I am constantly looking for things that inspire me. And what does? Looking at things other people have created. And exactly this I can do at art museums, so I went to the MMCA in Seoul; National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art.
Just next to the Gyengbokgung Palace you can find this museum that opened in 2013. When we got there we were pleasantly surprised that as we were 24 or under we could get in for free! (And therefore saved a whopping 4000 won/~3,6euro)
There were many exhibitions going on and we ended up spending over three hours there. We could watch different movies created by different artists or just walk around to see the art installations or photographs.
What do I think of modern art? Well I do not always understand everything about it. But I think it is so interesting to see what other people have put their effort in creating.
Exhibitions at the MMCA in Seoul
I won’t go through all the exhibitions but here are some pointers.
And moving on, to see Bek Hyunjin’s we had to go through a door that did not look like an official door to an exhibition. We even asked if we could go in because we were not sure. It was a room with tables, chairs and other details as well as a poem. On the wall there was a big neon sign with the text “UnemploymentBankruptcyDivorceDebtSuicide Rest Stop”, which was the name of the exhibition. Here is a photograph of a part of the room:
The Jonas Mekas exhibition was my favourite. It was called Again, Again It All Comes Back to Me in Brief Glimpses. Now this is a man who had to borrow money to buy a camera when he was younger and today has his first exhibition in Asia at the MMCA in Seoul in a series of the most influential directors in contemporary film history. Now tell me that is not inspiring.
Mekas, born in Lithuania, witnessed the WW2 and has filmed many movies and taken many pictures that we could take part of. At the MMCA we could also watch some of the videos from the 365 Day Project, a project where he posted a video every day back in 2007.
There also was other art installations and movies, e.g. some movies were about the Korean War.
I really should go more often to art museums.