By this time, even the most blinkered of Tokyo's art enthusiasts will be aware that the planet's premier sporting event, the World Cup, is taking place in Korea and Japan. There is just no ignoring the newspaper and magazine coverage, the live television broadcasts and the hordes of dumbfounded soccer tourists roaming the streets.

Tie-ins abound: Korean food-fairs at hotels, J&K-pop concerts -- you get the idea. So it comes as no surprise that a couple of contemporary art spaces, Tokyo's Setagaya Art Museum and the Sungkok Art Museum in Seoul, have got in on the act with cross-cultural exhibitions.

What is surprising is how very differently the two have approached their projects.

The Sungkok show, "Eleven and Eleven: Korea Japan Contemporary Art 2002," features work by 22 young Japanese and Korean artists (11 from each country). Included with the mostly emerging talent are a number of each nation's leading contemporary art figures: Among those representing Japan are perennial bad-boy painter Makoto Aida and photographer Go Watanabe, whose work recently showed in the Tokyo Museum of Photography's "Kiss in the Dark" exhibition. From Korea, the Sungkok has splashy installation artist Sangkyoon Noh, whose work showed at the 1999 Venice Biennale with Lee Bul; and Dongi Lee, who morphs America's Mickey Mouse and Japan's Atom Boy into a character he calls "Atomaus," this done in a flat, florescent and funny style suggestive of Takashi Murakami's "Mr DOB" work.

I can't say this for certain without making a trip to Seoul, but the Sungkok show seems to be a well-curated one. What I can say for certain is that the Setagaya show isn't.

The most interesting thing about this exhibition is its promising title, "Seoul Pop 2002: Korean Contemporary Culture." The reason for that: In reality, the focus of this shockingly disappointing effort is not art, but rather objects and products gleaned from the most banal areas of contemporary Korean society.

The exhibition begins with a collection of "Visit Korea" tourism board posters -- need I say more?

All right, a quick overview: There are steel construction signs and plastic traffic cones here, a rotating plastic barber-shop pole, a whole bunch of lottery tickets, a collection of those plastic armbands that police and other civil servants wear. There is a small selection of semi-candid photographs of "trendy" young people with unusual clothes and hairstyles. There are several video monitors screening pop-music videos, news and weather shows, situation comedies and the like. There are packets of processed food. Someone had the idea of making a big bibinba bowl and filling it with assorted Korean stuff, and this serves as the centerpiece of the show.

Oh, and there is a magazine stand. And a bus stop sign.

The assortment of things Korean was collected by the Sungkok Art Museum's chief curator Joonip Choon, who, it should be noted, was only following instructions -- he was sent on his harrowing scavenger hunt by the Setagaya.

The last part of the show, the only bit created by actual artists, is a two-screen video installation by Jong Hwi Kim and Noriko Umano. One screen shows unremarkable images of commuters crowding the streets of Seoul, the second shows unremarkable images of commuters crowding the streets of Tokyo. I didn't ask, but I would guess that Kim and Umano, too, were only following instructions.

Setagaya curator Yukiya Kawaguchi, the man responsible for the exhibition, explains the idea from which this show grew : "We [Japanese] have seen many antiques and contemporary art pieces from Korea, but we never get to see the faces, or the things of everyday life."

So, now we can. At our friendly neighborhood museum. Only problem is, that is not what museums are for. That is what weekend sightseeing trips are for.

So, while I did find myself at least a bit interested in how the cones in Korea are a slightly different shade of orange from the cones in Japan (I've got a pylon "thing"), the only good word to be said for this exhibition is that it may cause some visitors to reflect not on the differences between Korea and Japan, but on the similarities. And that might help develop the new entente that appears to be forming as a result of the World Cup co-hosting.

I score the shows: Sungkok 1, Setagaya 0