Korean Artists Weaves Out Universal Appeal at ARCO

Ahn Kyu-chul’s installation titled “49 Rooms” which is on exhibit at ARCO art fair in Madrid, Spain.

Telefonica Foundation, located on Gran Via street, a bustling promenade similar to the main street in Myong-dong in Seoul, is luring visitors with a massive retrospective on the late video artist Paik Nam-june.

Many visitors admired Paik’s work, curious about how the TV monitors could be used to express Korean identity.

Another exhibition luring visitors interested in the Korean contemporary art scene is under way at La Casa Encendida, a cultural center in Madrid. The exhibition opened Wednesday with a concert featuring underground rock-electronic band Uhuhboo Project.

Ahn Kyu-chul, an artist and professor in Seoul, brought his installation work ``49 Rooms’’ to the exhibition hall at the center at the request of the ARCO organizing committee.

The work consists of a labyrinth made of 110 wooden doors and a video projected on a wall beside it. The doors form 49 small rooms, with four doors surrounding each room. Visitors are invited to walk through each room until they find their way out.

Ahn, dean of the school of visual art at Korean National University of Arts, was inspired by Korean society.

``I wanted to show the trend in Korean society. I feel it’s so monotonous. We open the door full of hope to symbolize that there would be our future behind the door. I want to show that there really is just another tomorrow the same as today,’’ Ahn told journalists who saw his work Tuesday.

According to Ahn, the maze symbolizes an extension of an individual’s identity with the small rooms opened in four directions suggesting an individual’s personal life mixing with society.

``Other people can open the door when you’re in one of the rooms,’’ Ahn said. ``It means our private life is not necessarily private.’’

``49 Rooms’’ also seems to open room for testing the differences and similarities between Spain and Korea as well as past and present.

In Korea, people who were interrogated and tortured by intelligence agents during the turbulent 1980s felt uncomfortable experiencing Ahn’s work. But for young lovers, it becomes a good place for secrecy and for kids, a great labyrinth to play hide-and-seek.

``We liked the sense of space in this work. It’s interesting how one gets phobic in these rooms,’’ said Jose Guirao Cabrera, director of Casa Encendida. The center asked the Korean organizing committee for the profiles of Korean artists and selected Ahn.

Ahn believes that the recent turbulent history of the two countries helps his work appeal to Spanish audiences without detailed explanation.

``I think Korea and Spain share the `periphery complex,’ Korea from Asia and Spain from Europe,’’ he said.