A RAINY SATURDAY SEEMED LIKE THE PERFECT time to visit an art museum and the Leeum Samsung seemed like the perfect museum. Finding it required some new metro navigation and a bit of luck at the end of the line but everything worked out fine. The museum consist of two parts with free admission, courtesy of the Samsung Foundation of Culture.
Buncheong vase with Dragon motif
Celadon ewer with lotus petal design
We aren't experts but we watch "Antiques Roadshow"
Museum One collection, “Beyond Time,” contains traditional Korean art including thirty-six pieces designated as National Treasures. While we couldn’t tell Celadon from Buncheong, we have watched enough episodes of Antiques Roadshow that we can appreciate quality workmanship. And now we know that Celadon is a jade green porcelain with a transparent glaze often with small cracks while Buncheong is a traditional Koran jade green stoneware. The pieces are wonderfully displayed so each one stands out while at the same time reflecting several views.
Looking down the inverted cone
Vertigo inducing exit, Leeum Samsung Museum of Art
The building itself is as impressive as the curation. You begin the journey on the fourth floor and work your way around and down an inverted cone. Opaque prismatic windows alternate with openings for looking down—or up. We thought that the second part of the museum, “Beyond Space,” was a special exhibit and skipped it. Not to worry, Warhol, De Kooning and Rothko aren’t among our favorites and these aren’t among their best works. Besides, there is plenty of other art around Seoul if you keep your eyes open.
One man's art . . .
Umbrellas
Statues in Imingak Park
DMZ Peace Village stamp
Art at a building site—the tree is real
Shadows on a wall
I didn’t even notice the twenty-foot tall cartoonish statue outside Arirang Hills when we checked in—blame it on the rain. But we did see the street-side art on our way from Gyeongbobgun Palace Bukchon Village. Not only did we go out of our way to look at the sculptures at Imingak Park in the DMZ we imagined our own shadow art on a building wall in Seoul. Like beauty, are is in the eye of the beholder.
