NATIONAL GALLERY FOR FOREIGN ART
Exhibition
CONTEMPORARY ART OF KOREA
FLYING HOURS.
"MOON IS THE OLDEST CLOCK”
20 August – 5 September 2010
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The National Gallery for Foreign Art has always been hospitable to Eastern culture. First and foremost this is due to the natural environment created by the Gallery’s own Asian collections showcasing Buddhist art from Southeast Asia, Indian temple sculpture and miniature, and the traditional Japanese ukiyo-e engravings commonly referred to as the “Pictures of the Floating World”. Throughout its history the Gallery has welcomed an impressive series of displays of various pieces of Eastern art – both ancient and modern, including demonstrations of traditional games, skills and ceremonies that have invariably filled the exhibition halls with the mysterious atmosphere of the East.
The ensuing contacts have proved particularly lasting, fruitful and inspiring. The current exhibition marking the 20th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Republic of Bulgaria and the Republic of Korea, for which we ought to express gratitude to the Korean Foundation in Seoul, is another remarkable event in that tradition.
The Bulgarian audience has been given a wonderful opportunity to have a glimpse at an area belonging to the cultural territory of the East that is known to very few of its members, i.e. the art of present-day Republic of Korea, a country with ancient roots and enviable drive toward the future.
Therefore, it is not by accident that the idea of time is the uniting philosophical concept behind the works of the authors, including among others artists of world renown; nor is the idea to display the artifacts created with the help of avant-garde artistic means among the examples of old Buddhist art a mere whim. The concept of time occupies a particular place in the lives of human beings, and is one of the principal topics of philosophical reflection. From times immemorial thinkers have pondered over questions as to whether the ‘flow’ of time is real or is just an illusion created by the human mind. Four metaphors – “river”, “water”, “moon” and “string” – form the symbolic nuclei of the exhibition that is held under the motto “Floating Hours”. The paradoxes of the subjective perception of time penetrate the multilayered space of the artistic forms much in the way the latter are influenced by the everlasting drive of Man to find his rightful place among the pulsations of the Universe. The artifacts have become a focus of preoccupation with the possibilities offered by the various materials used in the artistic expression, and above all with the secrets and unexpected meanderings of thought through the mysterious ‘void’ of the Buddhist poetics of Zen. We are about to gaze into the wisdom of the play of children and the subjectively mastered philosophy of a new, intriguing and awe-inspiring art.
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