Weekender Gallery shops bring fine art to daily life
By Kwon Mee-yoo
Art in galleries may be thought of as difficult to interpret but art gallery shops bring it down to Earth with fun pieces and designs.
The National Museum of Contemporary Art in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province, revamped its shop in July.
UUL functions as a part of the modern museum as well as a venue selling various designer and private brand products. The name UUL comes from the words “uri,” meaning us in Korean, and “ultari,” meaning fence.
At the store entrance, artist Ahn Kyu-chul’s “The Density of Memory” greets visitors. From a chair and a globe to a pencil and notes, a variety of daily objects hang from the ceiling.
The display stand of UUL is made from scrapped doors from the former Defense Security Command, also known as “Gimusa,” which is now being transformed into the Seoul branch of the museum.
UUL offers 10 of its own brand products such as mugs, canvas bags and notebooks bearing its logo. The shop also collaborates with Korea’s top artists. Suk Chul-joo’s “New Paradise Scenery in Dream” is printed on a lampshade and the shop plans to work with other artists in the future.
It also has more than 130 kinds of books covering art, design, craft and architecture, some of them hard to find in Korea.
Visit www.moca.go.kr/engN (English) for more information.
While UUL brings fine art into the shop, other select stores are more into designer products.
SangSang Madang Design Square is located on the first floor of cultural space SangSang Madang in Seogyo-dong, Mapo District, Seoul.
Opened about four years ago, it aims to promote young designers in Korea and sell their products. It is full of fun and creative design pieces, such as an umbrella that looks like a rose blossom, and a chocolate-shaped wallet.
“We directly agree contracts with designers,” said store merchandiser Shin Hye-won.
In addition to providing a sales channel to aspiring local designers, SangSang Madang also holds an annual design award show to find new talent. The winning works are sold at the Design Square.
Designer Yang Jae-hyung’s “Pin Mirror,” last year’s winning piece, looks like a big pushpin, but it’s actually a desktop mirror. “When put on a desk, it would create an odd harmony with tacks,” Shin said.
Kim Jong-hwan’s “Mountain Glass” is glass with a Matterhorn-shaped peak inside it, while Studio Dotdotdot’s “Clock Kit” reminds customers of plastic model kits.
For more information, visit www.sangsangmadang.com.
Peco Mart makes way to MoMA
Among numerous museum shops across the globe, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) store is every designer’s dream place to sell their work.
“Meet Burger,” a set of coasters designed by Korean design team Peco Mart, recently made their way to the MoMA store. The set features six rubber coasters in the shape of two hamburger buns, patty, cheese, lettuce and tomato. Each of them works as a coaster and creates a burger shape when stacked.
Composed of Lee Sung-jin and Lee Min-hye, the duo’s name comes from “Play Echo Mart.” “We ‘play’ in Peco Mart and hope to hear an ’echo’ from our customers. In other words, we want to amuse and entertain people,” Sung-jin said in an interview with The Korea Times. The team’s concept is discovering fun, new aspects in daily items people can easily find at local markets.
People go shopping to buy goods, but the designers go shopping not to buy products but to brainstorm ideas. “Sometimes, we go shopping only to think of ideas,” Min-hye said.
Currently working at a studio in Seoul Art Space Sindang under Jungang Market in central Seoul, they often go to the market above to find ideas.
Other products from Peco Mart include “ttaemiri,” a scrubbing towel-shaped smartphone cleaning cloth, squid- and octopus-shaped sticky notes, gum-shaped magnets and soju bottle- and rice bowl-shaped cards for Parents’ Day.
Peco Mart participated in DesignTide Tokyo last autumn and presented an opportunity for them to boost overseas sales.
“A retailer from MoMA bought our products as samples and later contacted us saying that they wanted to sell ‘Meet Burger’ at the MoMA store,” Min-hye said. “It took about half a year to actually sell our products there. It was the first time for us to mass produce for overseas sales, so there was a lot of trial and error.”
The coasters are now available at MoMA’s online store and its shops in New York and Tokyo.
The team will take part in another design event, Maison et Objet, in Paris in September. This time, they will bring another ordinary product transformed wittily in Peco Mart’s style.
“It’s all about a leap of faith. We thought of something unexpected coming out from a bag of snacks, just like taking a ‘leg’ of our squid sticky notes,” Sung-jin said.
Someday, the two designers want to open a shop of their own — a store full of Peco Mart products. “We want to promote our brand Peco Mart as well as our products,” Min-hye said.
Sung-jin added that at their ideal shop, customers will grab a shopping basket and fill it with Peco Mart products at the store, like they do at supermarkets.
For more information about the designers, visit www.pecomart.co.kr.