2019.6.27 Museums & Galleries
Asia Culture Center, Gwangju
Through Friday: The annual ISEA, or International Symposium on Electronic Art is being held in Gwangju this year. With Soh Yeong Roh, founder of Art Center Nabi, serving as director of this year’s edition, scientists such as physicist Michael Doser and artists like Christa Sommerer are giving speeches.
In this symposium are also many new media art pieces including “Value of Values” by Maurice Benayoun, Tobias Klein and Nicolas Mendoza. In this blockchain-based art project, visitors are led to give -straight from their brain waves - a three-dimensional shape to abstract concepts such as love, freedom and power. The neuro-designed shapes, produced by individual visitors, become named and numbered digital 3-D models. Each numbered item becomes an artwork registered on the blockchain.
Meanwhile, the annual ACT Festival, or Arts and Creative Technology Festival, of the Asia Culture Center will accompany the symposium this year.
Under the theme “FoodHack,” artists, engineers and scientists will showcase future food or experiments on palate and other senses.
Admission is free, except for some workshops.
1899-5566, www.acc.go.kr or isea2019.isea-international.org
Kukje Gallery, Jongno District
Through Sunday: The solo show of the famous Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone is taking place in the K2 and K3 spaces of the gallery. In K3, a single work is installed: “The Sun.” This sculpture, which looks like a gigantic golden ring balancing vertically on the floor, was originally constructed using bent tree branches the artist gathered, cast in bronze and then gilded. It looks like the combination of a great gate and a sundial to suggest passage through time and space.
In the K2 gallery, the artist presents a site-specific installation composed of three works. Among them is “Primordial” (2016), 52 pieces of life-sized, hand-sculpted fish cast in bronze that hang from the ceiling. They appear to be swimming in the air.
“The works share the artist’s sensitive approach to materials and his commitment to exploring the role of nature in shaping the human experience,” the gallery said in a statement.
Admission is free. Go to Anguk Station, line No. 3, exit 1 and walk 10 minutes.
(02) 735-8449, www.kukjegallery.com
THE ISLAND OF THE COLORBLIND
Art Sonje Center, Jongno District
Through July 7: The exhibition features works by eight teams of artists that deal with the coexistence of humans and nature and relations between humans.
Among the works, the paintings by artist Rim Dong-sik, 74, who meticulously depicts the details of a tree and other nature found in rural Korean villages, and the imitations of Rim’s paintings by his friend and amateur artist Woo Pyong-nam in a different style show both relations between humans and nature, and between humans.
Rim happened to meet Woo, a restaurant owner, during his journey in search of subjects of his paintings and they became friends.
Woo would drive Rim, who has no driver’s license, to the places where the possible subjects of his paintings were. Woo himself began painting after his 70s.
The other artists are Kim Juwon, Bjorn Braun, Manon de Boer, Ursula Biemann & Paulo Tavares, Xu Tan, Yu Araki and Part-time Suite.
The exhibition title was taken from a book by the neurologist Oliver Sacks.
Admission is 5,000 won ($4.32) for adults. The art center is closed on Mondays. Go to Anguk Station, line No. 3, exit 1.
(02) 733-8945, www.artsonje.org
THE ART OF DISNEY: THE MAGIC OF ANIMATION
Dongdaemun Design Plaza, Jung District
Through Aug.18: Hundreds of original drawings from the Animation Research Library of Disney studio have made their way to Korea.
The largest exhibition that Disney has ever presented in Korea features 100 years of work, from the early days of Mickey Mouse to today.
Visitors to the exhibition will also get a sneak peek at “Frozen 2,” which is set to hit theaters this winter.
Throughout the exhibit, there are video clips showing how illustrators began drawing on paper and how the industry has evolved to 3-D technologies that preserve artists’ works stroke by stroke.
Admission is 15,000 won for adults. Go to Dongdaemun History and Culture Park Station, lines No. 2, 4 and 5, exit 1.
(02) 577-8415, www.ddp.or.kr
PARK SEO-BO: THE UNTIRING ENDEAVORER
MMCA Seoul, Jongno District
Through Sept. 1: The retrospective of Park Seo-bo, 88, a master of dansaekhwa, or Korean monochrome paintings, features more than 160 artworks and archival materials, ranging from Park’s earliest works in the ’50s to recent work from 2019. In dansaekhwa abstract paintings, the artist scribbles, brushes, rubs or tears a canvas and uses a single color or limited colors - the attitude is monastic.
The exhibition is divided into five sections, each one of the artist’s five periods. The five sections are arranged in inverse-chronological order. Viewers begin with Park’s “late-ecriture period” (from the mid-’90s to the present) and then move on to the “mid-ecriture period” (during the ’80s). They are located in Gallery 1 and found above ground. They are followed by the “early-ecriture period” (during the ’70s), found in Gallery 2, underground and the “Hereditarius period” (from the late ’60s). It ends with his earliest works, the “Primordialis period.”
The arrangement also helps viewers start with familiar “Ecriture” paintings of Park’s, which brought him fame and are the most sought-after in the art market, and go on to his less-known earlier experiments.
Admission is 4,000 won for adults. It covers other exhibitions at the MMCA Seoul. Go to Anguk Station, line No. 3, exit 1 and walk for 10 minutes.
(02) 3701-9500, www.mmca.go.kr
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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