MMCA Seoul celebrates autumn with festival

im Se-jin and THSS's video performance "A Hermit" as part of MMCA-Hyundai Motor Museum Festival: Madang / Courtesy of MMCA

By Kwon Mee-yoo

The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) celebrates the third anniversary of its Seoul branch in November with a handful of new exhibitions and a museum festival this week.

"MMCA-Hyundai Motor Museum Festival: Madang" running through Sunday reflects the museum’s efforts to take a step closer to the public with convergence arts.

MMCA director Bartomeu Mari explained why the festival is named "madang," the Korean word for courtyard, an important element of Korean traditional culture as well as a keyword for MMCA Seoul's architecture.

“Ob.scene 5: Void” by Ob.scene is a participatory performance exploring architecture of MMCA Seoul.

"Madang is a space open to all and welcomes everyone. It is a space of freedom and sharing. It is a place to be with others, to enjoy, to learn, to discover and to exchange," Mari said Wednesday. "The festival will take place in several madang of the building, inside and outside of MMCA Seoul. 'Madang' is about offering another way of enjoying the museum other than exhibition. The audience becomes a user, the user becomes an actor, the actor becomes an author and the authors become witnesses of their creations."

The director also said, "the MMCA festival is an event to make MMCA ― the center of Korean contemporary art and culture ― more urban, more part of the city and more part of the country that has become a global cultural voice as well."

The festival is sponsored by Hyundai Motor and Mari appreciated the partner believing in the potential of art. In addition to the festival, Korea's largest carmaker supports the annual MMCA Hyundai Motor Series, funding new works and an exhibition of leading artist of Korea, and internationally at the Tate Modern in London and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Choon Choi’s “A Genealogy of X” / Courtesy of MMCA

The festival consists of a wide range of performances, site-specific installations and audience participation programs.

The highlight will be "Continues Verb," a three-day performance combining sound art and humanities lectures. On Friday, Robin Mackay talked about "Perception of Sound" with performances by Lee Gamble and Florian Hecker; on Saturday, Mattin from Spain will lecture on "Sociality of Sound" with Korean groups Transistorhead and Damirat, Marcus Schmickler and Thomas Lehn from Germany and Mark Fell from the U.K.; and Timorthy Morton will discuss "Ecology of Sound" accompanied by Species pluralis, Dakim and Mika Vainio.

Artists will present site-specific works ― Yoo Mok-yon will hand out flyers inviting the public to the museum and Yoon Ka-lim will bake geometrical bread in the museum's lobby. Photographer Koo Young-jun will take pictures of the museumgoers and Studio Gorm's John Arndt and Wonhee Jeong Arndt designed furniture for the museum.

Visitors can go up to the museum's rooftop and enjoy evening events and concerts through Rooftop Moonlight Festival until Sunday. The museum opens its loading dock, which is usually closed to the public, and throws dance parties on Saturdays.

VOID

Meanwhile, the "VOID" exhibit sheds light on open, archipelagic architectural traits of the MMCA Seoul.

The museum's architecture curator Jeong Da-young invited artists from various genres, not just architects, to gain a new understanding of MMCA Seoul.

"It begins with a void, or empty space, of MMCA Seoul, but it provides a new perspective to see the museum," Jeong said. "The exhibition centers on architecture, but it doesn't have to be told by architects. So I chose artists with different backgrounds."

Artist Jang Min-seung joined hands with Jung Jae-il to create "Light Chamber," an installation in Gallery 6 with music and light to experience architecture in a synesthetic way.

OPENHOUSE Seoul, a nonprofit organization researching the architecture and urbanity of Seoul, presents "Void Form, Void Connection." The project documents voids inside and outside the museum, which were unrecognized.

Architect Choon Choi comes from an architectural background, but his work is more theatrical. Choi's creation "A Genealogy of X" is in fact a set for a play, "Architecture Theater X," written by Choi exploring the voids of MMCA Seoul.

Ob.scene is a magazine focusing on subjects out of the scene. Their fifth edition breaks out from paper form and makes its readers to turn space ― instead of page -- to read the magazine accompanied by an audio guide.

Kim Hee-cheon's "From Cradle to" takes MMCA Seoul as a giant phone cradle for a smartphone, providing a new sensibility on the museum by looking at the building in different scales.

For more information, visit www.mmca.go.kr or call 02-3701-9500.