2018 WMAA 2 - Kelsie Rudolph

During my six weeks in South Korea, I got many opportunities to travel to museums, galleries, other towns and cities, as well as other artists studios. I'd like to share just one or two images of the best/favorite places I went and things I saw here. Since I was working during the weekdays, the weekends became an important time to travel and see as much as I could without getting completely overwhelmed. Sometimes that part was hard, but generally it was awesome.

My first weekend I went into Seoul to check out the Korea International Art Fair (KIAF), Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP), and the Leeum Samsung Museum.

KIAF: This art festival was massive. There was so much work it was incredibly difficult to absorb it all, but I found some pieces that I really loved, and here are just a few of those...

DDP: This place had some crazy architecture and so many different spaces and things going on it was hard to tell where I was and what I was doing/seeing. Check it out online, I don't have many images of it.

Leeum Samsung Museum: This is an incredible museum that houses an awesome collection of contemporary works as well as traditional Korean works.

My second weekend I visited Hyang Jong Oh's studio outside of Gwanju. He is a traditional ongi maker, working in this style for over thirty years. The weekend I visited he was loading his final ongi kiln. After this firing he was going to stop making these traditional vessels and move on to some new exciting forms that he was unsure of. Always cool to see artists, especially traditional makers, continue to explore and expand their practices.

That weekend everyone that was at Hyang Jong Oh's studio traveled to Kanghyo Lee's studio for some lunch and tea. He is well known for his traditional moon jars.

The following weekend I stayed in Yangpyeong and visited the private museum Koo House. Mrs. Koo's collection of contemporary works is full of variety and interior design items, as well as some outdoor interactive sculptures. If you are ever in South Korea I would highly recommend this museum.

One weekend I visited the National Museum of Korea. Let me just say I could live here. There is so much asian art and history in this place its unbelievable. 

I went to Busan in the South of S. Korea for a few days as well. This place is along the coast, and is much more relaxed than the massive city of Seoul. I tried to hit all the super touristy places as a way to just see some history and culture instead of just art museums and galleries.

Gamcheon Culture Village: This town was built by Korean War refugees in the 1950's but has recently been renovated with color and art installations as a way to attract tourism. I really fell in love with the intimacy of the winding street and tight alley ways, as well as the color.

Headong Yonggungsa Temple:

Various images from around Busan:

The time went so fast when I was in Korea, it was hard to get around and see everything that I wanted to, but I'm glad I got to see everything that I did. It's interesting to see how modern the city of Seoul is especially, but yet the history and culture are still so tightly woven into their everyday lives with the preservation of old towns and streets that are now mostly tourist attractions, but still support the livelihood of the people while live there.

During my final week of work at Hun Chung Lee's studio we made a massive table in two pieces. The process was very labor intensive, and the technique was so perfect. I'm so glad I got to experience this precision and planning. My next post will be an in depth look at that process.