Seoul has a new museum, and it is unlike anything the city has opened before.
Seo-Seoul Museum of Art opened this week in Geumcheon-gu, a district in southwestern Seoul that has historically sat on the edges of the city's cultural scene. The museum is the first public institution in Seoul dedicated specifically to new media art, and it completes the Seoul Museum of Art network as its eighth branch, following the Seoul Museum of Photography in Dobong-gu, which opened last year.
The building itself is worth noting. Designed by architect Kim Chan-joong, founder of The System Lab, the 7,186-square-meter structure runs along Geumnarae Central Park. It is low-rise, with two basement levels and one above-ground floor, and the design creates both a forecourt and a rear garden within the park. It does not announce itself loudly. It fits into the landscape and asks visitors to come closer.
Curator Kwon Hye-in, speaking at the press opening on Thursday, described the museum's approach to new media in terms that are broader than most people might expect. "Rather than simply referring to digital technology or emerging tools, the museum will embrace works that experiment with the concept of boundaries itself," she said. The collection currently holds 72 artworks created after 2000, gathered over the past three years. Ten of them are being shown to the public for the first time in the inaugural exhibition, "The Transparent, Adolescent, Machine of Western Seoul."
Two other opening exhibitions round out the launch program. "SeMA Performance: Breathing" brings together 27 artists and collectives exploring the intersections of body, society and art through the theme of breathing. "Founding Archive Exhibition: Mneme Topos" looks at the story of the museum's founding and the layers of time inscribed in southwestern Seoul as a neighborhood and community.
Each year, the museum plans to run research programs examining the challenges facing contemporary institutions dealing with digital and media-based works. It will also operate the Media Lab as a working space where artists can develop new forms of practice. The curatorial team said it will continue building guidelines for collecting and managing digital artworks over time.
The opening of Seo-Seoul Museum of Art in Geumcheon-gu is also part of a wider conversation in Seoul about which parts of the city get cultural investment and which do not. Southwestern Seoul has not historically been a district people associate with major art institutions. This museum changes that directly.