Georges Rousse creates illusion of space at Seoul Arts Center

In the lobby of Hangaram Museum of Seoul Arts Center, red sheets are glued on the floor.

But the seemingly random arrangement starts to make sense as the Korean word “dream” emerges when viewed from a certain vantage point.

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the opening of Seoul Arts Center, French installation artist and photographer Georges Rousse has been invited to work with different places in the art center to shed light on its history as a leading cultural center in Korea.

“It means a lot to invite Rousse to produce special works to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the art center. He finds inspiration in architecture and works with architectural elements and captures the moment of physical manipulation,” said Kim Ai-ryung, program director at Seoul Arts Center, who initiated the idea of bringing Rousse.

Rousse works at abandoned places and gives new form to the scenes by painting forms or setting up installation works.

He visited a reconstruction site in Mia-ri, Seoul, drew a white circle on a deserted house surrounded by demolition debris, and captured the image for an exhibition at Sungkok Museum in 2000.

This time Rousse set up three installations at different sites of the art center. The “Pyramid” in front of the Opera House, inspired by the vertical and horizontal grid and the repetitive circles on the plaza, stands as an independent structure. It gives viewers a mission to find one perfect circle by walking around the installation piece.

“The pyramid I made this time at Seoul Arts Center is the largest and made very well. I feel that I will go on to the next step,” said Rousse at a guided tour for the press Tuesday. Rousse said he began to make pyramids in 2010 inside a historical building in Burgos, Portugal.

But most of the pieces shown at the Seoul exhibition are photographs, which are the final product of his installation works, but largely seen as manipulated images thanks to people who are used to Photoshop-edited images.

To help viewers understand the process of creating his work, Rousse installed three forms ― a circle, a triangle and a square ― in the space inside the exhibition hall, using color sheets. Viewers are challenged to find the viewpoint the artist looked at while creating the complete forms.

“Viewers will experience the transformation of the three-dimensional space into a two-dimensional image,” said Rousse.

The exhibition “George Rousse ― Space, Fiction, Photography” runs through May 25 at Hangaram Museum of Seoul Arts Center in Seocho-dong, Seoul. Admission is 5,000 won for adults; 3,000 for teenagers and 2,000 for children. The museum is closed on the last Monday of every month.

For more information, call (02) 580-1668.

By Lee Woo-young  (wylee@heraldcorp.com)