Art shows this week

There’s an artificial quality to Jung Yeon-doo’s work that you can’t quite figure out. Despite the ever-so-slightly awkward smiles and staged poses, the people in these photos aren’t hired models. These are real families that live in the same apartment complex. 

You might be thinking, “Why is there a museum for figures and figurines?” Well, many of us ‘normal’ people might be tempted to dismiss it as a place for the obsessed, but you might want to think again. Figure Museum W, located in Cheongdam-dong, is a place to either renew your love of or learn about a new potential hobby of collecting, building, and trading figure models. With a serious collection of models that range in price from the thousands to couple 100 million wons, it’s undoubtedly Seoul’s special mecca for dukhoos (people focused on a specific hobby or subject) of this sort. For those of us who consider ourselves ‘normal’, it will be an eye-opening experience in learning both the delicacies and grandiose of this art form. The 1000 or so models that are on display are all part of a private collection. The two co-owners of the museum are elementary school friends and have been avid collectors of figures and art toys for a while. They, along with two more friends, came together to create this special space within Seoul to display their belongings. Most well known animation characters from Korea, Japan and the US can be spotted here, all of which range in size. If you’ve ever wondered what it would feel like to stand next to Ironman and take a selfie, you’ll be able to do just that. Life-size figures include the Terminator (with the actual leather jacket Arnold Schwarzenegger wore), Ironman, Batman, Spiderman, the Hulk, and even the Joker. The most prized item, on the...

“This open, comprehensive cultural space was established by the actor Yoo Ah-in, photographer Kim Jae-hoon, the young artists Kwon Cheol-hwa and Kwon Ba-da and others. I go here quite often as I live nearby, and it's the perfect place to have some tea. On the rooftop, you can relax and enjoy the view of Namsan.”

From installations, videos, performance art or traditional sculpting, artist Ham Kyung-ah has tried her hand at just about every single medium available. However, it's the not the materials or the physical presence of a piece that takes precedence for the artist. She’s more interested in the concept and the story that goes into making it happen.   Stepping into her gallery, you’ll notice right away the image of a giant chandelier entitled “What you see is the unseen/ Chandeliers for Five Cities.” From afar, the image seems to be a high-resolution print, but up close, you’ll notice the tightly woven stitches. While a moment of marvel is due to the technique, it’s actually not the work of the artist. The works are a continuation of the Embroidery Project that she first started in 2008, and the 1,800 hours invested into the embroidered chandelier were done by women in North Korea. So where does the artist stand in the work? She cut up the newspaper articles, collected images that spoke to her, and sent the design outline to women in North Korea, all through a middleman who transported the work back and forth through China. Look beyond the threads that hang like dripping paint on “Abstract Weave – Morris Louis Untitled 1960,”and you’ll soon realize that there are short excerpts pulled from news articles, embroidered in a similarly colored thread to camouflage its content.   Ham’s work is all about the insider information, the process unseen to the naked eye. It’s the viewer’s...