Eat, Listen, Touch: Museum Awakens All Five Senses

Sehwa Art Museum has reopened its doors, transforming into a retreat for office workers and a playground for families. Located inside the Heungkuk Life Insurance Gwanghwamun building on Sinmun-ro in Seoul — known for Jonathan Borofsky's 22-meter-tall "Hammering Man" sculpture symbolizing the diligent modern worker — Sehwa Art Museum has renovated its exhibition halls and is welcoming visitors with two exhibitions running simultaneously on the second and third floors. **Art You Can Eat and Touch** Before visitors even see the artwork, a sweet aroma stimulates the sense of smell. This marks the beginning of the second-floor special exhibition "Transparent Hands, Moving Colors." The creator behind the delectable work is artist Lee Won-woo, whose installation "The Kind Prince" is a performance piece that hands out cotton candy to visitors. It draws on the fairy tale "The Happy Prince," in which a statue gives away everything — from jewel decorations to the gold leaf wrapping its body — for the poor. The artist, who expresses through art the humor that arises when taken-for-granted logic crumbles, offers a refreshing experience inside the staid museum setting. While artworks typically carry "Do Not Touch" signs, Kim Ye-sol's works at the exhibition entrance — including "How to Roll a Circle Well" — emphasize hands-on interaction and direct experience. Sound installation artist Jeong Man-young's "Circulating Sound" is a work enjoyed through the ears. Turning a faucet triggers the sound of flowing water, followed by birdsong and forest sounds. The piece captures sounds of nature that city dwellers easily miss in daily life. Park Hye-in's delicate, lace-like installations of transparent glass, and Bu Ji-hyun's works made from discarded fish-attracting lamps, let visitors experience the mystery of light with their entire bodies. What makes this exhibition special is that it awakens all five senses rather than centering solely on visual experience. **Cityscapes and Memory** Visitors to the third-floor gallery may find themselves confused, unable to locate the entrance. The viewing experience begins with the act of feeling along a blocked bookshelf and attempting to push inside. The moment the wall — seemingly immovable — slides open with a quiet whoosh, a brief thrill of discovering a "secret door" gives way to the dim interior of the exhibition space. What greets visitors is the sound of string instruments. Seo Seong-hyeop's work places wooden sculptures resembling breakwater tetrapods before the viewer, with soft instrumental sounds flowing out to create a meditative atmosphere. The unidentifiable instruments evoke memories of tradition. Im Su-sik is an artist who explores space, memory, and accumulated time through the medium of photography. He recomposes images of personal bookshelves and architectural interiors in the format of chaekgado, a traditional Korean still-life painting of books and objects. There is a quiet pleasure in examining each object arranged in the chaekgado, as if peering into someone else's bookshelf. Kim Bo-min combines modern urban landscapes and social imagery based on the composition and perspective of traditional landscape paintings. In a word, her work could be called contemporary landscape painting, but the artist reinterprets landscape not as mere depiction of nature but as a space where contemporary social conditions, power, and memory overlap. Her new works in this exhibition focus on the urban scenery around Sehwa Art Museum and Seoul, including the Heungkuk Life Insurance building with its towering Hammering Man. Ma Dong-eun, deputy director of Sehwa Art Museum who curated this exhibition "Silhouettes of Memory: Form, Image, Perspective," said, "Rather than focusing on 'what to remember,' we focus on 'how to remember,' showing the forms, properties, and characteristics of memory through three artists." The exit is also a blocked bookshelf, but most visitors — unlike when they entered — actively search for the way out, a testament to the power of contemporary art. Sehwa Art Museum has set "shifting perspectives" as its institutional theme for this year and plans to continue presenting exhibitions that survey diverse currents in contemporary art. Leveraging its strengths as an oasis-like museum in the heart of the city, the museum is preparing various discounts for office workers and enhanced weekend programs for family visitors. The current exhibitions run through June 28.

Eat, Listen, Touch: Museum Awakens All Five Senses

Related Video

Nurture Future Science's Green Shoots at Arboretums on Science Day

Time to Boost Non-Apartment Housing Supply, Korea's Ladder for Low-Income Families

Hormuz Blockade Exposes Korea's Naphtha Dependence

Mozambique: A Land for Expanding Korea's Economic Territory

Reviving Local Party Chapters After 22 Years: Political Reform or Regression?

Cerebras Pushes for Nasdaq Listing as AI Inference Chip Sales Surge

Money Flows Into Value-Up Funds as Defensive Products Fall Out of Favor

KOSDAQ Extends Rally to Six Sessions; Earnings Key to Breaking 1,200

Seoul Apartment Jeonse Shortage Fuels 40% Price Surge and 'No-Look' Contracts

HD Hyundai Builds Shipbuilding Bases in India, Vietnam to Counter China