Mention Korea and our minds will conjure up ultra-famous K-pop acts à la BTS, innovative Korean beauty products, Oscar-winning films such as Bong Joon-ho's "Parasite" and blockbuster shows like "Squid Games", not to mention popular brands like Samsung and Kia.
People who love peppering their language with foreign words will also immediately think about the 20 new words of Korean origins that recently entered the Oxford English Dictionary, including hallyu (the "Korean wave", a collective term referring to the popularity of South Korea's cultural economy exporting pop culture, entertainment, music, TV dramas and movies), aegyo (similar to the Japanese kawaii), hanbok (the traditional dress) and mukbang (livestreams of people eating extraordinary amounts of food while talking to their online audience).
The Keramiekmuseum Princessehof in Leeuwarden, The Netherlands, is promising its visitors to go beyond all this influences and inspirations, though, and discover this country with a unique exhibition.
Focused on food culture, beauty ideals and rituals, "Korea. Gateway to a rich past" (until 22nd August 2022) features a wide range of artworks and artefacts, from precious jade green celadon and pure white porcelain pieces to storage jars and ancient pottery, makeup boxes (for pigments and hair accessories) from the Goryeo Dynasty (918-1392), musical instruments, film images and costumes and accessories like the trademark black hat of the yangban elite. The role of ceremonies and rituals is also discussed in detail: incense burners, vases, dance robes and other ritual objects provide insight into the many ceremonies that have formed an important part of Korean society over the centuries.
Some of these pieces are on loan from the National Museum of Korea and the Gugak National Center in Seoul, the Museum of Ethnology (Museum Volkenkunde) in Leiden.
For younger visitors there's a video of Min Yoon-gi better known as Agust D or as Suga of K-pop sensation BTS, in which the performer pays homage to Korean culture, and obviously meokbang video clips.
The exhibition also features pieces by contemporary artists: "Translated Vase" by Yee Sookyung, incorporates ceramic shards glued together with gold lacquer according to the Japanese kintsugi method; Kyung-Jin Cho's installation "Swing Jam", created in response to an earthquake that hit Korea in 2016, is a total meditative experience, a ball that floats between earthenware pots and taps them gently.
Among the stand-out pieces there is a new creation by Juree Kim. An artist displayed in museums all over the world (including the V&A in London) Juree Kim creates Korean buildings and houses using clay and lets the pieces getting destroyed by water that slowly corrodes the clay.
In October, before the exhibition opened, Juree Kim attended a residency with ceramists Paulien Ploeger and Her Comis in St. Jacobiparochie, Friesland, and she made a new clay sculpture.
This model of a typical Korean house will be placed in a basin of water at the "Korea" exhibition. During the event, the water will erode the clay, causing the work to slowly decay. This process symbolises the passing of time and traditions in Korean society, but Juree Kim's sculptures are extremely pertinent to our times in general.
They tell indeed stories of transience, hydrogeological disasters, the mutation of landscapes through corrosions and the erosion of memories. These architectural models could be considered as mementos of the transitoriness of human existence, they remind us indeed we are removable and evanescent and, by doing so, they trigger a cathartic process in the viewers.
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