The Mysterious Art Museum
Chapter 2 (2) - The Mysterious Art Museum

I sat on the park bench during the call.

I put the phone in my pocket and unbuttoned my shirt and took out a yellow string necklace from around my neck. A string necklace that is a bit short for me to wear. Some people asked me why I was wearing such a rag, but this is my treasure.

It was the last gift my dad gave me.

"Dad, are you doing well in heaven?"

I touched the string necklace and looked at the night sky.

My dad was a sailor on a deep-sea fishing boat. He never came back after he encountered a storm when I was 12 years old.

He was the one who gave me a pencil he bought from abroad as a gift, because I loved drawing since I was young.

I was afraid to use the good pencil that I had never seen before, because I often lost pencils by drawing anywhere. I was afraid of losing it.

Before he left for his last expedition, he put this string necklace around my neck and attached a pencil to the end. He stroked my head.

"My son. This way you won't lose your pencil. Draw as much as you want, don't be stingy. I'll buy you a better pencil when I come back. Next time, you'll be a great painter. How about that?"

To be honest, I didn't even know what a painter was.

I just thought he was someone who drew pictures. I nodded my head, because I liked drawing.

I hugged my dad and looked up at his smiling face.

That was the last image of my dad I remember. Among the passengers of the ship that capsized in the storm, 30% were swept away by the waves and their bodies were not found. My dad's body was among them.

I waited for three years, hoping that he would miraculously survive, and I didn't do a funeral. But my dad never came back.

My brother is congenitally blind.

He has never seen anything since he was born. He doesn't know what my mom, dad, or my face looks like. My mom always had to take care of him. She couldn't work, of course, and our family became eligible for basic living assistance.

Now I live apart from my mom and brother.

I had to separate the household because I could lose my eligibility for basic living assistance if I made money.

I could live without the allowance if I made enough money, but I didn't, so it was a choice I had to make. Of course, I was taxed very low because my income was low, as I only drew portraits and received cash. I did it out of spite.

I sat quietly on the bench and got up.

"Let's go back to my cozy basement studio today."

The place I live in is a basement studio in a small villa at the end of the Dongmyo residential area.

Six bus stops from Jongno 3-ga station*, where my workplace, Ikseon-dong, is located. It's a distance that I can walk slowly and save on transportation costs, so I always walk. [T/N: Subway stations]

I walked slowly along the street with an easel on my shoulder, a tool bag on the other side, and a chair in my hand.

Did I have any ramen left at home?

I'm hungry. Today's income was good, should I raid a convenience store?

No, convenience stores are expensive, let's go to the neighborhood mart.

Even if I go there, I'll end up picking something cheap among the cheapest foods, but I still feel good when I look around the mart.

I walked slowly, humming a tune, and passed Jongno 5-ga station. I entered a relatively quiet street. I could go by the main road and get there faster, but the traffic situation on the weekend road of Jongno, which is full of cars, is very complicated.

I avoided the dizzying main road and walked along the alley. I stopped at some point.

"Was there something like this here?"

Is it a new store?

This is the residential area that I pass by every day.

No, but can an art gallery be built in such a secluded place? I don't even see a parking lot.

'Lucid Dream Art Gallery? The name is grand.'

But I'm interested in the exhibition as a painter.

I wondered what kind of exhibition they had to have an art gallery in this back alley. I looked at the poster hanging in front of the building and widened my eyes.

"Alphonse Mucha? No way, in such a small place?"

To host an exhibition of a famous foreign painter, you have to pay a rental fee to the current owner of the painting and bring it.

It's not easy to hold an exhibition unless it's a big art gallery like Sejong Cultural Center or Seoul Arts Center, because the cost of moving the old paintings by plane, building the exhibition facilities, and hiring the preservation staff is not cheap.

I narrowed my eyes and stared at the poster for a while. Then I chuckled.

"Oh, digital media art."

Of course, this also requires a rental fee, but it's much less than renting a real original painting.

The representative digital art exhibition hall in Korea is the Bunker of Light* in Jeju Island. There is also a branch of the Bunker of Light at the Walkerhill Hotel in Seoul, which is constantly holding exhibitions, but I couldn't afford to go there because the admission fee was too expensive.

[T/N: Bunker of Light is a French immersive media art exhibition hall, surrounded by dozens of beam projectors and speakers as soon as you enter, where you can immerse yourself in works and music and enjoy the exhibition realistically.]

Why is the exhibition expensive when the rental fee is cheap?

Digital media art is a re-creation of art. Of course, there is a program, and there is another artist who created the program. There are people who take a margin in between, so it's bound to be expensive.

To be honest, I wasn't interested in exhibitions that weren't original paintings, so I didn't even think about paying for them.

Then, I saw the words written at the bottom of the poster.

"Opening discount event, admission fee 5,000 won?"

Oh, I was curious about what digital art was and wanted to see it once. That's good. Yeah, let's skip a meal and see it. It's better for a painter to see than to eat.

I heard that it was an exhibition that filled the walls and giant LED screens with images of paintings, along with magnificent music. It felt like I was in a dream. I was looking forward to it.

I searched my pockets and took out a 5,000 won bill and walked into the empty art gallery entrance.