see writers and critics become visual artists, we browse a mesmerizing library with rare first editions (KIM Sowol's Azaleas, MA Hae-song''s fairy tales illustrated by LEE Byung-hyun and KIM Jeong-hwan...), and scores of newspaper extracts - a bit like XIXth century Europe, Korea experienced a democratization of literature, only with a much more powerful poetic force. 

Strolling through the palace by night made the visit even more magical:

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 A great exhibition, reminiscent of the exceptional tribute to LEE Jung-seob in the same building:

'Captivating LEE Jung-seob exhibition in MMCA Deoksugung, Seoul' (@theseoulvillage - 20160806 - twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/761763045584404480)

KIM Whanki takes a lot of space as he tends to do in collections, but the zeitgeist is much better framed by this 'Portrait of a friend': gifted artist GU Bon-ung capturing genius poet YI Sang:

If the mapping of this creative galaxy aptly remains focused on people always on the move (more than a few ended in North Korea), I couldn't help but imagine a Seoul Museum of History version featuring geographical maps. Just to see where all Guinhoe members lived, how far from Seochon or Yi Sang's Jebi Madang...

We know writers and painters can be artists, authors, neither, or both. And sometimes it runs in the family. PARK Taewon's grandson happens to be an author who can sketch, and even do decent movies (BONG Joon-ho).

Byeolgeongon July 1933 - cover art by HWANG Jeong-su

• Encounters between Korean Art and Literature in the Modern Age at MMCA Deoksugung (Galleries 1 to 4): until May 30th, 2021, free entrance (except for the entrance to the palace).

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Gimme Shelter

I was back to town right on time to attend the inauguration of the Young Architects Program exhibition at MMCA Seoul*... and to enjoy a bit of the rainy season, even if this one looks much milder than the biblical downpour of 2010 (see "Chusoaked").

Luckily, the ultimately MOMA PS1-ish theme was about 'shade, seating, and water', and the winning project provided the perfect shelter for both Tuesday's rain and Thursday's sun. 

Named Temp'L, like for a temporary temple, Shinslab's structure does have, with its whaleish white ribs, something of Niemeyer's Brasilia Cathedral. It also honors the 2015-2016 France - Korea cultural years (see "Bleu Blanc Rouge"): based in Paris, Shinslab Architecture is led by Franco-Korean couple Claire and Tchely Hyung-Chul SHIN.

In the middle of the museum's courtyard, Temp'L is a big chunk of a boat's shell upcycled into a welcoming space with windows to Gyeongbokgung and Bugaksan, and trees breathing life within it.

Could this non threatening, upside-down hull in the heart of Seoul, just hectometers from Sejongdaero, help post-Sewol Korea at long last start healing?

"Shinslab's TempL - YAP winner at MMCA Seoul. A cathedral-like boat shell, a shelter, not a haunting Sewol-ity (twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/750246322247114752).

Back to MMCA SEOUL (and the hull of YAP's winning project) (twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/750956684613283840)

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* hors les murs de MOMA PS1, this edition involved Santiago de Chile's Constructo, Istanbul Modern, MMCA Seoul, and Pippo Ciorra's MAXXI in Rome

MMCA Seoul

Last week, I visited the Blue House, east of Gyeongbokgung. Not the one to the north of the palace (Cheong Wa Dae), but the one SUH Do-ho erected in the new Seoul branch of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art:

"Home within home within home within home" by Do-ho SUH: a life-size hanok in a town house in a museum. SUH's fabric structures are always spectacular, and visitors to the MMCA Seoul can enjoy this one from various interesting angles, including from the mezzanine (here), and of course from within.

If you're familiar with this excuse for a blog, you've followed this museum project from the start, seen it change names several times, and even virtually toured it from the sky (see previous episodes, including "MOCA goes MMCA - Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art" and "MMCA Seoul from above"). For years I've roamed the neighborhood, watched it unveil its old and new volumes, and counted the days to November 12th (official inauguration), feeling the same excitement as before the opening of Gwanghwamun Square*. In both cases, I knew the architecture wouldn't not be as great as it could have been, but I couldn't wait to see how a neighborhood I loved would integrate a new cultural landmark doubled with a new space opened to pedestrians. The kind of places that make urbanists and art lovers curious.

Don't worry, I won't follow the future MMCA Cheongju until its completion. The next branch of the museum is expected to open by 2015 in a former tobacco factory, and shall devote large volumes to the storage and conservation of artworks, a stimulating challenge for new media and interactive installations, and not only at the hardware level.

Hardware and software, artworks and museums, fabric homes within concrete shells... shall I start with the contents or the container? Maybe the latter, because I knew that whatever the circumstances, I was sure to experience an emotional moment in the old Gimusa staircase:

Summer 2009 (during the ASYAAF, a few months before the renovation started)

Back to half-round one, November 14, 2013. I'm so glad they kept the original handrail.

And once you've reached the rooftop, the view can't be more royal (from Bugaksan to Inwansan, from Cheong Wa Dae to Gyeongbokgung to Gwanghwamun).

So. I came back - again - on November 14th for a closer look, and still then, it was hard to tell if the architecture would work as planned in cruise mode: at that early stage, not all spaces were open, and not all connections between floors and buildings were operational. Except for the exhibition on the "Birth of a museum: the MMCA construction archive project", most of the upper floors, their cultural facilities and terraces were off limits for lambda visitors. The extensive museum shop didn't have a bookstore, and food-wise, the cafeteria was to start only on November 15th, the restaurant and digital book cafe a bit later.

Which left us the food court, but that didn't feel like a punition: we were by the window facing the Gyeonbokgung and majestic autumn trees, enjoying surprisingly delicious dishes, watching visitors and strollers cross the public madang with smiles on their faces (even those who were not sipping the free coffee offered to passers-by). Bonus: since we were eating in the food court, we could not see the cube hosting it, definitely not the finest moment in modern architecture.

Actually, the most interesting part of the complex remains the contrast between the old Gimusa's main building and the Office of Royal Genealogy, a newly rebuilt hanok. And as advertized, many things happen underground.

I'll leave it up to art critics to judge the inaugural exhibitions (which will end between February and July next year to introduce asynchronicity in the calendar of events). On paper, my veneration for The Blind Librarian drew me to the Borghesian "Aleph Project", and its impossible point of convergence, but of course you can only try to describe the spot where all points of views of the universe can be seen, and wait for sparks (I mean less literally than in Edwin van der Heide's "Evolving Spark Network"**). As the project unfolds, let's see if MMCA Seoul becomes Dali's "Gare de Perpignan".

MMCA capella? Classical music, underground location

Resolutely contemporary, the Seoul branch doesn't have any permanent collection, even if MMCA seizes the opportunity to display parts of its extensive collections, in "Zeitgeist Korea" for the inauguration. You'll find Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries among the "site specific projects", with the head-turner of an installation a tad less subversive than in the one I mentioned in a previous focus:

YHCHI @ MMCA Seoul - in the background, one of the 'madang' around which part of the museum unfolds.

For another inaugural exhibition, "Connecting_Unfolding", six curators selected seven artists, prolonging sometimes their dialogs in talks given in situ - here, Marc Lee with curator Bernhard Serexhe:

Marc Lee presents the 'soft' part of his "10,000 moving cities": when you select a city, the relevant images, videos, and tweets are sourced from the web, and projected in real-time on 3D city blocks.

There's no shortage of art spaces in Korea, in Seoul, and in the neighborhood, but this one can help lift contemporary arts in general and new media / interactive art in particular to new levels because it has the potential to bring new audiences, and to become a prestigious international crossroads. Its location and openness were key assets from the start, and I'm curious to see the creative / institutional platform work full swing.

• MMCA Seoul (check dates and book online: mmca.go.kr)

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* see "Gwanghwamun Square - Preview"
** in a completely different field, the ECM expo set the sensory experience bar very high in Seoul:

MMCA Seoul from above

The recently rebranded National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea unveiled this video of the MMCA Seoul branch to be inaugurated this November (see "MOCA goes MMCA - Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art"):




I like the vivid rendering of the neighborhood:

• starting northwards, along Samcheong-ro: to the left the Gyeongbokgung, to the right Sogyeok-dong galleries and the new museum, with in the distance Bugaksan

• the virtual camera turns to the right and the former DSC's main building, which shed its white coating to bare its red bricks - and still those wonderful semicircular staircases I caught by night under last month's Supermoon:



"Supermoon" over the future #MMCASeoul
twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/348434489560686593

Very spectacular from the inside as well. I took this picture during the 2009 ASYAAF (NB: don't forget: this year's edition is back to Culture Station Seoul 284 - until August 18 for the second part)



• about halfway into the video, we're slowing down before the next building, to enjoy the now cleared view on the large hanok in the background.

• we then start taking off slowly to appreciate the renovations and extensions, the gardens and green rooftops, and a well located terrasse at the corner with Bukchon-ro 5-gil

• before fading away to make room for the MMCA logo, the whole block is visible (Yulgok-ro to the South, Gamgodang-gil to the East, Samcheong-ro to the West, Bukchon-ro 5-gil to the North)

I won't say that I'm thrilled by the architecture, which reminds me a bit of my old ESSEC Campus (vintage 1973) before its renovation, but this project does mark an improvement for the neighborhood. At least if you compare it to the past (a low-rise open space replacing the gated Defense Security Command), or to Yongsan's criminal NMK (yes I love the National Museum of Korea, but from the outside doesn't it look like a ceausescuesque cinder block?).

Anyway, we shall judge MMCA Seoul from the inside, with all its hidden levels and services, and of course fully populated with collections, exhibitions, and humans.

I can't wait!


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MOCA goes MMCA - Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art

Today, the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea (MOCA) unveiled its new Museum Identity as the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA).

 

If you don't know the old logo, it's in a rather classic, institutional gold, and in capital letters. A litle bit like the chaebol logos from the 80s-90s:

 

 

The new and improved MMCA still looks familiar, and not just because you can almost read "MOMA" if you don't pay much attention. But the color version seems definitely lighter and more consistent than the black and white version, where the logo comes straight from the 70s (it would probably give a different impression if the white logo were, for instance, on a more simple black geometric figure):

 

Anyway... the MOCA had already rebranded its three branches:

• MMCA Gwacheon: the main building (near Seoul Grand Park) was inaugurated in 1986, but the institution itself was established in 1969 in Gyeongbokgung, and moved a first time to Deoksugung, in 1973.
• MMCA Deoksugung: the MOCA returned to Seokjojeon, where the focus is on modern art (museum collections, international exhibitions like the recent "Memory of landscape I have never seen", featuring collections from the National Gallery in Prague). Just hectometers away from SeMA Seosomun, via Jeong-dong-gil.
• MMCA Seoul: the new Sogyeok-dong branch will be inaugurated in November this year, and the MMCA regularly posts pictures of the new structures. Many of the fences have already been removed, so everybody can see the former Defense Security Command and Military Hospital emerge in new clothes and surroundings. I'm glad they dumped the "UUL National Art Museum" brand, which sounded like "melencholy" in Korean. About this saga, see former posts, particularly "ASYAAF 2009" (July 2009), "Shinhotan, Beginning of a new Era - a big MOCA cup for Seoul" (October 2009), "MOCA @ Defense Security Command, continued" (February 2010), "SeMA to block blockbusters" (February 2012).

MOCA Seoul in Sogyeok-dong, facing Gyeongbokgung

I can't wait to visit the new museum and its collections this November. Two other exhibitions are planned for the inauguration: "The Birth of a Museum: MMCA, Seoul Archive Project", and a "On-site Production and Installation Project" featuring SEO Do-ho, CHOE U-ram, and Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries.

Speaking of Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries and text designs... I wonder if MMCA will dare display in the former Defense Security Command this work called "Cunnilingus in North Korea" (watch the whole video: yhchang.com/CUNNILINGUS_IN_NORTH_KOREA.html)

THAT would be quite a shift from the 70s for this building!

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