Yaiza Nicolas - Exhibition opening Tue Dec 2, Gallery Van, Seoul

The Van Gallery is located 500m from Sinchon subway station, just around the corner from the Ssamzie Space in Hongdae. See map.

A trip to Seoul National Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA, Seoul)

Sunday at the MoCA

In a recent burst of springtime enthusiasm, I headed for the first time to Seoul Grand Park for a Sunday outing to the National Museum of Contemporary Art. To do this I actually had to overcome my general aversion to large-scale, government-run cultural institutions and my prior impressions of the MoCA as an uninviting fortress-like building in a seemingly remote location. But having done it I can now honestly say the trip was well worth the effort.

It was a very pleasant surprise to step off subway Line 4 after only 30 minutes and enter a lovely, uncrowded park, and stroll with my friends past a scenic lake and through a grassy sculpture garden leading up to the entrance of the museum. The current main attraction until June 15 is a world-class exhibition of contemporary installation art by French artist Annette Messager, for an inexpensive 3000 won entry fee.

So after relaxing with a good coffee on the museum's outdoor deck, my friends and I entered the gallery.

It was immediately obvious that Annette Messager's work has truly taken over the space in Gallery 1 and 7 of the MoCA. This retrospective show is a surprising mix of very large-scale kinetic works, intense black and white photographs, and installations consisting of everything from stuffed birds, netting and children's toys to collections of books, clothing and drawings. At times, you can feel like you are watching a colorful circus or visual theatre show rather than what you would normally expect to see in an art museum. As many of the works are also displayed in specially constructed spaces that deliberately restrict the audience's view, this exhibition is doubly stimulating to the mind and senses.

'The black spots' is an installation housed in a very large darkened space, which can be viewed only through slit-like windows in the wall. The viewer sees multitudes of constantly moving tiny black balls of feathers apparently floating in space for almost as far as the eye can see. These "black spots" hang almost invisibly from the ceiling by fishing line while hidden electric fans disturb the air, creating a strange and mesmerizing effect.

This movement of air is used in many pieces, notably in the very dynamic installation 'Casino' where a huge wave of red silk rolls towards us through a door-like opening.

This red wave seems to threaten to engulf us only to subside while mysterious objects light up as if under a red sea, followed finally by a mass of black skull-like symbols rising up on wires to the heavens. Likewise, the almost magical 'Inflate/Deflate' (2006) presents a jungle of inflatable silk bodily organs, that "breathe" in a synchronized, cyclical group movement, like a grotesque parody of our own visceral existence.

There is certainly a lot to see in this exhibition and it is often colorful, strange, intriguing, disturbing, humorous, bizarre, and at times, beautiful. It's the kind of show one can enjoy on a purely experiential level, or take the time to mull over the artist's concepts of life, death, gender roles and emotional realities. A particularly thought-provoking work is the installation piece called 'The Boarders' (1971-1972).

















This is a collection of hundreds of dead small birds (like sparrows), clothed in tiny hand-knitted woolen jackets symbolizing healing and representing the nurturing role of women. I also found myself spending a lot of time looking closely at Messager's very striking large black and white close-up photographs of body parts such as an ear, foot, hand, mouth etc in her series 'My trophies' (1986 - 1988), on which she has painted strange and symbolic images that seem to tell dream-like stories.


In another room a 70-minute video of the artist discussing her work is shown, but unfortunately the language is French (with the audio levels set so low it's difficult to hear anyway) and the subtitles are only in Korean.


So if you want to know more about the artist you'll have to wait until you get home to search the Internet. You can read an in-depth interview with the artist here.

Surprisingly there were no exhibition catalogues or postcards available at the museum shop on the day I visited - a full month after the exhibition opening - although the staff did assure me they were "coming soon".

My friends and I left the MoCA feeling inspired and refreshed and we chose to stroll again through the leafy, green park back to the subway station. Even some days later, many of the images from the Annette Messager exhibition were still fresh in my mind, and the whole MoCA experience counts as one of the highlights of my time in Seoul so far. I strongly recommend that you too make the effort to get down to Seoul Grand Park and catch this unusual exhibition before June 15.


For more information visit www.moca.go.kr or call 02-2022-0600. The National Museum of Contemporary Art is located near Seoul Grand Park (Subway Line 4). For those who don't want to walk to the Art Museum there is a shuttle bus every 20 mins from Exit 4 of the Seoul Grand Park subway.

______________________________________________________
The author of this blog, Penelope Thompson, is an Australian contemporary artist living in Korea who works in performance, installation and community art events. You can see her personal exhibition blog at penelopethompson.blogspot.com.

12X36 Lomography exhibition - Seoul, L.A. and Philadelphia

Just when you thought it was safe to give away that old film camera and go completely digital, Lomography pops up as a 'point & shoot' film camera phenomenon with a world-wide, almost cult -like, following. Before attending the opening of the '12x36- a local lens' photographic exhibition at Art Space Hue in early April, I had never even heard of the Russian-made Lomo camera nor the style of "shoot from the hip" photography termed Lomography, but I found myself being pleasantly surprised at the raw character, vibrant color and variety of the photographs on display.



In line with the philosophy of Lomography of "take your camera everywhere you go", and "use it anytime - day and night" a diverse group of 12 artists in Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Seoul, were each provided with a Lomo camera, loaded with only one 36-shot roll of 35 mm film. Their mission was to explore the theme of local space versus local culture in their particular cities. The artists then returned their exposed but unprocessed film which was then printed onto an enlarged 30"x36" contact proof sheet for exhibition, plus three photos were chosen by each of the artists as 11" by 14" prints. The unusual thing about this exhibition was that identical prints of all the photos were shown simultaneously in three galleries during April; Art Space Hue here in Seoul, the 222 Gallery in Philadelphia, and Gallery Revisited in Los Angeles. The exhibition curator, Benjamin Kaplan, wanted to compare the direct, tangible experience of three different urban spaces through the gallery shows in each city as well as via online exhibition. (Visit the exhibition website at 12X36.com).




The participating artists included: WK, Yangachi, Haelan Kim, and Yeji Yun from Seoul, Melissa Farley, Dan Murphy, Ted Passon, and Randall Sellers - all from Philadelphia, plus the Los Angeles artists; Andy Bruntel, Michael Hsiung, Estevan Oriol and Jessica Robbins. The artists were selected from a variety of backgrounds and were mostly not photographers, ensuring that this exhibition was in accord with the low-tech, high spontaneity ideals of Lomography.



Because of the small-size of the photographs it was more like looking at a spread of artist's "home" snapshots rather than the usual large format gallery display - but this meant that viewers were drawn into close quarters with the works, and the sense of sequencing and relative place and time of each of the images was preserved by the proof sheet format. Subjects varied from what looked like home birthday parties and informal shots of friends and family, to candid images of street life, posed portraits of L.A identities such as Snoop Dog, bleak realities of city housing projects or just the simplicity of a backyard lemon tree against a blue sky.


Examples of the Lomo cameras, (which were first invented in 1982 in Russia as a Soviet answer to the compact Japanese cameras of the day), were on display and/or for sale at the participating galleries. The exhibition was sponsored in part by the Lomographic Society International - which is described as a "far-reaching, international socio-cultural movement, using photography as a creative approach to communicate, absorb and capture the world". The society boasts over 500,000 international members, and offers a variety of accessible photographic competitions, real and virtual exhibitions, and publications. For more information about the background of Lomography, purchasing and using a Lomo camera, and to read the full story of the popular rise of this amazing little film camera see www.lomography.com.



While walking around the exhibition and admiring the "edginess" of most of the works, I still found myself thinking about all the hundreds of packets of snapshot photos I have had printed over the years (most of which are still languishing in cardboard boxes somewhere) and I have to admit I decided against buying a Lomo camera … for now, anyway.

The innovative photographic exhibition '12x36- a local lens' - April 4 - April 26 at Art Space Hue - Mijin bldg, 464-41, Seogyo Mapo Seoul 121-841. Check it out on line at www.12x36.com .
In Korea contact: Benjamin Kaplan 010-4757-7801 (English and Korean) Check out his Seoul contemporary art & culture site at www.thenativegaze.com
**NOTE**
If you're in Seoul and you want to buy a Lomo camera or just have a look at them and see the photos on display, there's now a dedicated Lomography shop near Hongik University at 362-14 Seogyo-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul. They do speak English so give them a call on 02-326-0255 or visit website Lomography Seoul shop

______________________________________________________
This blog author, Penelope Thompson, is an Australian contemporary artist living in Korea who works in performance, installation and community art events. You can see her blog at penelopethompson.blogspot.com.