The lkl korea Trip 2010

5. The National Museum of Contemporary Art, Gwacheon

It’s the weekend, and Seoul Grand Park is busy. The funfair rides are full of fun-seekers, and there’s a queue to get in. There’s even a queue to get in to the car park of the National Museum of Contemporary Art: not, I would have thought, the most popular destination. But even though the car park is full, inside the gallery there is plenty of space and it doesn’t feel crowded at all.
It’s a place I always try to go whenever I’m in Korea – a fantastic selection of some of the best of Korean modern and contemporary art, with usually a special exhibition or two going on at the same time.
My initial encounter with Korean contemporary art was as a result of a foolish favour I volunteered to do for a Korean friend: I proofread the text of a book arising out of her PhD thesis on the art produced by the minjung democracy movement in the 1980s. Since democratisation, the art establishment seems to have sneered somewhat at the sometimes naïve, always vibrant style of the minjung artists. I hear that the National Museum of Contemporary Art has some minjung work in its collection but it seems they never dare hang it on their walls: the work is either artistically or politically incorrect, or both. But that doesn’t stop me returning to the museum hoping to catch the curators in a more rebellious frame of mind.
On this occasion there’s no time to visit the permanent collections. Instead, we head to the special exhibitions: the museum’s artist of the year, Park Kiwon (neither Morgan nor I felt able to engage with his work – whole rooms full of wire wool or giant plastic pillows), and a retrospective of 30 years of their Young Korean Artists exhibition.
In London, we get plenty of Korean contemporary artists displaying their work either in commercial galleries or at the Cultural Centre. But being in a foreign land rather than in the centre of things in Seoul I’m never quite sure whether we’re being fobbed off with the B-list artists. It was therefore gratifying that on temporary display outside the museum, as part of the 30-year anniversary show, were two works by artists very familiar in London: Lee Jae-hyo and Choi Jeong-hwa.
Inside, the special exhibition was a good retrospective of the quality and variety of contemporary Korean art. There was plenty to enjoy, plenty to find alternately strange or familiar, and some fun items too. Suh Do-ho, the first Korean artist along with Michael Joo to represent Korea at the Venice Biennale, was represented by his signature piece Some/One. In one room, an old-fashioned desk and open book thereon is being drenched with a downpour of late summer rain (Lee Ki-bong: Extraordinary Late Summer). Other rooms contain artists familiar in the London scene: Koh Myung-keun's Stone Body series was featured in the Cultural Centre two years ago, while Koo Bohn Chang's In the Beginning series was seen at the Christie's Distinctively Korean sale last year.
In one darkened space, webcams are trained on a cardboard model of the 9/11 atrocity, broadcasting to a TV screen outside (Zin Ki-jong: CNN). The most fun pieces could easily have been from an episode of Monty Python: a video camera is set up to record the scene at European tourist destinations – the Brandenburg Gate and other familiar landmarks (An Jung-ju: Lip-Sync Project). Instead of the natural soundtrack, a team of beatboxers and vocal artists try to mimic the sounds that seem to be implied by what is on the screen: footsteps, conversations, cameras clicking, flags flapping in the wind. Is it art? Who knows? Whatever, it’s fun. And the gallery attendants in the museum were keen to point out some of the most interesting features. They wouldn’t let me pass until I’d tried the headphones on the Brandenburg Gate videos. Without their attentiveness, I’d not have had half as much fun.
The National Museum of Contemporary Art is a must-see destination while in Seoul. It’s not too far on the subway (Seoul Grand Park on Line 4), but for those who are too time-constrained to venture out of town, I hear that there’s an outpost being built in Bukchon, just north of Insadong, due to open soon. But if you don’t go to Gwacheon, you’ll never capture the atmosphere of the place. The sculpture park overlooking the hills, and the big Nam June Paik installation in the foyer are alone worth the trip.

6. The remains of the day

I am fated never to see the Secret Garden. On the previous two occasions when I have tried, it has been closed. Until recently, I think it has only been possible to visit the Changdeokgung as part of a guided tour, but it is now possible to go in unguided and straight to the garden. Except that the numbers are strictly controlled, and today being a Saturday it is full to capacity. Another excuse for me to come back another day.
So instead, I have some unexpected free time to check emails and maybe do a few Tweets (my hotel’s internet connection and my netbook are far too underpowered to attempt any serious blogging). And Morgan has casually dropped it into conversation that it’s her birthday in a few days’ time, when she’s on the road with me down south. Shopping in Insadong is always a pleasure, and always dangerous for the credit card. But this time I have a focused remit. I thought it might be a challenge to try to find a gift not geared towards the foreign tourist, but a nice silver necklace was easily found in one of the arcades.
Before I know it, it’s time to head to Oksu where I am having dinner at the apartment of some Korean friends from London. They were the first Koreans to invite me to their home in New Malden (where the London Koreans tend to live), and are the first to do so in Seoul, so I am doubly privileged. I go armed with a packet of Earl Grey tea from my local tea shop in Barnes, SW London, not knowing what would be appropriate to take. Fortunately, my gamble is spot on, as that’s the one English speciality that they’ve been missing since their return to Seoul.
Their teenage son is more interested in making his Gundam robot toy than socialising with a foreigner. I was half expecting to be pressed in to service to give some quick English language coaching, but that’s fine with me. I am learning not to assume that everyone fits some stereotypical view. And possibly one stereotypical view we have of Korean youngsters is of their total dedication to study, their non-stop focus on ensuring they get the best grades so that they get to the university of their choice. But this young lad has different ideas.
“Why to I have to work so hard?” he complains to his long-suffering mother. “Well, son, you see all these buildings around you, the bridges, the cars, the technology? Sixty years ago this country had nothing. We've had to build our country from scratch with nothing but our grit, determination and energy to see us through. That's why we have to work hard.”
“So, isn't it time we had a rest now?” There's a certain logic to that response.
I tell Mrs Park about my plans for the next day: the Jongmyo rituals. Mrs Park is an alumna of the traditional music high school that provides the dancers for the rituals, and she adds her voice to the many that have already told me not to expect too much excitement from the occasion.
After dinner, we stroll along the banks of the Han river, past exercising pensioners, to the subway station. It’s a quiet, peaceful and unthreatening walk, which would not be possible in London.