Trick Eye Museum rising as tourist magnet

By Chung Ah-young

There are no hallyu stars or national treasures or masterpieces. But thousands of foreign tourists are flocking to this small, bizarre museum. Located in a back alley bustled with street vendors peddling food, clothes and accessories in the Hongdae (Hongik University) area in Seoul, the Trick Eye Museum is becoming a must-visit spot for foreign tourists.

Featuring two or three dimensional paintings that look as if they exist in reality, the museum has been recently selected as the most popular museum among 180 museums and art galleries in Seoul, according to TripAdvisor, the world’s largest travel community.

The museum beat the nation’s two flagship museums ― the National Museum of Korea and the Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art ― in a survey based on the number of visitors and their reviews.

Curator Koh Kyung said that the museum is particularly popular among foreigners who want to make a special memory during their travels with photographs.

“No one could expect to pour a bucket of water on a painting when visiting the average art museum or gallery. In other museums, visitors see such signs as ‘don’t touch’ or ‘no flash.’ But in our museum, people can freely take a photo and touch the art. They can be part of the artworks,” she said.

The gallery uses optical illusions to induce visitors to interact with the paintings or installations.

From children to middle-aged women and men, foreign visitors laugh and shout by putting themselves in the pictures such as in the mouth of a giant snake or plunging into a river.

“This is the first time for us to come to this kind of the museum. This is very nice and interesting,” Aminah Nasir, a Malaysian visitor, said. “It is really creative and fun,” she added.

“This is the most interesting place. We went to Nami Island and Everland. They are wonderful and beautiful but they are too huge. We don’t have enough time,” Norlaila Taharim, another Malaysian tourist, said.

They said that they want to come to Korea again and share the information and experience of the museum with their friends and families.

“We will bring the pictures and post them on Facebook and we’re going to promote it to our families and friends. I will tell them to come to Korea,” Taharim said.

The soaring popularity of the museum is also partially due to the widespread use of SNS in which visitors can share their photos with people living in various parts of the word.

“Such word of mouth has been spreading rapidly through SNS. An increasing number of tourists are getting curious about this museum,” she said.

According to the museum, almost 123,000 non-Koreans visited the museum from December in 2013 to February in 2014. Nearly 1,200 foreign visitors come to the museum during weekdays and more than 2,000 on weekends and holidays. In the past three months, Thai tourists comprised the majority of foreign travelers to the museum with 35,000, followed by 30,000 visitors from Hong Kong, 26,000 from China, 6,400 from Taiwan and 5,000 from Singapore.

Koh said that even though the entrance fee is the most expensive among the capital’s private museums at 15,000 won, a large number of foreigners are coming to the museum every day.

During the Lunar New Year, the biggest holiday in China, nearly 2,000 Chinese tourists flocked to the museum daily.

Tourists from other Asian countries under the hallyu influence such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Philippines also show strong visitor figures.

Opened in 2010, the museum has seven thematic exhibits, including historical, twists of familiar masterpieces, romantic, luxurious, domestic, traditional, style, and finally, a house of mirrors. The museum changes the main exhibition works every six months for regular visitors to update their photos.

The curator explained that the museum originated from “trompe l’oeil” in French from ancient Greek and Rome times, which refers to as “the trick of the eye.” This is an art technique that uses real images to produce optical illusions that portray objects as if in three dimensions.

The art technique was commercially used in Japan many years ago but waned. But now Korea is stealing the limelight on a slew of illusion art galleries nationwide, attracting a growing number of foreign tourists.

“Many travelers are adding our museum to their blogs or SNS. It is an equivalent to ‘hallyu’ in the Korean art niche market,” Koh said.

Also, its neighboring shops and restaurants are booming together with the soaring crowds of the museum. “They are enjoying the sales increase in recent years because of the large number of foreign tourists. Many foreign tourists like the clubs at night in the Hongdae area and they have fun here in the daytime,” she said.

The museum will open overseas branches in Hong Kong in September, Singapore in May and Beijing in December. The Trick Eye Museum now has branches in Seoul, Busan and Jeju Island.