Arario Museum Tapdong Cinema in Jeju Island

There are definitely many places you can visit in Jeju Island (hereinafter referred to as Jeju). I would not doubt it. If I had got more time, I would have paid more visit to all places. Unfortunately, on my first visit to Jeju, I couldn’t do it. Sometimes too many places made me confused where I went to as the first. I have read and checked all those places in the flyers I got at Jeju International Airport (hereinafter referred to as Jeju Airport), but still I had no clue where to go as my first destination. Then, my eyes caught this red building in the flyer.

It was written museum, I did not read about it because I decided to sleep so that I could wake up earlier to find the place. Since I got only one full day in Jeju, I was thinking to take the city tour bus so I could cover all important places. Too bad, this museum was not on the routes list. I realized just after I bought the bus ticket and board the bus. I read all places in bus flyer and compared with the flyer I got in Jeju Airport, the city tour bus only covered less than a half part of Jeju. The most places I wanted to visit were out of routes.

I was a bit sad that I decided to stroll around Dongmun Traditional Market. Still, all those places and unique goods did not change my mood. In the end, I decided to just board the bus again since I had paid for a full day ticket.

Expect less, Deserve more

“Where will you get out?” the female guide of the city tour bus questioned me not so long after I board the bus.

“Not sure, I’m still looking around,” a not-cheerful answer from me as I am not-knowing where would I get-off

“Okay, just ring the bell when you want to get out.” noticed the word “get out” instead of the word “get off” made me smile a bit. It looked like she wanted me to get out the bus (of course I knew what she meant was get off the bus.

“OH WAIT!!!” I suddenly scream out of nowhere, “KISANIM (means the driver in Korean), I WANT TO GET OFF HERE!!!” I was shouting like crazy because I noticed something outside the bus. Thank God, the bus stop of the city tour bus was not too far from where I shouted.

“Here?” The female guide asked me with her confused face.

“Yes Yes Yes,” I answered while standing in front of the bus door though the bus has not stopped yet. Then she smiles, replied, “Enjoy your day.”

“THANK YOU.” saying out loud while alighting the bus.

I run as soon as I alighted the bus until I was in front of a big red building with the sign “ARARIO MUSEUM” which apparently not too far from Dongmun Traditional Market. “I will definitely enjoy my day.” I smiled while remembering the words from the female guide.

Arario Museum Road

Arario Museum was the museum that I read a night before I fell asleep. I did not notice the name though, but I noticed the red building is the same with the one in the flyer. Red is not my favorite color, but I love red for that day only.

Arario Museum is a contemporary art museum that showcases a collection compiled by ARARIO corporation’s chairman Kim Chang-Il’s unique taste and passion for art. By continuously introducing a wide variety of artworks, while augmenting the historical significance of the buildings, it will foster the cultural values of contemporary art.

There are three museums of ARARIO, I did not notice until I went to Tapdong Cinema out of the clear blue, just like me, a haphazard backpacker. In front of the museum, there is an announcement posted. It was said that there is an exhibition in Dongmun Motel, and I realized I passed that place with no idea that it was a museum, my bad.

Arario Collection

Since I did not go to Dongmun Motel I/II, I will share my visit to Tapdong Cinema. It opened in 2014 in the old town centers of Jeju city as a part of Arario Museum project which ruminates on the meanings of abandoned buildings and adds new artistic values. I love vintage and old building, so that’s why I love when the first time I went into the building. I enjoyed not only the art, but also the building, the wall, and a small thing that have been there completing the artworks.

Arario Museum Tapdong Cinema used to be a movie theatre that you could notice from its name. They said it was the pioneer of Jeju’s multiplex market in the early 2000s. However, the cinema began to suffer from finance issues before eventually being closed in 2005. Then Arario Museum renovated the theatre building into a contemporary art museum inside of it.

Arario Collection is composed of contemporary artworks collected by Chairman Kim Chang-il for the last 40 years. Mr. Kim, who previously focused on modern Korean art, was deeply impressed when he first visited the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles in 1981 and started to embrace the rapid and diverse flow of overseas art. Since then, Mr. Kim started collecting artworks by the yBas as well as Germany’s New Impressionists and also developed an interest in Chinese and Indian artist later on. As of now, ARARIO Collection has consisted of well-balanced pieces from the East and the West, amounting over 3,700 pieces.

Let’s Enjoy The Art

“There are 5 floors. You can start from the fifth floor, then continue going down until you reach the first floor again. You can also use the elevator over there. Here is the audio you can use to hear the information while going around. No flash if you want to take a picture please.” The staff explained the information to me after I paid the entrance fee.

After hearing the intro from the audio, I chose to go directly to the fifth floor and went down afterward.

Fifth floor

From the first picture above, you find the first art called La Source and Grotesque Macabre from Bernhard Martins’s works that are born in the amalgam of various media and forms, and diverse images and cultural codes. This hybridity is one of the representative characteristics of contemporary art, but it could be said more right that this is a special feature peculiar to our age rather than a fashion in artistic trends or styles.

Next, you found Isabella from Chantal Joffe. Chantal Joffe’s characters are mainly people who are close to her, especially women. The figures she paints do not appear intimate. They are highly photorealistic, almost as if Joffe modeled them after magazines or photographs, which may be a reflection of the perspective from the mass media. She shows her unique element of distortion, humor and expressive contemporary portraitures in her figurative style. She is a portrayer of women’s breasts and naked bodies in many of her works

Nobuku Watanabe

The White and red following the Blue and white in the second picture then Gray and white and stripes in the third picture after that are from Nobuku Watanabe. Although having started her career as a musician, since encountering members of the GUTAI Art Association Nobuku Watanabe began to create artworks. Shaping fabrics over a stretcher with a gun tacker, she has been creating sculptural forms with endless color variations and freewheeling manipulation of all manner of patterns. By stretching the fabric intensely, the frame is shaped into squares and triangles, creating valleys and curves with cast shadows. Those effects emphasize the materiality of the clothes to maturity.

Above are amazing artworks are from Kim Tae Ho solo exhibition. Kim Tae Ho is one of the artists who lead the Korean post-monochrome art scene and these are his 20 masterpieces of him that can address the changes of his paintings for the last thirty years.

Fourth Floor

From the corner of the fourth floor let’s meet Nam June Paik’s artwork. Nam June Paik is considered to be a founder of video art using a variety of new materials and opened the field of possibility that video can be appreciated as art. There are <Sys cop> is a piece consisted of cart-shaped TV and a man-like robot.  <My Little Rocky Girl> is also a human-shaped robot wearing a hat, and some images appear on the TV set embedded in her trunk.

<TV is Kitsch> is in its fixed state like other robot artworks. All over the body parts including its face, trunk, and limbs are TV installations, on which the same pictures are played back repeatedly, but each of 10 pieces of TV transmits the independent picture on it at regular intervals. <Van Gogh Robot> presents human personalities and history more actively.

Then, I found <Les Centaures Jumeaux> from César Baldaccini. He is a French sculptor who maximized the attributes of modern materials. The artworks itself is a bronze work showing two centaurs in mechanical form, which their faces resembling the artists.

This is the first artworks I met when I entered the fourth floor. <Chance meeting> from George Segal. He depicts contemporary people’s lives in a theatrical way with a new sculptural technique. <Chance meeting> made of bronze illustrating common figures in part of everyday city life. Facing each other without any facial expressions, they bring about the feeling of being isolated.

When I entered the fourth floor, after the <Chance meeting> I was TOTALY surprised by this HUGE <Hero No. 2> by Zhang Huan. No wonder why he drew attention from the art world with his installation works utilizing various materials especially cow skin. It was REALLY HUGE and felt so real. I step aside when I was taking this picture thinking it would suddenly wake up LOL. Zhang Huan is epic. He used his own skin for his art. He had the names of his ancestors written on his face. <Family Tree> is a series of photographic shows Huan’s face gets more intensively scribbled over in ink as time elapses until the letters seem to be a part of his own skin.

The last picture is <Cowskin Buddha Face No.3>, <Spiritual Leader No. 16> and <Confucious>. All made from cow skin. I took it like I sneak for a picture, just in case <Hero No 2> would wake up LOL.

Third Floor

This is more fascinating arts. There are more than these, yet I was busy taking time to listen to the audio and miss the others.

From the first picture, those are Anselm Kiefer’s artworks. He uses various natural materials such as glass, straw, woods, and plants. <Tannhauser> is the installation which is made up of 14 volumes of lead books and thorny branches. <Shebirat ha-kelim> and <Star books> are among his major works describing the wonder of nature and the universe. Kiefer makes the composition harmonious trying to ask the infinite question about the meaning of life.

The rest of the pictures above are the artworks of Ci Kim from Korea. I’m not a fan of any mannequin. In fact, I sometimes found mannequin is scary. I probably watch too many movies about bad mannequin LOL. Yet, I found these artworks unique. As Ci Kim tried to work with a unique array of self-portraits and from abandoned objects salvaged from the sea surrounding Jeju Island. Nice . But then, most of the artworks name is <Untitled>.

The second floor

Did you see the first picture on this blog? Yes, that’s right. It is the same artwork as the first picture on this second floor. As soon as reached the second floor I thought there is a staff standby in front of the door, but then I found out that it was a human sculpture. Amazing.

<Flea Market Vendor> by Duane Hanson. An ordinary people to portray the problems of American life, and this artwork describes an average woman easily encountered in the flea market. Hanson created life-sized figures cast from live models being observed closely and is known for devoting meticulous attention to details such as clothes, a bag, magazine, and sunglasses as he wanted to portray how people enjoy abundance in the American consumer society.

Right to the left from <Flea Market Vendor> is <Marilyn Monroe> from Andy Warhol. This is not the first time I see Andy Warhol’s artwork. <Marilyn Monroe> is a multiplication of one close-up image of the actress from a movie in which she featured in. The repetitive images printed in silkscreen technique serve as a metaphor for the excessive mass production of goods and images from the mass media.

The next one is Inbai Kim from Korea delves into conceptions beyond the limitations of signs and language. <Deller Hon Dainy> is a group of three sculptures in the shape of human heads, except they bear few indexes of facial features. <Giridison Bambini> is an excessively simplified form of a child crawling on all fours.

<The last doctrine – after Repin’s Tolstoy Plowing> from Li Qing manifests the relations of the art and the social movements blunty in the work. At the rear part is an imitation of Ilya Repin’s, and in the front lie the plowing-shaped sculptures cut into two. There are also Keith Haring with <Untitled>. And so on.

The First floor

We finally come to the end of the floor. If you read this post until this part, “Thank you, you are awesome”. You are the reason I keep writing about the art museum. Let’s meet and have a cup of coffee. But before that, let me share what is on the first floor.

<NS24>, <A-9> and others are from Gao Lei who visualizes how a system of power defines social conditions and regulates an individual’s way of thinking. While one goat is depicted as a bourgeoisie enjoying bath time, the other one, in contrast, is rendered as a lifeless being, pointing to the different living conditions of the power and the deprived.

Kohei Nawa with his <PixCell-Bambi> and <PixCell-Deer> who tried to betray the vagueness and uncertainty of human perception.

The Basement

Just when I thought it ended, there is more. If you are happened to visit Arario Museum in Jeju, don’t stop until the first floor, go to the basement. You would see more there.

Around The Museum

I love this place because there are some good cafes around the museum. You probably want to have a break before continuing the journey.

A Factory Coffee & Books opens at 09:00 ~ 22.00. A Factory Bakery opens at08:00 ~ 20:00. Magpie opens at 17:00 ~ 01:00. You can have Fritz Coffee, a healthy bakery that bakes with dough made from Jeju’s specialty wheat. Or an authentic craft beer from Magpie Jeju which shows Jeju’s special characteristics.

Facilities

Jeju definitely got something to offer. If you plan to go to Jeju and you like an art museum. Arario Museum is something you should pay a visit. Who knows, you might see me there. See you in Arario.

Noted

Opening hour: 10.00 - 19.00; Arario Museum is closed on Mondays.

Admission fee: Adult 10.000 KRW; Age 14-19 6.000 KRW; Children 4.000 KRW or you can buy ticket online from www.interpark.com

You can find more information on their website: www.arariomuseum.org