The sculptures of Seoul

One of my (many) recurring daydreams is that I get to erect a massive sculpture in the newly renovated (dream) front yard (dream) of my home (also a dream). It is colourful. It is made entirely out of recycled materials. It is big. I am not sure yet whether it is animal like or just simply shapes and colour but it is cool. And it has involved numerous cans of spray paint (who doesn't love a bit of spray paint action) and scraps of plywood as well as the odd bicycle wheel. Being in Seoul has only added to my vision. I am now thinking big. Really, really big. Gold would be good. Garish, gaudy and glittery will be my guiding themes and any plausible links to the house behind the sculpture or to the surrounds will not be necessary. A fancy name on a brass plate will be also be required. I take my inspiration from the streets of Seoul: the city of sculpture! 

Seoul's sculpture craze might have existed well before 1988 but it went into overdrive that Olympic hosting year thanks to the national government passing the Art Decoration Law, requiring owners of a new buildings to commission artworks for public view worth 1% of the total construction costs of the building. In 1988, population of Seoul was already huge, standing at 10, 286, 503 people. Today, the Seoul Capital Area (a true mega-city and, according to Wikipedia, the largest city proper in the developed world and the world's second largest metropolitan area) has a population of over 25.6 million people and is home to over half of the total population of South Korea. All these people have to live, work and shop somewhere so the number of buildings in Seoul has also dramatically increased over the past 25 years. This means that the Art Decoration Law has had a profound effect on city's  landscape. The Korea Times calculates that between 1995 and 2008 10,684 public art works were erected (I can't locate more up to date statistics). Even for a mega metropolis such as Seoul, that means a lot of public art work has been constructed!

Is it good? I'm not an art critic (and if you could see some of the things I like (think fluro and a lot of it) that is probably a good thing) but I think most of the sculptures around town are really, really good. If nothing else, a splash of gold in front of an otherwise boring urban square, a giant whale skeleton in amidst concrete office buildings, a bubble of coloured beads placed out the front of a innocuous cream apartment building, upside umbrellas strung out between office buildings or a random rock formation perched in front of a gleaming mirrored tower, juxtaposed between Seoul's five royal palaces from the Chosun Dynasty (some 500 years ago), just adds to the new versus old versions of Seoul that crazily co-exist. 

Some of my favourites so far (not all have name plaques)...

The Man who holds the Light

Greeting Man. He stands out the front of a bank and is roped off, just in case you wanted to get closer!!

Spring: the sculpture that looks like a conch shell, located at the start of the Cheonggyecheon Stream in central Seoul

Who doesn't like a piano as a sculpture?

Umbrellas as sculptures

Every office building needs a whale skeleton out the front!

    My photographic skills are not good enough to capture the true size of the Hammering Man. He is huge.
    A normal size person might just make it up the the ankle of the man.

The Light of Hope

The Berlin Wall in Seoul (it really is)