VISIT JEJU

Pheonix Jeju, located in Jeju, opened Korea’s first art nouveau craft work gallery ‘Yumin Art Nouveau Collection’ in June 2017. Yumin Art Nouveau Collection is established on ‘Genius Loci’, a structure designed by the internationally renowned architect Ando Tadao, while the Danish architect Johan Carlsson took charge of the gallery exhibition design.

Information

■ Website : http://www.yuminart.org

■ Address : 107, Seopjikoji-ro, Goseong-ri, Seongsan-eup, Seogwipo-si, Jeju-do, Republic of Korea

■ Tel : 064-731-7791

■ Open : 09:00 ~18:00 (Last admissions of Yumin is at 17:30) / Yumin is closed on Tuesday.

■ Language Service : Brochure - Korean, English, Chinese, Japanese

Audio Guide Service - Korean, English (Yumin offers Audio guide for free)

■ Docent Service : 4 times daily (10:30 13:00 15:00 17:00 / This service is offered in Korean only)

About the Architect: Ando Tadao

Osaka-based Japanese architect Ando Tadao is world renowned for his sensitive exposure of reinforced concrete and strong engagement with nature. He has received various architectural awards such as Pritzker Architecture Prize (1995) and the grand prize AIA(American Institute of Architects)(2002). His works include <A Church of the Light, Osaka>(1989), <Naoshima Contemporary Art Museum>. 

He said architecture should be more than a functional structure to protect human from nature; it should, he argued, extend our spatial experience to aesthetic sensation beyond our daily lives. Having made Mother Nature of Seopjikoji, Jeju Island, immanent in the architect of this museum, Ando Tadao invites the visitors to feel the light, wind, water, and sound of Seopjikoji in every inch of the building. 

Yumin Art Nouveau Collection building, placed at the center of Seopjikoji, is referred as one of Ando’s key projects, along with the neighboring Glass House, which also embodies the sheer beauty of simplicity, the trademark of this acclaimed architect.

About Exhibition : Yumin Art Nouveau Collection

Art Nouveau, also known as New Art, was trendy in Europe and the US for around 20 years since 1890‘s, inspiring applied arts, crafts, and design in particular. Glass artists of Nancy in Rorraine region, the north-eastern part of France, were at the center of the Arts and Crafts movement. Nancy artists advanced the technique of glass crafts from the Pipe blowing craft work (pontil) to more sophisticated artistic methods of color-glass layering, inlaying, sculpting, engraving, and etching. 

The innovative styles and techniques enabled them to express their advocating of nature as the primary source of inspiration. The exhibition at Yumin Art Nouveau Collection focuses on the works of leading French Art Nouveau artists including Emile Gallé, Daum, Eugène Michel, and René, Lalique.

The Yumin Art Nouveau collection, the majority of which originated in the Nancy region of France where the biggest efforts were made for the history of Art Nouveau, is the result of the lifelong endeavor of the late Yumin Hong Jin-gi, former Chairman of Joongang Ilbo. 

The Yumin Art Nouveau Collection would like to deliver not only the artworks’ remarkable techniques and highly aesthetic values but also the passion and spirit of challenges of the great Nancy School, Ecole de Nancy.

Art Nouveau literally means New Art in French. It was the Arts, Crafts, and Design movement sweeping all over the world for 20 years, from the 1890s to 1910s Art Nouveau derived its key concepts from the ideas of the British Arts and Crafts movement, which proclaimed that art should come down from the lofty tower of the museum and become ubiquitous in everyday objects. Symbolism, aestheticism, and Japonism nurtured its growth. 

Though short-lived at 20 more years or so, the impetus of Art Nouveau had embraced the areas of painting, sculpture, and architecture and spread out across Europe, South America, and US and to the centers of art existing at the local, regional, and global levels.

The Representative Works of Yumin

Yumin Art Nouveau Collection consists of an exterior garden created with the concept of Jeju’s nature and geographical characteristics, as well as four exhibition rooms that display art nouveau glass works: ‘Room of Inspiration’, ‘Room of Masterpiece’, ‘Room of Art Nouveau Heyday’, and ‘Room of Lamp’. Exhibited works are mostly glass artworks from the France’s Nancy region, which played a big role in the history of French art nouveau. The art on display includes the major works of Nancy glass art famous for the artisanship achieved by the artists’ ambitious spirit and art nouveau aesthetic values.

About 50 works by glass artists from the Nancy region will be exhibited in the gallery, including art produced by Emile Gallé, Antonin Daum & Auguste Daum, Eugène Michel, and other international art nouveau artists. ‘Room of Inspiration’ is a nature-themed space where the spectators can sit on the floor and quietly enjoy meditation and appreciate the art, while in ‘Room of Masterpiece’ visitors can see the mushroom lamp, the integration of Emile Gallé’s art philosophy and the craft technology popular at the time. In ‘Room of Art Nouveau Heyday’, various works by Nancy artists are arranged horizontally to create a unique atmosphere, while the ‘Room of Lamp’ allows spectators to enjoy a lamp collection that continuously changes color. Each exhibition room showcases many shapes and lights, etc., to maximize the beauty of art nouveau glass work.

Yumin Art Nouveau Collection’s most representative work, Emile Gallé’s mushroom lamp, was produced in 1902, which is considered his greatest heyday. There are only 5 of this lamp and the one exhibited in Yumin Art Nouveau Collection is appraised to be the most cleanly preserved work. Other works of Emile Gallé such as 『Dragonfly Vase』 along with Daum’s 『Field Poppy Motif Vase』 and 『Blue Tulip Motif Lamp』, Eugène Michel (1869-1902)’s 『Sirène et Iris』, etc, are all included in the exhibition.