Art and commerce

The best art in my city sits outside the mall. Yawoori and Shinesaegae loom over our downtown, anchoring the city to itself. Inside the double department store complex, over-priced everything mixes with usual suspects: a multiplex, McDonald’s, and the Gap.

There’s no line between pleasure and commerce here; the sex is all the same. When the high-end department store Galleria opened in my neighborhood, they brought out Andy Warhol Brillo boxes and stacked them next to the cappuccino stand.

So a small sculpture garden lives outside of the boxish stores. The shoppers rush hungrily through the spinning doors, oblivious to two of art’s big names. Two of Keith Haring’s sketch-like sculptures sit under the department advertisements, one yellow and one blue.

Across from them is Charity by Damien Hirst. A broken leg and teddy bear, her sign mocks the bags that walk through the checkouts: Please Give Generously. A mushroom cloud of clinkering bronzed pots and pans is under her, a really pretty bomb.

A proud pig is tucked behind the coffee shop, on a plaque with its name. Not Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf, though armless and skin dripping off. Newest is a found sculpture by Londoner Rory Macbeth, who had a hobby of re-painting car wreck castoffs from English delinquents, including this piece—shown at Art Basel in 2003.

At the front left corner is the cleanest metaphor. Furthest from the dollars dropped is a purse big enough to fit a dozen shoppers. And as they leave with ecstatic purchases, I hope none of them consider what it means.