Guerrilla Banana Performance Art
A lot of words for failing to go to an art / this post is the least queer unless you get subtext
4 May, 2023 | Seoul, South Korea
Had quite a late start on the first morning at the new place in Itaewon. A shared bathroom between three strangers poses some logistic challenges if you are intent on modesty and mutual respect.
I set out for the Leeum Art Museum, stopping by the insanely bourgeoisie (but very delicious) multi-level bakery/restaurant complex Passion5.
The Leeum Art Museum had three major exhibits that shook out like this:
- Boring ceramics
- Also boring ceramics
- A series by Maurizio Cattelan
You may be familiar with Cattelan’s works - probably the most famous being named Comedian, which consists entirely of a banana duct-taped to a wall.
I had apparently just missed an incident where an art student from Seoul National University pulled the banana off the wall and ate it. This had been done once before, as a form of performance art, but the student in question stated a different reason:
“The student told the museum he ate it because he was hungry,” a museum spokesperson told CNN in a phone call.
The exhibit was, sadly, completely booked up for months in the future. I contented myself with buying a book of his art at the gift shop:
Here’s an unrelated image from Garth Marenghi's Darkplace:
Having failed here, I decided to go to the next museum on my list. I took off on the metro and - for the first time in east Asia - got a big double-thumbs-up by a stranger for the shirt I was wearing. I expect this would be possible basically only in Itaewon, both because of the nature of the shirt and the whole ”publicly talking to a stranger on the metro”.
The other thing I simply must mention about the subway is the safety advisories and signage. These have been kinda goofy in the last several cities, but weren’t quite funny enough to rate as worth posting. This one, though, caused me to lose it completely:
My destination was the War Memorial of Korea, which actually consists of several memorials/statues, a huge reflecting pool, and an enormous museum that is 50% Korean War and the other 50% every other war Korea has ever fought. I don’t have the space to start in on it here, but I’ll tantalize you for the next post with one of the memorials that definitely does not look like a vast butt plug.
