encountering art—in museums

For the past month I've been encountering a lot of art, on the street and in museums and subways.

I guess I started in earnest last month when I went to the Korean National History Museum. The calligraphy section was rather small and not very popular, but there were some gems.

This is some calligraphy by Ahn Jung-geun (he assassinated Japanese resident-general of Korea, cut off left hand's ring finger when setting his intention to help Korea... A pretty intense guy!)

The style of this one is really fluid (called 草書 literally "grass style"). I didn't get the exact details on this one...

I've also been to the Seoul Calligraphy Museum twice. The first time was to see an exhibit by the Buddhist artist Jung Kwang.

There were many different pictures of Bodhidharma!

This one was titled 돌 (Dol, stone).

I think this is a bunch of curse words/vulgarities! and 佛, Buddha.

The second time I went to the Seoul Calligraphy Museum there was the Seoul Typography Biennale. Even though it's a "biennale," it's the first one they've held in ten years. It was titled some "Fire Flower of East Asia" and focused on the shared Chinese character culture between Japan, Korea, and China. So, it had typographers and artists from all three countries, which gave the exhibit a really good, diverse feeling! Most of the work was about pushing the readability of Chinese characters (and Hangul and Kana) to their limits. The logo for the biennale was rather cool, too:

It's read from top right to bottom counter-clockwise. I had to ask Aram to ask a person to explain it. The basic three letters in the logo are ㅅ,ㅌ, andㅂ. The ㅅ on the right starts, "Seoul" 서울; the ㅌ on the left starts "Typography" 타이포그래피; and the ㅂ at the bottom starts 비앤날레 "Biennale."

This one was pushing the limits of readability of Chinese characters (at least for me...)

This is 3-d Hangul! After the first few lines it becomes very difficult to decipher.

This represents various groups (and stereotypes) in Korea, such as English teachers, migrant laborers, old people... They're all saying something with a frank, kind of weird tone. The gray faced man in the middle is saying "I couldn't make any money in Korea..."

This is the name of the president (for life, dictator) of Korea during the 1960's and 1970's, 박정희 Park Chung-hee. My working interpretation of this is that it's an ironic statement. First, Park is credited with the rapid economic growth of Korea during his rule at the expense of political and civil liberties. So, I'm thinking that overcoming those economic difficulties is where the blue pole vaulting guy comes in. But, the subtle irony is that the guy is vaulting over Park Chung-hee's name. So, he's actually overcoming Park Chung-hee. I guess I make this interpretation because I hope people are still making subtle/witty critiques of authoritarian power. I also feel compelled to make a palatable interpretation because the composition is so good in the picture, so I can only hope it's not dictator praise!...

All in all, I'm pretty satisfied with the museums in Seoul so far. I will definitely be checking out the Seoul Calligraphy Museum each month as the exhibits change. It's such a treat that there's a museum dedicated to experimentation with words. 

(All these pictures were taken with my phone~, so excuse the quality. Larger sizes on Flickr►http://www.flickr.com/photos/aaiiuueeoo/sets/72157627130551233/).

encountering art—in subways and on the street

Even though I prefer it to going to a museum for aesthetic enjoying, finding art on the streets of Seoul can be difficult. Most places I go, such as Gangnam or Jamsil, are pretty clean and have no graffiti whatsoever. However, I've been able to find a few places that do have a lot of graffiti. They are the areas called Hongdae and Itaewon. I've also found a little bit of graffiti in Incheon, too.

I sometimes find stuff in the subway, too.

This is inside Jamsil Station and I suppose it's actually regular "art." However, it resembles a useful bench so well that they felt compelled to put a permanent black and yellow sign on it that says, "Do not sit here! This is a work of art." I couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity. Perhaps the artist should've made their work less functional...

And now for some graffiti.

I forgot what subway station this was in. It's on the side of a vending machine. This sort of thing is pretty uncommon, a lot less common than I'd expect it to be in a city with the population of Seoul.

This is in Itaewon, AKA "the foreigner-packed district." Most of the graffiti in Itaewon is pretty rudimentary, thin-lined signatures without much variation, as pictured on the left. But this Communist-inspired poster was pretty witty.

This is in Hongdae, which is an area with a well-known art college. While it's somewhat similar to Itaewon in that it's "fashionable" and "kind of seedy," there are less American/European/Middle Eastern people and more Japanese people here (and art students). The shops are pretty tasteful and inexpensive, too. There's also lots of graffiti to choose from.

Hongdae, also.

In Hongdae I also saw this little cat, whose name I assume is LFW, in many different places. One thing neat about Hongdae is that some walls aren't technically covered in graffiti. They're canvases on houses that the artists change regularly. It helps blur the line between graffiti and sanctioned, legal art, which I think is the impetus behind Hongdae's graffiti culture.

I hope you've enjoyed some of the things I enjoyed!

(All these pictures were taken with my phone~, so excuse the quality. Larger sizes on Flickr►http://www.flickr.com/photos/aaiiuueeoo/sets/72157627130551233/).