Photos From Tanner

I fear I have been a poor host to visitors to my virtual patch of Seoul lately, all while (I hope) being a good one for the guest n my real patch. So, to make it up, I'll post some pretty pictures for you to enjoy, taken by Tanner during his stay, now alas concluded.

The neon lights of Guro-gu

Pocha outside Guro Digital station

Rice cakes in Insa-dong

Samcheong-dong hanok maeul



TB at frozen fountain in Deoksugung

Marksmanship game at Story of Yi Sun-shin at Gwanghwamun

The signs say it all: "Country makgeolli, one glass, 1000 won"

Art Can Be Scary

Got to give the curators of the Seoul Museum of Art some credit--who indeed would run a show like 'Dissonant Visions' at the same time they were presenting an important retrospective on Pierre-Auguste Renoir? And who would go to see the one without looking at the other?

They would, and I would. I may pop in on the Renoir later (it leaves at the end of August), but it costs 10,000 W and the lines are ever so long. Meanwhile, I read a piece about the other show at the Korea Herald, and it sounded way more interesting for 700 W (about four or five bits, USD).

After being veritably scalped at the Well-Being Hair Salon today (no, no pictures), I eventally made my way to Seoul's City Hall metro station (lines 1 and 2, also a stone's throw from Seodaemun, line 5), the stop nearest to the art museum. As it happened I arrived just as the crowds were gathering in front of Daehanmun for the changing of the guard ceremony at Deoksugung, so I decided to stick around and wait for it.

I've seen it before, here at Deoksugung, when Ben came to visit, as well as at Gyeongbokgung back in February when I saw it twice. Still, it's such a colorful ceremony, here are a few more photos:

Can you spot the American brands in the photos below?

And a video:


Anyway, let's move on to the exhibit I came to see, shall we?

Well, I found the exhibition 'Dissonant Visions' both gross and engrossing, as I suspect the curators intended. Images ranged from the silly to the nifty to the disturbing. One of the first ones to strike you as you go through is this:


A giant womb excreted a crocodile, who barfed a lot of tinsel. Did nothing for me. However, next were a series of dragon-type creatures sculpted from automobile tires--these, I liked a lot:


The tread of the tires, and the way they are cut and placed, created organisms lithe, sinewy and--being black--automatically threatening.

This series of busts whose outer decoration seems to evoke their inner lives seemed rather pat, but I like soccer, so I took a photo:


In this multi-level piece (there is a shadow cast against the third wall, also) it appears as if life is supported by a super-complex machinery devised by madmen. OR life supports a super-madman-like machinery with even the simplest plant fronting a bizarre apparatus as shown.


Possibly the most disturbing vista of the exhibition was a multimedia installation in which Dr Moreau-evoking sculptures fronted goliath paintings of mutilated faces. To wit:


So, okay, that's strange. Still, you study it the same way you can't look away from a car crash--and I think that's part of the point.

The next room had a series called "Flowers" (#2, #3, etc)...


...and just as I was about to get a close-up of the most interesting one, a docent--actually a minimum wage art student--told me photos were not allowed. So, you'll have to guess what it looked like, but it was more extreme, and also more organic, than these.

Fortunately, I was nearing the end of the tour when this happened, and other than one other artist's work, I wasn't all that impressed, so I made my way out. While looking around the plaza in front of the museum, I noticed some familiar figures on top of the light poles, which I think are sculptures by Jeong Guk-taek (click here and scroll to the bottom):

Here is my photo of Jeong's sculpture in front of the Somerset in Insa-dong:

A Hell of a Lot in About 12 Hours

I had a great time on Wednesday giving Ben, an old student from Heritage who is in naval intelligence these days, a slice of Seoul. He arrived from Busan at Seoul Station where we met, then took the subway up to City Hall with the thought of attending a free modern art exhibit at the Seoul Museum of Art.

While wandering around, we stumbled upon Daehanmun (great first gate) just in time for the ceremonial changing of the guard. With timing like that, I knew we were in for a good time, and I wasn't wrong.


After that, we headed west, vaguely seeking the Namdaemun markets, but ended up at the Art Museum and decided to go on in. We spent about an hour looking at some very interesting multimedia art installations, and about five minutes looking at uninteresting ones. The exhibition is titled Turn and Widen. While some of it was weird (hey, it's modern art!) much of it wasn't, as Ben put it, "intentionally inaccessible." As usual, mouse over the image for a brief description. There are more pictures at a recent post by Chris in South Korea.




After leaving the exhibit, we walked down a tree-lined avenue alongside the walls of Deoksugung (gung means palace). Arriving back at Daehanmun, Ben wanted to go in--W 1,000 admission, typical of the cultural sites here, I've noticed--and I certainly wasn't averse. This one turned out to be particularly interesting, on account of, first, it was not burned down in the Japanese invasion of 1592, and second, during the Japanese occupation of the early twentieth century, it served as the home of the last emperor, Gojong, until his death, as well as the center of the Japanese colonial government. The Japanese built the two large Federalist style buildings on the grounds during that time. One of these, Seokjojeon, was playing host to a traditional Korean handicraft exhibition.


Well, that was enough culture for us--now was the time for drinking! We headed to an area called Hongdae, around Hongik University, that I had heard was loaded up with bars and restaurants. Well, my sources weren't wrong, as we immediately found a large pedestrian square surrounded by said bars and restaurants. It begins less than a block from Hongkik Univ. stop on the green line.

We began at a quiet, inscrutable puzzle of a place called Sphinx where we had a few maekchu and a sausage and potato appetizer (including tater tots!) before making our way to a samgyupsal restaurant across the square--those of you who have followed this blog know I am totally enamoured of this Korean fatback pork barbecue. We had four beers each, ate to satiation, and paid a tab of W 42,000 (slightly less than USD 20 per person). There were street performers playing right next to us the whole time. Incidentally, there were also two squads of riot police in the square, sitting on their shields. In case candlelight protests broke out. I guess.



After that, we visited a couple more nightspots before making our way to Deungchon-dong, where Ben was suitably impressed by my officetel. To summarize: as Ben said, We did a hell of a lot in about 12 hours!