I was at the Fowler Museum in UCLA last Sunday for the opening of the Contemporary Korean Ceramics exhibition. Despite being distracted by the festivities and the bustle of the exhibition's inauguration, I nevertheless left very much disappointed. Given the lofty ambition to represent the contemporary face of Korean ceramics, the one lone gallery room filled with few select pieces from only five artists seemed irretrievably insufficient.
Because the exhibition gave only the skimpiest history of Korean ceramics, the context needed to understand the relationship between traditional forms and modern visual rhetoric was missing. While I really liked a several of the works individually, I felt the exhibition as a whole was incoherent. I could not but feel that the motive behind the exhibition was a desire to display Korean art, rather than a genuine in the dialogs and meditation on contemporary Korean ceramics.
I did, however, very much enjoy the smaller exhibition of Korean funerary figures also currently being exhibited by the Fowler Museum. Thee festively painted wooden funerary figures, or kkoktu, are fascinating relics of the rural folklore and superstitions. And since I generally tend to associate Joseon Korea with Neo-Confucian sterility, I was pleasantly surprised to see the gay colors, funny expressions, and dizzying creativity on these figurines. I also thought it was really interesting how the figure of the guard changed with time; while the 19th century ones showed Joseon military men with spears, the 20th century ones show mustached police officers.
While the two exhibits are not worth going out of the way for, it doesn't seem like a bad way to pass the time if you're in the neighborhood. Plus, the UCLA campus is gorgeous.
(Picture: Installation of 111 bowls by Lee Young-Jae, by far my favorite piece in the exhibition)
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