'Seoul Romance' Exhibition
Opening Date: 18 April 2019, 7.00 pm
Show Duration: 19 April ~ 29 May 2019, 09.00 am ~ 5.00 pm
Place: Korean Cultural Institute, Via Nomentana 12, First Floor
Seoul Romance
The Korean capital Seoul, which currently has more than 10 million inhabitants, has a very ancient history. Already in 8000 ~ 7000 BC the first inhabitants began to reside there building various villages. In 18 BC Baekje, one of the three kingdoms in which the Korean peninsula was divided, was founded right here. Later the city was named in various ways as Hansan, Hansung, Hanyang, Yangju, Namkyung, Kyungsung, up to the current name Seoul. During the Chosun dynasty, Seoul was the center of the Korean peninsula for more than 700 years. Beijing became the capital of the Chinese kingdom in 1272, the castle of Edo, the current Japanese capital Tokyo, was built in 1457. Paris and London entered history in the 50th C respectively. and in 43 BC with the conquest by the Roman army. The Italian capital, Rome, began to lay the foundations of a city-state in the sixth century BC, so the historical weight that Seoul has is certainly not negligible.
Seoul is a city of mountains and rivers. The water that flows along the eastern mountain range of the Korean peninsula gathers and becomes the Han River. The river crosses the center of the peninsula in the middle of the Bukhan and Gwanak mountains and then flows into the West Sea. Seoul is located right between the rivers and the hills located in the middle of these two rocky mountains. The city, made up of the historic center which is located on the northern part of the river, and the modern area which is located in the southern part, boasts several landscapes during all four seasons. The inhabitants who live there are always full of vitality.
Five artists in love with Seoul have come together to show it to the world. Korean painting, photography, ink painting ... their fields of activity are varied but they are all artists focused on the cultural renaissance of Seoul. Every year, in addition to the exhibition held in Seoul, they also visit other historic cities in the world. After the exhibition held in Madrid in 2017, Rome is the second foreign stop. We expect this exhibition to become the root of 'artistic Romanticism' that will unite Seoul, the center of Asian culture, and Rome, the capital of European culture.
Artists
The artist Cho Poong Ryu has added a veil of modernity to traditional Korean painting. Work by superimposing stone dust on the adhesive. The mountains and rivers of Seoul meet a raw material to give life to a warm landscape, abandoning the cold shade. The artist Jeoung Myoung Sik is a real carpenter. He always carries a tool holder and a camera on his shoulders. He can always climb on the roof of the royal palace and resume aspects of Seoul from points of view that no one else can see. The objects that appear most frequently in the photos of the artist Dongwook Kim are old-fashioned aspects of Seoul. Inside them are memories now lost. His goal, which quickly captures the subtle changes of nature, contains stories and symbolisms. The artist Taek Lim is expanding the horizon of traditional Korean landscape painting through digital procedures. The artist takes the public to see stereoscopic works that combine paintings and photographs. The exhibition hall thus becomes a playground. The artist Chung Ki Ahn draws the city by lending the eyes of a bird. It is a slow process in which you carefully draw every single line. Make 7cm × 7cm of work per day. The construction period of a work can be up to 3 years.