Mountain and Moon

We first met in Seoul and then 20 years later ....

Sep 6, 2023

When I was in my early twenties, I visited Seoul with my brother. On some days, he went his way and I went mine—specifically to modern art museums for I love them. Always afterward, I would browse the giftshop to buy prints of work I particularly liked, and I ended up buying a poster of Mountain and Moon by Kim Whanki. I thought: Someday I will have this in my house.

Twenty years pass. Sometimes I take out the print and hang it up with blue tack. But most of the time, I keep it rolled up and safely in storage, waiting for the moment to frame and hang it. Finally, just last year, it happened! And I still love it. Everytime I see it on my wall I’m just happy!

Alright, on to the reunion!

It’s my birthday month in 2022. My friend invited me out for a day of exploration.

“You get a choice,” she said, “The Getty Villa or the LACMA?”

So I scrolled through the websites to see what exhibits were on show, and there were just a lot of Sarah keywords at LACMA: abstracts, revolutionary graphics from Mexico, Scandanavian design in the USA, the space between as told by modern art, the language of advertising, conversing in clay, etc.

Thus, we went. We wandered. It was lovely. Toward the end, we came across the work of Park Dae Sang, which I’ll share next week. His brush and ink paintings were our favorites.

“The best to end on,” my friend said. Before leaving, we walked to the gift shop to see if they had any Park Dae Sang’s work in print, but the docent said we’d find them in the shop of another building. We walked across the way, bought our booklets and noted the exhibit adjacent to the store.

“Let just look quickly,” I said for we were tired and hungry and had a reservation in Silverlake.

We wandered the galleries, skimming the walls as if they were Internet pages—not really seeing them so much as passing by them. It was clear the exhibit was filled with modern art and even more clear that the work had to do with Korea.

“Shall we?” I said, indicating we should leave.

“Yes,” my friend said, then: “Wait, did we see this gallery?”

I shrugged. Technically, we HAD seen it as we passed through others. But we hadn’t go into it at all. I followed her. Immediately, I saw this large, almost mosaic-like piece like the threaded/clothwork in the Scandanavian exhibit.

“OMG! It’s your painting!” my friend said, and she was right! There it really was! For almost twenty years, I’ve held the memory of this painting. From when I was a young adult, newly exploring the world and her independence in Asia to today, when I am now 40 with decided opinions about the world. We’ve both aged—my body like the original perhaps a little less vibrant than my print.

But there we still were. I was in disbelief. We’d found each other again and yet almost missed each other. How magical life can be! To be living and then to suddenly really be alive!

Listen to the artist talk about the work here: https://on.soundcloud.com/A7FnR