Director’s Desk: Dispatch From Seoul

Olafur Eliasson Seoul

Olafur Eliasson installation at Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art in Seoul. Magnificent transformation of a staircase with the magic of light and mirrors causing poetic and mind bending reflections. Meanwhile, across town, our brilliant Phillips Collection exhibition Ingres to Kandinsky at the Seoul Arts Center.

Happy Birthday Duncan Phillips, from Korea

In the spring and summer of 1910, Duncan Phillips traveled with his family to Korea as part of a long journey to Asia and the northwestern United States. Phillips’s father, Major Duncan Clinch Phillips, said in his journal that the family stayed at the Sontag Hotel, a hotel catering to Western visitors.

Sontag Hotel in Seoul, Korea, in 1910, the year the Phillipses stayed there.

On this 128th anniversary of Phillips’s birth, some of the most impressive examples of his art collecting are going on display at the Daejeon Museum of Art in central Korea. A team of curators (Sue Frank and Renée Maurer), registrars (Joe Holbach and Trish Waters), and one of our preparators (Bill Koberg) flew around the globe last week to oversee the effort of installing this large traveling show.

Banners featuring our Degas and Ingres, among others and the exterior of the Daejon Museum of Art. Photos: Renee Maurer

Banners featuring our Daumier, Degas and Ingres line the museum grounds and the exterior of the Daejon Museum of Art features a mural of familiar faces. Photos: Renée Maurer

Renée , Bill, and Joe went to Seoul in the days before installation started. They visited the summer palace with its ornately carved and painted structures and throne (left) and watched the changing of the guard (far right). Their interpreter took them for an eel dinner (center right). Photos: Bill Koberg, Renée Maurer

During their down time, assistant curator Renée Maurer, chief registrar and director of special initiatives Joe Holbach, and installations manager Bill Koberg have done some sightseeing around Daejeon and north in the capital Seoul.