Museum Exhibit: Hangul

The native script of Korea, known as Hangul, “was created in the mid-fifteenth century.” This is according to the flyer at the UC Davis Design Museum in Walker Hall (for more information about the museum visit http://designmuseum.ucdavis.edu/). There is currently an exhibit on the subject of Hangul featuring the work of two designers: Hyunju Lee and Phil Choo. Surprisingly, the exhibit is titled a ‘Typographic Exploration in Hangul.’ Very original.

However, unless an individual went into the museum expecting to decipher the characters, one would not necessarily know that the artwork – including Digital Prints on Archival Linen Cotton Canvas Paper and Inkjet Prints on both Canvas and Handmade Paper – could actually be read. The designers could’ve spelled out naughty words with full knowledge that the vast majority of people walking into the museum are there to see the artwork and are ignorant of the Hangul language. That could be very amusing…

One particular piece that has remained at the forefront of this blogger’s attentions since visiting the exhibit is known as ‘Dream of a Goose.’ It is a digital print representing the figure of a goose, complete with bill, head, long neck, and wings. These are represented in about three color swaths. Hangul symbols of varying size make up the rest of the color on the print, and provide the goose with life and motion. Standing back from the print, and holding prescription glasses away from one’s eyes, the goose looks like it’s flying down and landing on a lake.

Like many other works in the exhibit – including the other Digital Prints and the 3-D ‘Composition of Hangul Jamo’ – the aesthetic elegance of ‘Dream of a Goose’ relies heavily on the use of negative space. The negative space does exactly what it needs to for each image, forcing the colors to stand out vividly and give life to the image.

Perhaps because of the frequent use of negative space and/or the fact that most of the pictures were printed, the exhibit has a very modern/reserved/graphic-arts feel. In turn, many of the pieces, especially the two about laughter (“Haha Hoho”) and sadness (“Yuk Yuk”), look like they could be designs one might expect to see on t-shirts. And this is a good thing… we could all use another t-shirt.