Understanding Korean Culture Through Art

This Sunday I finally had a chance to visit the Seoul Museum of Art. Although it is not the largest art museum in Seoul, I have been eager to visit ever since I walked by the museum on the way to the Ambassador's house in August. The Art Museum is in the heart of the tourist part of downtown and is located immediately behind Deoksugung Palace. The Museum is located in the former Supreme Court Building of Korea and is very appealing from the outside. Unfortunately, because of this the museum is also rather small and was only hosting two exhibits this weekend.

The first exhibit was really interesting and is part of the larger Seoul Photo Festival. I could not figure out what other museums or organizations are hosting the Seoul Photo Festival because it was in Korean. Additionally, all of the labels and information on the exhibit was in Korean so I had to infer a lot. From what I could tell the exhibit aimed to document Seoul's rise to modernity through photographs. There were many, many photographs of everyday life from the 1950s through the present. Interestingly though, the later photographs focused a lot more on architecture and Seoul's changing landscape rather than people. I really enjoyed the photographs and was reminded once again how quickly South Korea went from being a third world country to an emerging world power. I am continually blown away by how rapidly South Korea progressed and it's sometimes is hard to remember that only fifty years ago much of the population was struggling to just get by.

There are some daily reminders of Korea's transformation. For example, extremely few places in South Korea are heated. And yes, this means my house is often not heated or the heat is turned extremely low. Rather my family uses space heaters and heated blankets to keep warm. They also constantly complain about being cold because quite frankly it is freezing. The lack of central heating is a remnant of the past when heating homes was far too expensive for most families. Currently, most families can afford to heat their homes but are still trapped in the old mindset and believe they cannot. I used to think not having heating in my house in South Africa was miserable when it was 45 outside. Now I've learned that it's much worse not having heating in a house, school or restaurant when the high is 25.

Another funny reminder of South Korea's past is when my younger brother asks me questions such as, "When did America get sneakers?". The questions immediately seems a little bizarre and hard to answer and I kind of muddle my way through an answer trying to remember how American fashion evolved. He then responds with, "Wow! Korea did not get sneakers until 2000." Hearing him talk about the arrival of sneakers, in the form of Nike, New Balance, etc. is so weird to me but is completely accurate. Prior to that time foreign sneaker companies had no reason to do business in South Korea and South Korea wasn't producing sneakers of it's own, or at least not for the average person.

The second exhibit was equally fascinating and focused on the art of Chun Kyung-Ja. Chun Kyung-Ja is one of Korea's most prominent 20th Century artists and is still alive. Her works were really interesting because there were fifteen or so that were created in response to her travels around the world. One of these pieces was entitled 'Cats' and depicted the US Musical Cats. I have never seen Cats so maybe it was a very moving musical but I also found the thought of it a little ridiculous. Needless to say I was a little surprised to find that the musical made such a strong, and such a positive impact on the artist. I never really gave much thought to what would be memorable from a trip to America but I don't think Cats would have come to mind if I did ponder the question.

The museum also had wonderful sculptures on display outside, which I did a mediocre job of capturing.