Museums worth the visit over Seollal holiday

If you are looking for a place to spend the long Seollal holiday weekend that runs through Tuesday, take a look at art exhibitions that will remain open at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea and Seoul Museum of Art.

The national museum, which operates four branches across the country, will run throughout the holidays, except for MMCA Seoul in Samcheong-dong on Sunday, the first day of the lunar year. The museum’s four venues are located in Samcheong-dong, Deoksugung in Seoul; Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province, and Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province.

The late Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee’s personal collection is on view at MMCA Seoul, Gwacheon and Cheongju. Reservations are recommended in advance, as just 30 to 60 visitors at MMCA Seoul and Gwacheon are allowed at a time on a first-come, first-served basis. The Gwacheon venue is showing “MMCA Lee Kun-hee Collection: Monet, Picasso, and the Masters of the Belle Epoque,” while the Seoul venue is presenting “MMCA Lee Kun-hee Collection: Lee Jung Seop.”

In Cheongju, the museum has unveiled “Visible Storage: MMCA Lee Kun-hee Collection,” where visitors can appreciate the masterpiece “Women and Jars” by Korean master painter Kim Whan-ki until Jan. 29. The museum in Cheongju takes the theme of visitors seeing artwork in the storage of the museum.

MMCA Deoksugung, which features Korean modern art, is currently showing “Moon Shin Retrospective: Towards the Universe.” Born in 1922, Moon is a Korean sculptor who was born to a Korean father and Japanese mother. The exhibition was inspired by the title Moon had given to a number of his sculptural works from the mid-1970s to the 1990s.

Seoul Museum of Art consists of three museum spaces across the capital city – Nam-Seoul Museum of Art, Buk-Seoul Museum of Art and Seosomun Main Branch. At Buk-Seoul Museum of Art in Nowon-gu, northern Seoul, kids are invited to join in creating the installation “Artland” by prominent Korean artist Suh Do-ho.

Some 161 works from the collection by acclaimed Korean art critic Choi Min are on display at the city museum’s main venue, Seosomun Main Branch. Excerpts from Choi's writings related to the collection accompany works in the exhibition, to be read together. The exhibition suggests the way a critic sees the works as reflected in Choi’s remark, "Unlike what is generally thought about a work, the work looks differently depending on the viewer."