By Cathy Rose A. Garcia
Staff Reporter
The Museum of National Arts Foundation (MoNAF) is holding its first major exhibition of ``comprehensive art.'' If you haven't heard of the MoNAF, don't feel bad. It's not actually a ``new major art institution in Seoul,'' as touted on its poster, which features a marble sculpture and a blurry photograph of a mysterious man.
The MoNAF poster looks authentic enough, and that's exactly the point. The MoNAF is a ``mock museum,'' the brainchild of two young Australian artists, Josh Daniel and Brad Betts.
In an interview with The Korea Times last week, Daniel and Betts discussed how they came up with the idea for the imaginary art museum. Their upcoming exhibition opens July 24 and will run through July 30 at Gallery Sogool in Changjeon-dong, Mapo.
As young artists who, at least for now, can only dream of their works being displayed at major art institutions, Daniel and Betts wanted to explore their ideas about art museums.
``Major art institutions, they prescribe to people what great art is. We're looking at how they actually get that kind of credibility… We also think society has made everything into a commodity. Culture is a commodity in our society as well, and that's why every exhibition has a significant merchandise component. I guess our exhibition is, in a way, like putting into display all the things of an art gallery that aren't actually art,'' Betts said.
The MoNAF will have all the facilities associated with a real museum, including a ticket booth, lobby, education center, gift shop, and art collections. It even has a special exhibition, ``Deceased Estate," with pieces from fictional MoNAF founder Hieronymus Blouchard's private collection.
The artists said they wanted the exhibition to have a humorous tone, with everything in the installation ``looking and feeling as if it is intended to be taken seriously.''
Betts and Daniel, who currently reside in Seoul, didn't want to give away too many details on how exactly they will transform a small gallery like Gallery Sogool into a mini-museum. They would only say it is ``very mysterious and exciting.''
For the artists, it's all about putting the humor back into art. Even the name MoNAF is a word play.
``We made up the words to match the acronym NAF. In British or Australian English, `naf' describes something that's bit lame, but that's required a lot of work. Like if you mention a love scene from `Transformers 2,' that could be described as `naf','' Betts said.
The idea behind creating the MoNAF project came from the artists' questions about the importance of having artworks displayed in major institutions and museums.
``When these art institutions take the art in, its almost like the art becomes dead, and they're no longer part of the living, breathing art scene. The act of the museum taking it transforms the art into something else,'' Betts said.
Daniel hopes the exhibition will make people rethink their ideas about going to museums.
``We thought about art museums and the kind of the experience they create for people when they're seeing art and how it ends up becoming a distraction to the art itself. The experience of going to the gallery has become more important than the art… We wanted people to think differently about it,'' he said.
To get to Gallery Sogool, get off Sangsu station, line 6, exit 2. Walk straight ahead for 400 meters, and after the pedestrian overpass, climb the stairs ahead. The gallery is on your left. Visit www.sogool.in.