Papertainer

Papertainer
Originally uploaded by annamatic3000.

We went to see the Papertainer, designed by Shigeru Ban, the same guy who designed the Nomadic Museum that visited New York last year. It’s a temporary structure built entirely out of paper tubes and cargo containers, and it’s been sitting in Seoul’s Olympic Stadium Park since the middle of September. The concept of a non-permanent museum made entirely out of recycled and recyclable materials sounded promising, so we took the 1 hour subway ride out to Jamsil to take a peek. The whole structure had that kind of kraft-colored, eco-friendly, recycled look which is kind of old-school among natural/organic products, but pretty new for museums, I guess. Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to see what artists could do, given this kind of temporary industrial-looking space so different from the typical white gallery walls…

There were two exhibitions, one called “Spotlight 30 Women” and the other “Spotlight 30 Brands,” For the brands component, in 30 separate cargo containers, 30 designers created installations, each piece to somehow communicate the essence of a particular brand. I don’t know how the brands (you know, the usual Korean suspects: Samsung, LG, Anycall, Naver…) were chosen, but I’ll take a wild guess and say that they were probably involved in sponsoring the show. Did the designers then use their opportunity to say anything important or intellectually challenging within their allotted cubic meters? Um, nope. It just irked me that we had to pay an admission to see what turned out to be advertising instead of art. And frankly, you can see better advertising on TV or just walking down the street. At best, some of the installations made for vaguely interesting eye candy, but on the whole they were so uninspiring that I’m getting bored just writing about it, so I’ll stop. Thinking it couldn’t get worse, we continued on to the “Spotlight 30 Women” section, a hallway built out of paper tubes along which photographs and paintings were suspended from the ceiling. The subject matter was women, and 30 women artists have created their own visual interpretations of 30 famous women from Korean folklore and history. By the end of this short walk through Korean history from the female standpoint, I was thoroughly depressed. Seems like you needed to be the mother of/ wife of/ daughter of a famous man in order to garner any type of respect in a Korean history book. Either that, or commit suicide to preserve your family’s honor. I can’t believe that 30 different contemporary female artists couldn’t find any role models who didn’t have to stand in the reflected glory of their husbands, fathers or sons in order to be noticed? Sigh… So, overall I would say that if you have nothing better to do and you are somewhere near Jamsil, go take a look at the exterior of the Papertainer in the Olympic Stadium Park, but don’t bother shelling out any money for the exhibits, which range from boring to depressing. Here, I took some pictures so you don't have to go inside.