Hechyeomoyeo's massive art exhibition returns to Seoul

By Jon Dunbar

The Hechyeomoyeo (HCMY) is back in Seoul after a trip down south over the last half-year that took it to Busan, as well as Thailand and Indonesia.

The latest HCMY exhibition will present the works of about 200 artists, both Korean and foreign, local and overseas.

If 200 sounds like a lot, this is actually a step down from previous events. The last HCMY held in Indonesia featured a whopping 400 participating artists.

"At that point, it's too difficult to give everyone the attention and care they deserve," Neil Wheelock Deforest Smith, the mastermind of HCMY, told The Korea Times. "I hate turning people away, which is why I started the project."

This iteration of the massive group exhibition series will take place in Ichon-dong, a neighborhood of central Seoul's Yongsan District right by the river.

"Seoul just feels like home for me, even though the coffee is so expensive," Smith said. "But for real, the art scene here has such a palpable energy. For me, making art and working hard comes much more naturally in Seoul."

Smith described the venue, Light Gallery, as "crazy cool," saying that it is huge and welcoming, with plenty of space to pack people in — space that will be needed for the full schedule of events including live drawing, live music and workshops.

"On a metaphysical level, light is symbolic of many things, including truth, and ‘The Real.’ While there is nothing new under the sun, there’s some new stuff lurking in the dark," Smith said. "I think my job as a director, and on the broader dimension of being an artist, is to take things from the darkness and put them in the light for people to see. Hechyeomoyeo is about that."

He added that there have been a few changes to this exhibition, including offering more space for fewer artists to use.

"We are done trying to outdo every exhibition in participation. I would like to create more exhibitions with less people than less exhibitions with more people," he said. "For exhibitions, we will be working on more normal-scale projects. I want to just get people out there showing their art, and our huge exhibitions can’t happen all the time. So I am working with spaces to grab five, 10, 20 artists and put them into exhibitions. The more art becomes a part of analog reality, the better."

He said they are also working on a magazine to help promote the artists orbiting HCMY. It will have information about where artists can display their work in Seoul, open calls, cool gallery spaces, upcoming exhibitions, artist interviews and other stories. It will be presented in English and Korean, online and in print, and preorders are available now.

One other noticeable change is the abbreviation that Smith has adopted for the project. "The abbreviation came about because we needed a website and I was tired of having to spell it to everyone every day," Smith said. "Maybe it is easier to remember, maybe not? But, I vow that Hechyeomoyeo will always be Hechyeomoyeo."

He stressed that he still loves the name, and compares its written form in English to his own experience in Korea as a foreigner using what he knows to represent or understand a concept from another culture."

"I feel like this also runs parallel to our artists who are trying to communicate the ineffable nature of experience, the sublime and other lofty unspeakables, within the limits of their own preferred mediums," he said. "Ultimately, we are all pilgrims."

The exhibition opens on March 30 with an opening party from 4 p.m. to about 8 p.m. or 9 p.m., featuring DJs, live music and live graffiti, as well as a robot attending, and beer and other stuff from Dialogue Seoul. The event is also sponsored by Monster Energy.

There will also be various events throughout the exhibition period. This includes a free drawing event with Seoul Share on April 3, and live music featuring Nahua, Sabbaha and Marx Von Trier on April 5. April 6 will feature a model and drawing session and a poetry and print workshop. April 12 offers a photography class and April 13 has an urban sketching workshop and a gathering of Seoul Silent Book Club. April 18 has a hanji (Korean paper) workshop and live performances. There will also be a collaboration with Friends of Stars alternative school.

The exhibition runs until April 19, when there will be a major closing party. Visit hcmy.org or follow @thehechyeomoyeo on Instagram for more information.