Seoul Arts Center

So I did not have the greatest start to my Saturday. I woke up early expecting to have an athletically filled day. I was intending to go into Seoul to play touch rugby. I have become obsessed with rugby in the past few years. I have wanted to play for a while so I was pretty excited to play touch instead of full contact because I would likely be broken in half if I played contact. However, when I woke up and checked the Facebook event to see the best way to get to the field, only to find that the event was cancelled due to rain. I was pretty disappointed. So I needed to reevaluate the day.

I had time to do that since the Red Wings were playing. The series was quite disappointing. The refs were awful at all points, the Wings were not able to play their game, and Nashville did play pretty well. Still the day continued to flatten as the Wings season was put to an end.

During the game I looked through a tour book and found a museum that sounded interesting, The Seoul Arts Center, so I decided I would check it out. I looked at the website and saw they had concerts and art so I thought I would try to see a show if it was not too expensive. Since there was a potential to go to a classical concert, I decided I should dress up, so I wore a shirt and tie with dress pants, fancier than anything I wore all week (thank you middle school break). So off to Seoul I went.

I was pretty hungry when I arrived in Seoul, so after locating the Museum, my first stop was to find some food. I followed some Koreans who seemed to be headed there from the station. The complex was HUGE! You could see it from two blocks away and that is impressive considering how packed Seoul is. The main building is very beautiful from the outside, modeled after a traditional Korean hat. I took the street leading away from it to find a restaurant. I ended up finding a 돈까수 (Dongasu) restaurant that was really good. Dongasu is fried cutlet of some sort, usually pork. I love fried food, but dongasu normally has a weird BBQ-ish sauce which I am not a huge fan of, but this place had another option of a horseradishy sauce which was delicious. It really matched the fried flavor well.

I then went to the museum to find out about a show for that evening. I talked with a woman at the desk and found that a ticket for that night’s symphony was only $20! Not only that, but I got a first row seat! Yes, it was all the way to the end, but it was still a great location, but more on that later. I had 4 hours to kill before the performance.

So I went to the art museum on the complex. The first floor was roped off for a contemporary art fair which had an admission fee so I decided I would walk up the stairs to see if they had any permanent free exhibits since I just bought food and symphony tickets. So I start walking through the exhibits on the upper floor. It takes a bit of time, but I realize that I had snuck into the same exhibit that is on the main floor. I decided to keep looking at this floor and then go back down and pay once I finished. There were a TON of great artists. I will put a list at the bottom of the post with my favorites from the show.

I went back down to the first floor to pay for the ticket and see the artists on the first floor. There were some pieces which literally blew me away. There were two artists who used sand on canvas to make their art. They would darken the sand with paints or something to make designs like footsteps or rocks or water. It was really incredible. While at another booth, the artist came up and started talking to me. She asked what I thought about her work and I was honest and said I really liked it. She came back and gave me a thick, hardcover book with her work and a bunch of writing in it (in Korean). I was really thankful. There were plenty of others who were friendly and nice in helping me out and asking questions. Koreans can be the friendliest people if they want to. I don’t think you would ever get this kind of respect and help in the states.

I’ll go in depth about two more, who were by far my favorites of the show. The first used a medium I had never seen before. He made portraits of people but the way he made them was fascinating. The canvas was covered with plastic cylinders of the same color that were all cut at angles. Based on the way the angle was pointed, the more light would be caught or reflect off of it, making the portrait. You could walk back and forth and still see the picture; it would just change the darkness of the picture.

The last artist I will talk about was by far the coolest thing in the exhibit. The artist (Her Mi-Hei, 허미회) made these shadowboxes. It had two levels, each with transparent pictures on them. Some were the same picture twice, some were different pictures from the same place. The one that I liked best was from two vantage points along river in Strasburg, France. The two pictures were down river from each other. The way the two overlapped was so interesting. I literally spent 15 minutes looking at the piece at one point. It just was encapsulating. I have never seen a more attractive piece of art.

So that was the art. I ate a quick sandwich before heading to the show. The concert hall was beautiful. My seat was very offset so I did not have a great view of the symphony, which was actually the Korean Symphony Orchestra, but it is more about listening anyway. The first set was very good. They played something that had almost a Latin feel with a special guest harpist. It was really cool. The second set was not quite as good, nodded off once or twice for ten seconds, but it was still great music. Both encores, the harpist after set 1 and the whole symphony after set 2, were songs I recognized which was really cool. I’m not well enough versed in music to know what they were, but it was very cool.

Now the list of artists

Best of the Best

허미회, Her Mi-Hei – The shadow box artist (look at Artist of the Month Feb 2010)
윤용욱, Yun Yong-Wook – Cylinder portraits

Kim Yang-Sook – The artist who gave me her book, mainly flowers and nature in bright colors

박진영, Park Jin-Young – Interesting use of cardboard and paints to make trees
전태원, Jeon Tae-Won – Cool work with paper mache on canvas with flowers (Link is to a picture that was not my favorite but can give some perspective on style)

인동욱, In Dong-Wook – Modern art of buildings with bright colors
김창영, Kim Chang-Young – One of the sand artists
김주호, Kim Ju-Ho – beautiful paintings of birds (Second picture on the page)

김용중, Kim Yong-Joong – One of the sand artists

Kim Ga-Beom – Modern artist with bright colors of mainly scenery

Honorable Mentions

Park Hyun-Ok – Still life of flower pots, amazing use of paint sticking off of the canvas

Jang Se-Il – Interesting sculptures
김경렬, Kim Kyeong-Ryeol – Funny artist who made paintings of people riding bikes, like Abe Lincoln as if he were in the Tour de France
안병석, Ahn Byeong-Seok – Interesting work with lines and plants
윤기원, Yoon Gi-Won – Cartoon faces with bright colors
김정미, Kim Jeong-Mi – Paintings of faces of different colors
주은희, Joo Eun-Hee – Scenic paintings

Finding pictures or websites of not-so-famous Korean artists has been a pain. I tried to get most of the best of the best, but half of their names are shared with a famous actor, actress, or sports star. Enjoy what I have shared.