Buk-SeMA celebrates 10 years with future-forward exhibition

Arts & Design

Published: 05 Aug. 2023, 07:05

Buk-SeMA celebrates 10 years with future-forward exhibition

On the wall, ″Current Exhibition," and facing it is ″Monument to exhibitions in the past and upcoming," both by Ki Seul-ki [BUK-SEOUL MUSEUM OF ART]

The Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA) has several branches scattered across the city — and one of them, the Buk-Seoul Museum of Art (Buk-SeMA), located in Nowon District, northern Seoul, is celebrating its 10th year of operation this year with a new exhibition.

SeMA, which is operated by the Seoul Metropolitan Government, identifies itself by forming a network among the public and art. Most of its exhibitions are free, unlike many other art museums in Korea, and the building was designed to be connected to a cozy outdoor park. The museum is also family-friendly, with children’s gallery spaces and various educational programs all year round.

The 10th-anniversary exhibit, “Anthología: Ten Enchanting Spells,” kicked off Thursday, but it doesn’t look back on the past decade with archives and artworks that have already been shown previously. Rather, it attempts to imagine the future, curator Song Ka-hyun said, who put heavy emphasis on the word "imagine" during a press conference at the museum on Wednesday.

″Your Bright Future″ (2002) by Bahc Yiso [BUK-SEOUL MUSEUM OF ART]

"One may think that the imagination is not much, but there’s a huge force behind it," Song said. "When we imagine the future, it’s not just happiness and anticipation that lies ahead of us; oftentimes, there are also fear and anxiety, which is what the artworks tried to portray. No art in the world would ever have come into fruition without imagination, so it was our goal to see what the future holds for us, and what sort of emotions or attitudes will come with it."

Ten artists, including one poet, were specially chosen. All artists except for one, Bahc Yiso (1957-2004), are exhibiting brand new works.

Two of them, Ki Seul-ki and Kwon Hye-won, made their works especially for the 10th anniversary of Buk-SeMA.

Ki’s “Current Exhibition," which consists of 91 posters plastered on the museum's wall, took 10-years’ worth of exhibition posters that have been held at Buk-SeMA and removed the text information written on them, like the exhibit titles, dates and names of the artists. It includes the poster for the current exhibition (no pun intended) and, in a way, acts as archival materials for the museum.

But by deleting their text, the posters appear as artsy images, giving them a chance to be given a new breath of life as opposed to being forgotten after each exhibition ended.

In front of the poster-filled wall is a paper pillar sculpture that was made with stacks of the posters for the current show, titled “Monument to exhibitions in the past and upcoming," also by Ki.

“Even though it’s an ongoing exhibition at the moment, soon it will become an exhibition in the past,” Song explained. “Therefore, this monument commemorates this poster’s fate.”

″Palace of Green Porcelain″ by Kwon Hye-won [BUK-SEOUL MUSEUM OF ART]

Kwon interviewed six employees at Buk-SeMA who have worked for over 10 years and filmed lesser-known areas of the museum to put in the 8-minute video “Palace of Green Porcelain," which she calls a “sci-fi” piece. The scenes were edited with a simulation program designed to make it look like a virtual tour, somewhat reminiscent of the future.

The idea came from sci-fi novels from the 19th or early 20th century that Kwon said she had been reading at the time, which featured ruined museums.

“I followed the interviewees around, and it was intriguing how a museum is completely different from the perspective of visitors and of employees,” Kwon said. “There are so many workers who are typically obscured from public view [like security or exhibition department employees] who greatly contribute to the operation of the museum, so this was an opportunity to imagine the future of Buk-SeMA and its role [from their point of view].”

″That body of yours is absurd″ by Kim Sang-jin [BUK-SEOUL MUSEUM OF ART]

In order to understand the exhibition’s title and why the works are likened to “spells,” it is important to understand artist Jeon Byung-koo’s 12 paintings on view. The collection is an assortment of seemingly unrelated themes, like a man climbing a mountain, a woman in a hijab and a floating striped bodysuit.

“Jeon says that his paintings are a window or a passage to other conceptions, space or time,” curator Song said. “Each painting, with its own story, acts like a ‘spell’ to another dimension. The same goes for the works of the nine other artists.”

″Cinema Experience (#Tribunalism)″ by Park Seong-jun [BUK-SEOUL MUSEUM OF ART]

By “different dimension,” the rest of the artworks also use linguistic motifs to examine how language tends to control the flow of thought. The immersive installation piece “Cinema Experience (#Tribunalism)” by Park Seong-jun is one example that allows visitors to indirectly experience relationship conflict situations prevalent in society, with dialogues that include gaslighting.

Another, like Kim Sang-jin’s “That body of yours is absurd," which alludes to the leaked messages from Maroon 5 lead singer Adam Levine’s alleged cheating scandal from last year, turns the context around. His installation, which reads “This body of mine is absurd,” aims to show how the suggestive meaning of “absurd” can be distorted depending on who the subject is directed to.

“Anthología: Ten Enchanting Spells” continues until Oct. 25. Buk-SeMA is open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays except Mondays, and until 7 p.m. on the weekend and national holidays. Admission is free.

BY SHIN MIN-HEE [shin.minhee@joongang.co.kr]