At the invitation of the Guimet Museum, South Korean artist Seulgi Lee conceived a site-specific temporary installation for the building on Place d\u2019I\u00e9na. Entitled \u201cDal Dari, The Moon and the Legs,\u201d her work comprises two interventions, one located outside and the other inside the building: a monumental sculpture on the fa\u00e7ade, created in collaboration with architect Jean-Beno\u00eet V\u00e9tillard, and a mural in the museum\u2019s fourth-floor rotunda, executed with the participation of Dancheong painters from Korea.<\/p>\n
Whether paintings, sculptures, or installations, Seulgi Lee\u2019s works manifest as arrangements of simple forms: elementary geometric surfaces or volumes, and flat areas of color. This simplicity is accompanied by a vibrant and varied chromatic range, where the association or juxtaposition of distant or even opposing colors on the spectrum creates a striking counterpoint.<\/p>\n
In Seulgi Lee’s design for the Guimet Museum, the fa\u00e7ade is adorned with two semicircular forms, installed on either side of the museum entrance, perpendicular to each wing of the building. The structure of these half-moons consists of a lattice of wooden slats assembled at right angles. The motif is reminiscent of the modernist grid and the wooden screens (or moonsal) used as space dividers in traditional Korean architecture. Only one side of the slats is painted and colored, resulting in a dynamic perception that shifts and becomes more fluid as the visitor moves around the space.<\/p>\n
The title, \u00ab\u00a0Dal Dari, The Moon and the Legs,\u00a0\u00bb was inspired by a popular Korean belief that crossing a bridge under the first full moon of the year strengthens the legs.<\/p>\n
In the 4th Floor Rotunda<\/p>\n
Inside the museum, in the 4th floor rotunda, a mural designed by Seulgi Lee is being applied by a team of Dancheong painters from the Seoul Metropolitan Government\u2019s Department of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Recognized as a national treasure in Korea and inscribed on UNESCO\u2019s Intangible Cultural Heritage Register, Dancheong painting is a system of architectural polychromy applied to wooden surfaces, attested to as early as the Three Kingdoms period and emblematic of the Joseon era.<\/p>\n
A network of repeated sequences combining stylized figurative motifs of plants or animals with geometric forms unfolds uniformly and seamlessly. The chromatic range, comprising twelve colors, constitutes a symbolic system in which architecture and cosmogony are closely linked. The cardinal colors obangsaek (blue, red, yellow, black, and white) correspond to the five obanghaeng elements (wood, fire, earth, metal, and water), each associated with a specific direction, season, or virtue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":24691,"menu_order":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-23434","expositions","type-expositions","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n