An after-work drink at Lotte Museum... A gathering sparked by Lee Kang So’s “Disappearance”

[Financial News] A program invited visitors to share drinks and food, play a game of jacks and engage with artworks at a museum after work. It offered a chance for today’s visitors to experience together Lee Kang So’s “Disappearance,” in which the artist brought a tavern into a gallery in 1973.
According to Lotte Museum on the 16th, “Midweek Museum,” held in conjunction with the exhibition “Lee Kang So: Arising and Disappearing,” took place twice: on the 17th of last month and on the 15th. The small-group program was held after the museum closed, with the exhibition’s curator personally leading the commentary. Around 60 people took part.
At the heart of the program was the installation “Disappearance,” a work Lee Kang So presented at his first solo exhibition, held at Myeongdong Gallery in 1973. At the time, the artist moved tables and chairs from a tavern he often frequented into the exhibition space and ran an actual tavern for a week. He brought into the work the time and relationships people created as they ate, drank and talked.
Lee Kang So helped expand the foundations for experimental art in Korea, including by organizing the Daegu Contemporary Art Festival from 1974 to 1979. “Disappearance” was also reimagined as a space where visitors could freely come and go and enjoy themselves at the 2024 retrospective “Lee Kang So: Pungrae Sumyeonsi” at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul.
Lotte Museum created a low wooden platform inspired by Korea’s courtyard culture. Participants who gathered at 7 p.m. viewed key works with a curator before returning to “Disappearance” to enjoy traditional liquor and rice wine bread and chat. The museum also held a game-of-jacks competition, giving visitors who had just met a chance to interact.
Most participants worked at nearby companies. Some came with colleagues, while others had arrived alone for a drink and joined other participants at their table.
One participant said, “I thought the artist’s early experimental art was remarkably bold and innovative even by today’s standards, and it was meaningful to experience it firsthand, almost like taking part in a performance at the time of the installation.”
Near the end of the exhibition, a space was also set up where visitors could leave messages alongside the artist’s words, “Do something you don’t usually do.” Visitors took part in the exhibition by recording their impressions and reading what others had written.
The exhibition runs through November 1 at Lotte Museum in Songpa-gu, Seoul. It explores the experiments Lee Kang So has pursued since the 1970s through around 150 works, including paintings, sculptures, installations, photographs, videos, prints and archival materials.
A Lotte Museum representative said, “Jamsil is a place where a diverse range of visitors gather, including nearby office workers and people who come for shopping and leisure,” and said the museum plans to continue offering exhibition-related programs tailored to visitors’ lifestyles.
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