[Feature] Cultural MRI: Seoul Uncovered (BAKU, October 2013)

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opened in 1998, the museum consistently mounts exhibitions of the biggest names in Korean art and has helped launch the careers of numerous others.

Kim and other curators of her generation have been key both in developing Korean contemporary art locally and promoting its virtues abroad.

‘Probably the biggest factors in the emergence of Korean art worldwide are the talented curators and critics who are making names for themselves at respected institutions abroad and who are able to exert their influence overseas,’ reflects Lee. ‘What’s more, most of the successful Korean artists today have studied abroad, which is of great importance for creating a broader-minded artistic community in Seoul; artists who can be real players in the global art scene.’ Indeed, globalization is a relevant buzzword that may be invoked as part of the explanation for Seoul’s new role as an international art destination. Backing up this notion are organizations like Korean Artist Project, a statesponsored online platform that serves to introduce Korean contemporary artists to a global audience.

It seems Seoul’s gathering wave can only grow stronger and stronger. Like the new City Hall building at Seoul’s urban core, Korean art has arrived as a force to be reckoned with.

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bustling urban centre. It is a symbol, not only of a forwardlooking Seoul, but of a local art scene poised on the cusp of greatness.

Art is thriving in Seoul, and it shows no signs of letting up. In contrast to the Chinese contemporary art bubble of the early 2000s, South Korean art has enjoyed a steady, gradual rise in international standing, with Seoul as its dynamic and undisputed centre. In this fastpaced and densely populated metropolis (nearly one half of the nation’s entire population lives in the Seoul Capital Area), art and design hold their own amidst the country’s technology-obsessed society, buoyed up by widespread popular support, sophisticated exhibition venues and an abundance of available funding.

‘The appreciation of contemporary visual culture in general has really blossomed during the last decade in a way that is truly tangible,’ says Pat Lee, director of One and J. Gallery. One of the top commercial galleries to emerge

in post-millennium Seoul, One and J. leads a crop of new art spaces that have popped up in the capital in recent years, committed to developing the market for young and emerging artists. This shift in sensibility among Seoulites, as noted by Lee, is the product of one person’s efforts more than any other: former Seoul mayor Oh Se-hoon, the man responsible for the capital’s new City Hall. During his tenure from 2006 to 2011, Oh pursued a development-oriented agenda aimed at recasting the city as an art- and culture-friendly destination, undertaking huge renewal projects such as the so-called Han River Renaissance, which has transformed the river that bisects the city into a destination in its own right with vibrant waterfronts peppered with lush parks, abundant recreational facilities and impressive cultural venues such as the floating islands of Banpo Hangang Park. The stunning (though controversial) Dongdaemun Design Plaza by Zaha Hadid is another brainchild of the former mayor, situated near the city’s old East Gate and revitalizing the city’s traditional market district.

The project given the go-ahead by Oh which promises to have the greatest effect on Seoul’s art scene, however, is a much more modest design yet makes up for this by virtue of its prime location in the heart of the city’s Bukchon gallery district in the Samcheong-dong neighbourhood. The new Seoul branch of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) – the third location for Korea’s state-run MMCA system – only opened its doors to the public in November this year but is already bringing new life to the area. Chu-young Lee, curator at MMCA, anticipates that the new museum branch will ‘further invigorate the neighbouring private museums and galleries, ultimately leading to the formation and expansion of an unprecedented large-scale “cultural and artistic belt” in the area, with MMCA as the symbolic space for the Korean art scene.’ This new museum complex demonstrates the amount of public funding being diverted to Korea’s creative sector and augurs well for the future of the arts in Seoul.

Public support notwithstanding, it is corporate funding that forms the backbone of the art scene in Seoul, with many of the chaebol (family-run corporate conglomerates) underwriting some of the city’s premier museums. Samsung, ever the over-achiever, owns two separate museums, with Leeum in central Seoul as its crown jewel; not only is its collection absolutely first-rate, so are its facilities, including three buildings designed by Mario Botta, Jean Nouvel and Rem Koolhaas. Other chaebols such as Daelim, Kumho, SsangYong and Dong-A have all built museums as well, although Daewoo’s Artsonje Centre (which now operates independently from the corporation) is by far the best of the bunch.

Under the direction of Sunjung Kim since it

Previous page: New City Hall. This page, clockwise from top: Dongdaemun Design Plaza; Hangang River floating island; Suh Do-Ho’s installation ‘Home within Home’ at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art; Leeum Museum 2; view from the reception of the One and J. Gallery; the terrace of New City Hall with green wall of live plants.

Background: view of Seoul’s old and new city halls and Seoul Plaza.

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NAMES TO KNOW

PLACES TO GO

1 SUNJUNG KIM Director of Samuso: Space for Contemporary Art, former commissioner of the Korean Pavilion at the 51st Venice Biennale (2005), and co-artistic director of the 9th Gwangju Biennale (2012). She is Seoul’s most influential and wellconnected curator and has been fundamental in bringing the current crop of leading Korean contemporary artists to the global stage.

1 NATIONAL MUSEUM OF MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY ART (MMCA) The city’s newest art museum, open since November 2013. One of three locations in the state-run contemporary art museum system, its park-like campus in the heart of Samcheong-dong forms the long-anticipated cornerstone of the area’s renowned gallery district. moca.go.kr

2 HEEJIN KIM Director of Art Space Pool and a major proponent of Korean art abroad. A constant fixture at high-profile art conferences worldwide, with a keen interest in the intersection of art and life in late-capitalist society.

3 JEON JOONHO & MOON KYUNGWON Media artists and darlings of the Korean contemporary art world.

In 2012, this artist duo was included in Documenta 13 and won the grand prize at the 9th Gwangju Biennale.

4 GIMHONGSOK Multi-disciplinary artist with a practice spanning sculpture, installation, video and performance works. Witty and smart, his satirical and conceptual oeuvre often takes a critical stance toward notions of communication, interpretation and the role of the media in society.

5 PART-TIME SUITE Three-person artist collective focusing on issues of self-determination and independence within the strictures of Korea’s conservative society. The group burst onto the scene in 2009 with a series of site-specific ‘squatting’ projects in which they temporarily occupied vacant urban spaces and reactivated them as platforms for dialogue and exchange.

2 ARTSONJE CENTRE Seoul’s premier small contemporary art museum since 1998, with an exhibition history that reads like a who’s who in Korean contemporary art. artsonje.org

3 ART SPACE POOL A non-profit/alternative art space that functions as a selforganized collective known for its highly conceptual and intellectually rigorous programming. altpool.org

4 KUKJE GALLERY AND GALLERY HYUNDAI The ‘big two’ commercial galleries in Seoul, both of which have been around for decades (Hyundai since 1940) and exhibit the very best in domestic and international contemporary art. Kukje and Hyundai are both consistently featured at some of the biggest art fairs worldwide. kukjegallery. com, galleryhyundai.com

5 ONE AND J. GALLERY One of the city’s most successful young galleries (it was founded in 2005), showing some of the most promising young Korean artists, as well as a handful of international artists. In time, it is sure to become a major player in Seoul’s gallery scene. oneandj.com

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