Episode 8: What Exactly Did You Draw?
The server placed two servings of jjamppong and jajangmyeon on the table.
Rich seafood and crunchy stir-fried vegetables. Just seeing the chewy noodles made one’s mouth water.
Before eating the noodles, Kang Lim picked up a piece of glossy tangsuyuk.
The sweet and sticky sauce combined with the crispy texture wrapped around his tongue.
‘Wow. If it tastes this good, it’s not just nostalgia; this place really is a hidden gem.’
Kang Lim frequently visited this restaurant on moving day or exam day, making it a place he missed even in his previous life.
“Wow. This place is really good. No joke.”
Lee Hyunseong took a bite of jajangmyeon and gave a thumbs-up, making Kang Lim’s parents burst into laughter.
“Haha. Eat up. You worked hard on your exams.”
“Why did this guy even come with us?”
“Why are you saying that to your friend?”
Kang Lim looked at Lee Hyunseong in disbelief.
It was a rare family outing, a long-awaited family gathering, but it felt like a useless extra had tagged along.
Lee Hyunseong had always been extremely sociable.
He would call every restaurant server “auntie,” so this was nothing new…
“Yeah, why are you acting like that to your friend? I’m already depressed because I messed up the exam. You’re saying you did well, right? It’s really sad.”
Lee Hyunseong’s face contorted as if he were about to cry.
“Hey, you probably did well too. And Kang Lim did well too.”
When Kang Lim’s mother gave him a kind look, Lee Hyunseong bit off the noodles he was eating and replied.
“No, we’re different from birth. I’m not just saying this because his parents are here. He’s a real genius. Sigh… You already know that, right?”
“Don’t overdo it.”
“No, really. He drew so many people that it looked like a famous scene from world history. I mean, is it even possible to draw that in the given time?”
What parent doesn’t like to hear their child praised?
Kang Lim’s father, who looked unsatisfied, spoke up.
“What is it? What did you draw?”
Lee Hyunseong recalled the past and answered.
“Well, when I went to Europe, I saw a painting called
Even without knowing much about art, everyone knows Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.
A world-renowned painting housed in the Louvre!
Hearing that comparison brightened his father’s expression.
“Sigh, I couldn’t even solve the problems because they were too hard.”
Seeing the dejected face of Lee Hyunseong, Kang Lim spoke nonchalantly.
If the future remained unchanged, he would pass anyway, so what was there to worry about?
“You at least wrote something on the answer sheet, right?”
“Nope. I had nothing to write, so I crumpled it up and turned it in. I gave up.”
“…What? You didn’t even write on the answer sheet?”
“Yeah.”
“Why did you sit there for six hours if you weren’t going to write anything? Stop lying.”
“It’s a matter of manners. Out of respect for the exam creators.”
“Bullshit. If it’s about manners, why did you crumple up the exam sheet?”
“It was an act of giving up. Made in a state of utter resignation…”
Lee Hyunseong, who had been chatting with Kang Lim while chewing on pickled radish, suddenly stopped.
When he stopped chewing, Kang Lim’s drawing came back to his mind.
Then, he remembered the test questions he had momentarily forgotten because the drawing was so well-done.
Come to think of it, the drawing was strange.
“Hey, why…”
Lee Hyunseong lowered his voice and spoke with a pale face.
“Didn’t you draw a sphere?”
As night fell and the school emptied out of students,
two professors and a teaching assistant were surveying a large auditorium filled with drawings.
The teaching assistant looked at the two professors with admiration in his eyes.
Goo Haeyoung and Gerald Moore.
Their works are housed in prestigious museums like the Tate in England, the Pompidou in France, and MoMA in New York…
These museums, which once opened their exhibitions with solo shows by these two, were now considered the holy grail of contemporary art.
If one dreams of becoming an artist, exhibiting in these places is a lifelong aspiration.
To hold an opening exhibition there for the year?
That signifies a level of mastery representative of contemporary art.
‘They are maestros who have dedicated their entire lives to art, receiving love calls from around the world since their debut…’
How much effort did the country put into bringing these two here?
Goo Haeyoung especially was grateful for turning down a professorship at the world-renowned Städelschule and returning to his homeland to nurture the next generation.
The best output since Nam June Paik!
Thanks to him, his close colleague Gerald Moore also came along, making this a level beyond other university professors.
Artists who breathe in the world’s art scene! Just being with them was overwhelming.
‘Hah, both of them are so cool. This is what a real mentor looks like. There are so many professors who don’t even work on their art anymore and just put on airs.’
Even though the teaching assistant had been assisting for two years, he was moved every time.
Click-clack, click-clack.
The sound echoing through the quiet auditorium was not ordinary.
How much time had passed?
The low-heeled loafers made regular sounds and then stopped in front of one particular painting.
A wave crashing from a distant place. And a bright crescent moon hanging above it.
Unusually, the positions of the sky and the sea were reversed.
In the middle of this paradoxical landscape stood a man without a neck, his round face floating in the air.
His tiny facial features were crowded in the middle, making his face look disproportionately large.
“Examinee number 77. The work is impressive!”
The teaching assistant, reading the professors’ expressions, opened his mouth. Any student who could make these two stop would surely pass.
As expected, Goo Haeyoung, the professor of three-dimensional art, nodded and spoke.
“This student combined René Magritte’s
Gerald, the professor of planar art, shook his blonde hair and exclaimed.
“Wow! Finally. We found a student who didn’t draw the planet from the ‘science’ perspective. What’s written on the answer sheet? Is this the fourth student?”
“Yes! This makes the fourth one to pass. I’ll get the answer sheet.”
The teaching assistant immediately flipped over the answer sheet that was under the drawing. Seeing the densely written text, his face turned pale.
“Gosh, it’s so long. Looks like a thesis.”
Goo Haeyoung received the answer sheet from the teaching assistant and began reading it slowly.
[
The sentence began calmly, reflecting on René Magritte’s life and the artistic value of this surreal piece.
[“Humans are rational animals.” Those who believed in this concept…
What was the end of their generation?
Endless wars and wars…
In the end, the art movement that emerged from that was surrealism.
Surrealist artists like René Magritte were fed up with these people and decided to reject them entirely.
That’s why such works were created.
Illogical and irrational, absurd paintings.]
“Oh! He interpreted well why surrealism feels so strangely sad, didn’t he?”
Gerald, who had been reading along with Goo Haeyoung, exclaimed.
A lengthy commentary.
Although Gerald couldn’t fully appreciate the nuances and word choices in the Korean sentences, he understood the meaning.
Goo Haeyoung, who was slowly savoring the remarkably smooth sentences, responded to Gerald’s remark.
“Indeed. It’s a pity that his drawing skills don’t match his writing.”
“How can you say that? Expressing an oil painting with a 4B pencil is difficult. This is good enough.”
“Good enough isn’t acceptable.”
“Tsk, tsk- There you go again. At this rate, you won’t even pick ten students.”
When Goo Haeyoung walked away, Gerald mouthed to the teaching assistant.
‘Pass!’
The teaching assistant smiled and checked off the list he was holding.
Since Goo Haeyoung didn’t explicitly object, it meant approval.
“This… What is this?”
Gerald, walking briskly, muttered in front of a crumpled piece of paper.
“What else could it be? It’s just crumpled paper.”
Goo Haeyoung shot a reluctant glance at Gerald and kept walking.
“Why is it crumpled? It’s not just a flat surface; it’s an object. Aren’t you, as a 3D art professor, interested?”
“Nope.”
“Oh- Haeyoung, stop for a minute.”
“Don’t bother with that.”
“Give me the answer sheet!”
Conflicting opinions from the two professors!
The teaching assistant hesitated, finding it difficult to respond.
“What are you doing? Hurry and give it to me.”
Eventually, under Gerald’s urging, the teaching assistant reluctantly spoke.
“Um, there are two crumpled balls? The answer sheet is also crumpled.”
At that moment, Goo Haeyoung stopped.
He had thought the answer sheet would be filled with complaints about the absurdity and ambiguity of contemporary art assessment criteria.
But seeing it completely blank stirred something within him.
“Haeyoung, you felt it too, right?”
“…”
“Remember? When we were in the States. That guy, Hwan.”
Hwan.
He was a guy who drank all day during their undergraduate years.
Always wearing shabby clothes, drinking cheap liquor similar to Korean soju.
All he did was drink and sober up.
What about assignments?
What could a guy like that possibly do for assignments?
He would even break liquor bottles for his projects.
That bum would wander around, mocking the rich kids studying abroad.
‘What’s so great about you?’
Young Goo Haeyoung thought Hwan was pathetic, but the old professor only gave him low grades.
Never a failing grade, and that was incomprehensible.
But one day.
When Hwan had collected thousands of broken liquor bottles.
He started making a chandelier with those shards.
‘He collected those miserable shards and created a luxurious space filled with all sorts of aristocratic luxuries.’
Goo Haeyoung could never forget the glamorous ballroom made from those broken shards.
The space where spectators could walk and crunch the shards underfoot.
“What will these crumpled papers become when gathered?”
Gerald looked at Goo Haeyoung with a shivering expression.
A serious misunderstanding between the two professors was beginning.
“Let’s confirm one last thing.”
“Yes?”
The teaching assistant shuddered at Goo Haeyoung’s gaze.
“You supervised the exam in this auditorium, right?”
“Yes…”
“Did this student crumple the paper as soon as they saw the problem?”
He wanted to confirm whether the crumpling was out of simple frustration.
“Um, no. This student sat for the full six hours and only crumpled the paper when the exam ended.”
“Hmm.”
The misunderstanding deepened!
“It’s a pass, without a doubt! I need to see this audacity with my own eyes!”
Gerald’s firm declaration made the teaching assistant hastily pick up his pen.
‘A, ah. To me, it just looks crumpled…’
Were these global artists in an incomprehensible league of their own? The teaching assistant tilted his head.
Humans perceive the world based on their experiences…
Click-clack, click-clack.
The teaching assistant followed the professors silently as the sound of their shoes echoed through the quiet auditorium.
They hadn’t been evaluating for long, but there weren’t many drawings left, which made him a bit worried.
If this was the end of the selected students, it would be embarrassing to throw a freshman welcome party with such a small number.
‘The design and architecture departments select quite a few, but why is the fine arts department always so sparse…’
Pure art. Is purity this hard to find?
As they neared the auditorium exit,
luckily, both professors stopped at the same time.
“…Unbelievable. How could something like this be at the end?”
That one remark sent chills down the teaching assistant’s spine.
‘U, unbelievable?’
Had they ever said something like that before?
Last year, a student who earned a “quite interesting” remark became the top student in the fine arts department.
