Cerise Louisa Andrews has a degree in dance and culture, and MAs in dance research and applied linguistics. She taught English in South Korea from 2009 to 2019 and has reviewed for Dance Theatre Journal, Pulse magazine, and Undercover magazine
“Fantastic, baby!” declares singer G-Dragon, the pulsating beat of Big Bang’s hit song reverberating through the gallery space where his likeness, or, to be exact, his likenesses, are displayed in the form of Gwon Osang’s collage-covered sculpture Untitled G-Dragon: A Space Of No Name. The larger-than-lifesize figurines of Kwon Ji-yong (AKA G-Dragon) represent one triumphant Technicolor figure slaying another, his twin or alter ego, with a 3m-long microphone stand. It’s a perfect metaphor for the modern Korean wave, or hallyu. Surrounding the statue, there are futuristic-looking exhibits, including K-pop girl band Aespa’s all-white stage costumes, complete with impossibly cinched waistlines. The gallery hall is lit in sultry nocturnal hues reminiscent of a nightclub, or noraebang (Korean karaoke rooms) after midnight.
Mesmerisingly compelling, a screen showing the world’s first AI-produced “female” K-pop idol group draws the eye. Realistic facial expressions and perfectly imperfect gestures stop viewers in their tracks, caught in a portal between reality and virtual reality. It’s as though the present and future are captured on one small screen. These “girls” never break eye contact with the camera and dance endlessly for our voyeuristic pleasure. Unlike flesh-and-blood idols, they don’t need to go through years of training and gruelling regimes to perfect their performances. This is a glimpse into the performing arts norms of the next decade, or, in Aespa’s words, the “next level” of K-pop.
Moving through the galleries of the V&A’s Hallyu exhibition, visitors can see the old and the new in almost violent juxtaposition. The exhibits are arranged without a discernible timeline or clear categorisation. It’s eclectically “Korean”, as anyone who has visited or lived in South Korea would attest. The layering of the brand new over the traditional seeps into all aspects of daily life: architecture, food, fashion, music, and especially TV dramas. Hallyu has emerged as a distinct genre over the past 30 years, but it cannot be defined by its artefacts alone. The philosophy of hallyu lies in its reinvention of a nation’s history through the reframing of traditional art forms as phoenix-like zeitgeists of optimistic modernity. The magpie-like, frugalist ethos which defined South Korea in the 70s and 80s laid foundations for re-building across all strata of society, emerging on to the international stage in the 90s during the heyday of postmodern pastiche. Hanboks with smartphones. Kimchi jars with K-pop idols. The total effect of the galleries’ layout is to evoke a teleportation experience into modern-day Seoul. The items on display induce a psychedelic, fever dream-like experience comprised of patterns, sounds, images and utterances. The only thing lacking is the smellscape of Korean cuisine.
The most outstanding exhibit is more subtle in its initial impact. What you see is the unseen/Chandeliers for Five Cities SR 01-02, 2015 by Kyungah Ham is a 180cm by 273cm handmade needlepoint tapestry, pieced together over hundreds of hours with fragments of designs smuggled into North Korea via a Chinese intermediary, embroidered by North Korean craftspeople, and brought back into South Korea by an equally illicit route. The work is a dazzling blur of gold, white and red on black. A shimmering glory of light blazing through darkness. “What an act of rebellion!” exclaims the viewer in front of me.
The overall effect of the exhibition is a smörgåsbord of upbeat, engaging sensory experience; viewers can even become part of the show by recording themselves performing K-pop dance moves (helpfully divided into categories of difficulty with demos given on screen), then being projected on to a huge screen to create a highly satisfying ad-hoc digital flashmob. This is family-friendly event with a huge variety of things to see to suit a variety of tastes. The more risque aspects of the exhibition, such as extracts of age-restricted films, are discreetly hidden behind a green velvet curtain.
The exhibition is dimly lit throughout, perhaps in order better to display the contents of the backlit display cases or, more likely, a design choice engineered to evoke a nightscape of under-lit suburban backstreets. Having opened at the end of September last year, the curators of this exhibition could have had no idea of the connotations of this atmosphere after the Itaewon Halloween crush tragedy. Nonetheless, Korean culture has always hidden its dark underbelly from the bright lights of the world’s stage. Lately, Hell Joseon, a satirical term used by South Koreans disillusioned with their society, has been hinted at in internationally acclaimed screen productions such as Parasite and Squid Game. Han, or a deep sense of unfathomable and never-to-be-resolved sorrow within the Korean national psyche, goes back much further than the themes of hierarchical social injustice seen in recent K-dramas such as Sky Castle and Itaewon Class. Hallyu showcases the bright side of Korean culture, highlighting its best profile, and leaving its shadow side yet to be uncovered.
