SeMA Bukseoul Museum of Art “Accidental Encounter” + “SeMA Print Collection – Reflecting the Times”

Seoul, June 12 – August 16, 2015 (Accidental Encounter), May 16 – August 23, 2015 (Reflecting the Times), http://sema.seoul.go.kr

The most northern branch – SeMA Bukseoul – of the Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA) opened just a few years ago, in 2013. The northern part of Seoul has long been lacking cultural centers of this kind – the surrounding areas consist mainly of rows of prefab building blocks and occasional shopping centers. The museum has a very special ‘grass mound’ architecture and is surrounded by a sculpture park. It is not extremely big, but just right size to house two large exhibitions at the same time. The whole environment with a sculpture park and building covered with grass feels very nice and relaxing. While I admire the architecture, I also wonder what the maintenance costs of this kind of “green” building are and what is going to happen once trees start growing through the roof… time will tell. The museum and park are family friendly and there were a lot of kids around during my visit.

Inside there have been two exhibitions “Accidental Encounter” focused on “materiality” of artworks. The first floor was full of large size installations made from mundane materials like ping pong balls, plastic objects or lacquered furniture. It was a very engaging and ‘friendly’ exhibition, accessible to a broad audience including children, but that does not mean it wouldn’t be enjoyable for adults as well. Everything was perfectly installed, and while one could quickly walk through and get what the works were ‘about’ one could also spend much more time observing their individual parts and discover hidden details. Artists: Kim Soonim 김순임, Bark Sang-Deok 박상덕, Ahn Si Hyung 안시형, Yuon Ki Baik연기백, Oh Youkyeong 오유경, Lee Byungchan이병찬, Lee Wan이완, Lee Changwon 이창워, Choi Jeonghwa 최정화.

The exhibition continued on the second floor, which was more object-based: Large site specific installations gave way to works, mostly large objects, hung on the walls of the museum. Again the focus was on materials, but this time more as ‘transformed materials’ – “paintings” from LEGO bricks (Whang Inkie) and broom brushes (Kiil Lee), vases from Soap (Meekyoung Shin) and murals from car window foils (Kim Hyung Kwan). The list of artist was a respectable selection of mid-career to established Korean artists: San Keum Koh 고산금, Koo Seong Yeon구성연, Kim Hyung Kwan김형관, Noh Sang-Kyoon노상균, Bang Myungjoo 방명주, Shin Meekyung 신미경, Kiil Lee 이기일, Lee Dong Jae 이동재, Sekyung Lee이세경, Yeesookyung이수경, Ham Youn Joo함연주, Unkyung Hur 허은경, Ran Hwang황란, Whang Inkie황인기

The other exhibition, titled “Reflecting the Times” was less spectacular, but still was interesting in a different way. It featured prints from Korean artists spanning the 1980’s and 1990’s – a historical perspective. It was a bit hard for me to find an entry point to the narrative, as the plentiful explanations accompanying each print were in Korean only. I could relate to the pictured based on feelings, and there was the narrative of “development” present. Quite a lot of the prints had political messages, being critical of consumerism or military/police violence, so I wished I could have read the copy and understood more.

Artists: Min Joung-Ki 민정기, Oh Yoon 오윤, Hong Sung Dam 홍성담, Kim Joon-Kwon 김준권, Park Bul Dong 박불똥, Hong Seon Wung 홍선웅