Samsung's great gift
By John Sheridan
Art lovers are thrilled about Samsung donating its vast art collection to the nation. Part of the collection spans 19th- and 20th-century Western art movements, from Impressionism to Fauvism, Cubism to Pop Art. It's a treasure trove. And the collection has so many pieces that the government plans to build a museum to showcase it.
This most generous gift makes good on a promise by Lee Kun-hee, the late Samsung Group chairman, to donate the collection, while also burnishing the chaebol's image, tarnished by its too close relationship with the disgraced Park Geun-hye regime. And then there's the matter of an onerous inheritance tax that comes with art fortunes.
Once the Samsung collection is housed in its own museum, it will be a must-see for anyone visiting Seoul and reason enough for Western tourists to visit the capital, during their grand Asia tour, and for art lovers in Japan and around Asia to flock to Seoul. Until the museum is built, some of the collection's best Western pieces will be on the walls of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), and its three branches, for all to see.
“Filthy-rich” American families have been major art collectors and patrons of public museums for generations, with the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Guggenheim Museum on the list of art lovers visiting New York. These art collections, like Samsung's, were once in family hands and for their eyes only.
I look forward to the day when the Samsung collection can be seen by the public's eyes, when I can gaze at a Monet, whose “Impression, Sunrise” is credited with giving an art movement its name.
There will be Cezanne's and Gauguin's rich palette to feast one's eyes upon. When I see Van Gogh, I will imagine the tormented genius of Arles gazing at a starry night sky, or at the ineffable beauty of a field of sun flowers in the south of France. And, of course, there will be Picasso.
Picasso's importance struck me when I was in the 19th- and 20th-century galleries of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, which include all the famous artists synonymous with those centuries' art movements.
When I got to Picasso, seeing his paintings juxtaposed with the other ones underlined his originality; he was the artist who took art into the 20th century, although Picasso believed Matisse had “it,” famously saying, “There is only Matisse.”
In Woody Allen's “Midnight in Paris,” one of his characters says, “Picasso was the better artist, but Matisse was the better painter.” Well, we all can be the judge of that when seeing their paintings juxtaposed after the Samsung collection goes public.
Seoul's art lovers were delighted when the MMCA's Seoul branch finally opened its doors in 2013. The grand opening followed years of renovating a former military hospital in Samcheong-no into a museum.
Besides exhibiting a permanent collection of modern and contemporary Korean artists, the branch wanted to introduce relatively unknown international artists by putting on exhibitions that Seoul's established museums weren't interested in doing, since those museums like to exhibit famous names to sell tickets.
Two of its international exhibitions featured William Kentridge and Bauhaus, respectively. Kentridge blew me away. The South African's eclectic artwork compelled me to return for another look the very next day. And Kentridge has the distinction of being the only white South African fully accepted as an African artist by black South Africans.
The Bauhaus exhibition was an education. A lot of people don't know that Bauhaus was an art movement as well as an architectural one. Nor did I know this until the MMCA introduced Bauhaus avant-garde concepts, including kinetic sculpture or mute costumed performers in its Theatre of the Round.
The flamboyant costumes, resembling designs later seen in comics and animation, really surprised me given the movement's streamlined architecture sans ornamentation. There was a series of Kandinsky geometric drawings on display, too. Kandinsky, along with Paul Klee, was a leading practitioner of the Bauhaus aesthetic.
Alas, Bauhaus fell afoul of the Nazis' attack on “degenerate art” in Germany, disbanding in 1933. Its artists went their separate way, while its architects went on to inform Western Europe, North America and Israel, with Chicago becoming the “New Bauhaus.” In “From Bauhaus to Our House” Tom Wolfe critiques the profound effect of the architectural concept on America. It's a fun read, a bit of a hoot.
In truth, Seoul used to be a cultural backwater when it came to the appreciation of Western art by the public. The new millennium changed that, beginning with World Cup 2002 bringing in art exhibitions from famous museums and continuing to the present.
Now, Seoulites are known as people who appreciate fine art, with the capital being included by exhibitions visiting the world's major cities. There's plenty for art lovers to see.
That's why it's time for Seoul to have its own museum housing a permanent world-class art collection, one that includes 19th- and 20th-century Western art that people can keep returning to and where young and old can learn to appreciate fine art.
Once the museum showcasing the Samsung collection is open to the public, it will be a big piece added to the mosaic of a creative, dynamic Seoul and a giant step forward for art appreciation in 21st-century Seoul.
John Sheridan is an urban flaneur living in Seoul.