Art Marathon

I went to meet the very accommodating and thoughtful Soo-Jung Kang, who is a senior curator at the National Museum of Contemporary Art. The museum is located in Seoul Grand Park, along with a zoo and a little theme park, and there were throngs of adorable children doing really adorable things such as hurtling toward a giant tiger sculpture outside of the zoo,



and romping around this Calder stabile,



and shopping for plastic snakes and dinosaurs along the way.







Inside the museum is a giant Nam June Paik sculpture.



After a tour around the museum, Soo-Jung and I drove to Goyang, a suburb just outside of Seoul (although we were driving for over an hour) to visit a gallery with a feminist exhibition, and see the open studios of the museum's residency program, which featured a jazz trio and included a flurry of bows and a hemorrhage of business cards. Next we drove back into Seoul to meet her amiable and manicured friend Jieun Lee at a hilariously surreal cello & piano performance/video art piece/exquisite corpse power point presentation. Or something like that. Throughout it I was wavering between sleep and delirious laughter, but fortunately gave in to neither.



Jieun is a lawyer, and kindly invited me to a presentation she was giving the next morning to inform immigrant workers protesting at the G20 summit of their rights. (I really wanted to go, but gave in to jet-lagged sleep festival instead.) Here are Soo-Jung and Jieun.



To top off the evening, the three of us went with the curator from the feminist exhibit and some Aussie gallerists to get some dinner nearby. It was the only meal I've had so far in Korea that wasn't thrilled with, but I have to give myself credit for mustering the courage to try sea worms. Finally, back to Alps Seoul Guest House---I was so tired the helpful Aussies had to point me in the right direction.

Peace Museum

I couldn't find the Peace Museum, so instead I wandered around Insa-dong, a quaint shopping area that has big appeal with tourists because of it's many souvenir and antique shops.





This shop had some nifty erotic pieces and lots of other things which may or may not be antiques.



I had a fun conversation with the shopkeeper who spoke enough English to ask me what I was doing in Korea, but not enough to understand "artist residency", so I drew a picture.



Then he looked up the English and Korean for "artist" on his iPhone, and we took turns practicing our new vocabulary word. Learning is fun!




Later I met with Won-Seok Koh, the curator of Space Gallery. He told me lots about the history of the gallery, which played a crucial role in Seoul's 1970's avant-garde art scene, and of the building, which was designed by the "father of modern Korean architecture" Swoo-geun Kim to house his architecture firm.



I'm not necessarily an architecture junkie, but I thought this space was really wonderful---inviting red brick with very low ceilings to make short people (something I have in common with most Koreans) feel comfortable and human. As opposed to uncomfortable and inhuman, or cold and short, or inconsequential and ant-like. Anyway, the roof garden offered a great view of the city.




After our meeting I wandered around the neighborhood a little more.

11/11 = love!

Happy Armistice Day, allied nations!

It also happens to be my third wedding anniversary. Happy anniversary, Curtis, I miss you!

Here in Korea 11/11 is Pepero day, when young couples give each other Lotte brand cookie sticks, a holiday that I imagine was invented by Lotte. Happy Pepero Day, young lovers!

And here in Seoul on 11/11 we seem to be celebrating the G20 Summit. Happy G20, everyone!

I will be celebrating 11/11 with a day trip to Busan with Nayoung from Seoul Art Space. I'm slightly disappointed about the timing because I think leaving Seoul will drastically reduce my chances of running into Barack Obama on the street (hang in there, Mr. President!), but I'm also relieved to have an excuse to escape the G20 pandemonium, which is predicted to be very pandemonious.

We shall see...

My Tiny Seoul

Now that I've had a chance to settle in, I really like my apartment here at Alps Seoul Guest House.





My favorite thing about my apartment is the picture that is taped to the bathroom door of a much nicer apartment.



The toilet is really technologically advanced--it lights up, it's heated, and it has a bunch of mystery buttons on the side console. I almost lost an eye and flooded the bathroom experimenting with what turned out to be the bidet function.




Here is my street.







My pet eels.




Here is my neighborhood, Myeong-dong.









The closest grocery store is in the basement of a really fancy department store, Shinsegae. There is a Tiffany's branch right when you walk in, then you go down a few stairs and you're surrounded by dried fish.









And here is my street at night.

Subway System

The subway system in Seoul is impressive. All the signs are in English as well as Korean, so it's fairly easy to navigate, plus the subway cars and stations are immaculate. Trains are frequent and quiet, and the people-watching is top-notch.





















Jeong-yoon accompanied me for my first subway experience. She told me that the subway is used by everyone here--rich and poor--and it does seem pretty diverse in that regard. I commented to her on how clean it was compared to New York's subway system, and she seemed a little surprised. Sensing an opportunity, I told her about rats scurrying over the tracks dragging half-eaten bagels and people trimming their fingernails on the train in nyc, and she was hilariously horrified.

Later, she told me that these sliding door enclosures that separate all the tracks from the platforms are a recent addition from the last several years, and that the government put them there to prevent suicides, which are relatively frequent here.





I told her that no one in New York would commit suicide this way because it would be too disgusting, which fortunately she found funny.

It seems like almost every subway station has a sprawling underground mall inside it. Shopping seems to be the national pastime.

















Advertising is everywhere in the subway system--on lighted kiosks and ubiquitous LCD screens. I think this one is kind of funny. I'm contemplating it's meaning daily.