Chapter 151
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From his bedroom window facing North Michigan Avenue, the John Hancock Tower, famous along with the Willis Tower as a great place to take in the Chicago skyline, was right before my eyes.
The spacious living room, with windows facing north and east, offered an even more open view. Behind the John Hancock Tower, beyond the building of another world-famous hotel chain, I could catch a glimpse of Lake Michigan’s horizon, which looked just like the sea, and to the east, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago was a stone’s throw away.
From my room, the other bedroom within the same suite, I could look right down at the splendid shopping street of the Magnificent Mile through the south and east-facing windows.
At the fact that he and I were staying in the same suite, Yuni-noona had looked surprised for a moment, but she soon seemed to accept it, as if she had concluded on her own that there was no need for an extra room when there were two bedrooms and two bathrooms. Perhaps she was so excited about the first-class seats and the five-star hotel room he had prepared like a surprise event that she had easily forgotten her minor suspicions.
Shushu, Noona, he and I, and the driver—there were five of us in total on this business trip, and thanks to his consideration, all five of us were able to travel comfortably in first class. Though my own heart couldn’t be quite as comfortable after Noona explained that a round-trip first-class ticket to Chicago was roughly 12 million won.
Anyway, unlike me, who was needlessly tense and watching Noona’s expression, he, signing the check-in documents on the living room sofa of his suite instead of at the lobby counter, didn’t seem to care at all.
Never mind the driver… but with Shushu and Noona still in the same living room, he had touched my hair and asked about my afternoon plans in a voice laced with a special tenderness, causing me to dart my eyes around and even stammer.
Perhaps he truly wouldn’t mind if our relationship became known to those around us naturally like this. Come to think of it, deliberately announcing or declaring that we were dating did feel a bit peculiar.
I recalled Juhan-hyung’s advice that he wasn’t a good person to date, that I should give up quickly if I was in the middle of an unripened crush. I wondered how he would react if he found out I ended up dating the very person he had warned me about. And what about Noona and the Director….
Feeling awkward at having such lighthearted worries about my love life, I puffed out my cheeks, let out a breath with a huu, and picked up my pencil again. I was in the middle of sketching the Chicago downtown scenery as the sun set. From his bedroom window, while waiting for him to finish his shower.
“So, you spent the whole afternoon just at the Art Institute of Chicago?”
He emerged from the bathroom connected to the bedroom’s inner dressing room, wearing a robe, and asked with a smile. Even with the mundane motion of him lightly sweeping back his wet hair with a towel, my heart, ridiculously, fluttered.
Because the plan I had told him about beforehand had been so ambitious, I felt a little sheepish and nodded, smiling faintly myself.
He leaned against the wall at the entrance of the long, hallway-like dressing room and stuck both hands into the front pockets of his robe.
“It’s on a different scale from a regular gallery.”
He was right.
The title of being one of America’s three great art museums hadn’t held much appeal for me, but I had chosen it as my first destination thinking there must be a reason why it was a must-see place in Chicago, where numerous galleries of diverse character were actively operating. The museum, largely divided into a main building and a new wing, housed about 300,000 works of art.
“I tried to see everything diligently, but… I didn’t even get to the first floor and basement of the main building, or the annex.”
We had arrived at O’Hare Airport around 10 a.m. and checked into the hotel room around noon. He and Yuni-noona, along with the star of this business trip, Shushu, had a meeting with the gallery hosting the exhibition right away, without a moment to catch their breath.
My plan had been to tour the Art Institute of Chicago and two other galleries nearby until they returned to the hotel to prepare for the VIP opening party that evening.
But it had been an unreasonable schedule. I hadn’t even been able to see enough of the Art Institute of Chicago alone.
As if my disappointed expression was a curious sight, he tilted his head and watched me for a moment, then playfully beckoned with his index finger before disappearing into the dressing room first. I stopped pondering how to express the city lights, which grew more brilliant as the natural light faded, with only a sketch, and followed him into the dressing room.
He was in front of the innermost closet, choosing his attire for the party. I perched awkwardly on the velvet bench situated between the dressing room’s chest of drawers and the full-length mirror, right across from the bathroom entrance.
“How was it? I feel like Seo Yeehyeon would have liked the second floor of the main building the best.”
At his accurate prediction, I rubbed the back of my neck and let out a chuckle. The second floor of the main building he mentioned displayed European paintings from the 15th century onward. There were many works that looked familiar, thanks to having seen them often in my parents’ art books. Back then, like a child who only picks out the illustrations in a book, I hadn’t checked the artists’ names or the titles of the works, but this time, I was different.
To a degree that felt unfamiliar even to myself, I lingered in front of works that interested me, capturing the art and its caption on my phone (photography was allowed at the Art Institute of Chicago), and engraved the names of the artists who left a strong impression in my memory.
Picasso, Monet, Rembrandt… The works of the great painters whom everyone acknowledged, whose names even someone as ignorant as me had heard of, and whose works I had known without realizing they were theirs—this expression may be cliché, but they were different, somehow.
Even in a single line, I could feel the mastery honed through countless hours of practice, their lives willingly mortgaged to their art over long years. The depth of color and touch were of a realm that could not be approached with shallow techniques or clumsy imitation. Before the profundity permitted only to those who had devoted their time without falsehood, I even felt a little reverent. They were clearly not artists who were praised as brilliant only after their deaths by a stroke of luck.
“To be honest, I tend to value content more than form, so I found modern art, with its many unconventional works, difficult to understand. So I subconsciously kept my distance from it. But while looking around the exhibition today… I realized that not all modern artists try to convey their message through unconventional forms. In a way, it’s only natural that there are diverse painters… I was the one who was prejudiced with my narrow view.”
I confessed, my gaze fixed on his naked back as he pulled on a pair of black boxer briefs that snugly hugged his upper thighs. Now in his underwear, he began to fix his hair first in front of the mirror above the chest of drawers, which reflected only his upper body. I looked up at him, resting my temple on the corner of the drawers.
I told him about Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks, one of the works by a modern artist that I had found impressive.
Though it was a purely personal impression, the composition of long, straight lines boldly cutting across the canvas read not just as a form to create a striking feeling, but as a form to convey content. For me, who had unknowingly neglected or disregarded form as a reaction to prioritizing content, it was a work that gave me a fresh sensation, as if I had discovered a small breakthrough.
Even if it was a generalized fact that everyone else knew, for me, who had been trapped in my own world when it came to painting, each and every one of those realizations was precious.
It felt like the excitement from my childhood, around the time I used to draw with the Director—the excitement of seeing and representing the world through drawing and, in the process, encountering a new world again—was newly dividing inside my body.
Having finished with his hair, he leaned against the closet, wearing a shirt with pintucks on the chest, and listened to my story. He tilted his head and said.
“I thought it was surprising that you’d be interested in one of the most American artists like Edward Hopper… but on second thought, maybe not.”
“……”
“It was Edward Hopper’s conviction that great art is a magnificent expression of the artist’s inner world.”
With a grin, he told me other interesting stories related to Hopper. About films like Shirley: Visions of Reality and Carol, which took his works as a motif or paid homage to them, and even about In Sunlight or In Shadow, a collection of short stories written by 17 authors inspired by his paintings.
“The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston probably has Hopper’s work Room in Brooklyn on display. If you’re interested, you can take some time to go see it during this trip.”
He said, buttoning the front of his shirt.
After our 4-day, 3-night business trip in Chicago, he and I were scheduled to head to Boston instead of returning to Seoul with the rest of the group. It was a short 3-day, 2-night trip to visit a couple, like mentors to him, with whom he had stayed for about two years during his boyhood.
Chicago and Boston were about a 2-hour and 20-minute flight apart, but that wasn’t a great distance within the US. He had said that since he hadn’t been able to visit them for a long time, he wanted to be sure to pay his respects on this occasion, and had asked if I could go with him. If it was an opportunity to meet people so important to him, a chance to get to know him more deeply, there was no reason to refuse. And I couldn’t deny there was a subtle anticipation for a journey with just the two of us.
Having fastened the cuffs on his shirt sleeves, he put on the pants of the tuxedo suit he had chosen from among several suits and stood before the full-length mirror to adjust his appearance. It was a trendy and jaunty suit that emphasized his broad shoulders, slim waistline, and the elasticity of his long legs, rather than being classic. He was almost ready to go out. Outside the window across the bed, the night view of Chicago, where the sun had now completely set, sparkled with golden light.
Passing by me again, he opened the top drawer of the chest and placed a hand on his hip. Then, scanning the numerous ties and scarves neatly arranged by a dedicated staff member, he spoke.
“After Hopper died, his wife, Josephine, donated all of his works in her possession to the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. The Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York also hold major works by Hopper. Well, New York… it’s the optimal city for encountering works from various countries and eras, not just Edward Hopper’s.”
At the end, he shrugged. It sounded somewhat like a promotional slogan for New York, but he didn’t seem to be saying it with any special meaning.
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