한국국제교류재단

The Korea Foundation's annual Workshop for Korean Art Curators aims to provide participants from around the world with an opportunity to explore in depth various aspects of Korean art. The workshop consists of lectures, panel discussions, a seminar, and field trips to key sites and museums around Korea. This year 34 curators from 32 museums in 11 countries attended the event, including the Royal Museum for the first time.

Given the relatively modest size of the Museum's Korean collection, we were very honored that the Foundation invited two of our staff members to participate in the program. It is enormously generous to invite curators of relatively smaller collections to join this workshop, but it is also a very good way to promote Korean art in countries where it is still not well known. Fortunately for us, the Foundation's third annual workshop focused on ceramics, which comprise a major portion of the Royal Museum's Korean collection.

Most of the Foundation's workshop took place in Seoul. On the first day, we gathered at the National Museum of Korea, where Mr. Seong Nack-jun, director of the Gimhae National Museum, presented an informative lecture on Korean stoneware and pottery, and where Prof. Yun Yong-I of Wonkwang University presented an interesting dissertation on Goryeo Dynasty period celadon. Indeed, throughout the workshop we were very impressed by the overall academic level of the lectures.After the morning lectures, we spend most of the afternoon taking in the impressive collection of Korean ceramics at the National Museum, and in the evening we were treated to a delicious dinner hosted by Korea Foundation vice president Kim Jae-kyu and attended by several Korean colleagues. For the participants this was a wonderful opportunity to meet everyone in a friendly atmosphere.

The second day was spent at the private Ho-Am Gallery. Following a lecture on Joseon Dynasty period buncheong white porcelain by Prof. Kang Kyong-sook of Chungbuk University, we were invited to a luncheon at the presidential Blue House hosted by First Lady Lee Hee-ho. This was a huge honor for us, and we were all very touched by the invitation. The lunch was perfect and also very interesting, since many of our Korean colleagues from various museums were invited as well.

In the afternoon, Ho-am Art Museum deputy director Kim Jae-yol presented a lecture on Joseon Dynasty period porcelain, and afterward we visited a splendid temporary exhibition at the Ho-am Gallery consisting of buncheong ware masterpieces along with contemporary paintings by Lee Ufan, Park Seo-bo, and Kim Whan-ki. The curator of the exhibition, Mr. Jeon Seung-chang, accompanied us on our visit, and for me personally this was the most beautiful exhibition I saw during the workshop due to the richness of the s themselves, the way they were displayed, the way they complemented the paintings, and the quality of the leaflets provided to visitors.

On the third day, we visited Seoul's prestigious Ewha Womans University for lectures on the scientific study of Korean traditional ceramics by professor Koh Kyng-shin of Chung-Ang University, and on ceramics in everyday life by professor Chung Yang-mo of the Institute for the Preservation of Korean Art History. In the afternoon, we visited several exhibitions on display at the university? own museum, with the museum's organizing curators acting as guides.

The next morning, we visited Korea University to hear a lecture on contemporary ceramics by Mr. Choi Kun, curator of the Haegang Ceramic Museum, which was followed by a tour of the museum. In the afternoon, we visited the Horim Museum.

The final day of the workshop featured a seminar where a number of colleagues from participating museums introduced their Korean collections. In the afternoon, we attended a seminar moderated by Robert Mowry from the Sackler Museum at Harvard University on the ceramic culture of East Asia from a cultural comparative view, with presentations by several other participants.

Overall, I was most impressed by how well the workshop was organized. In just a few days, we managed to see all of the major collections in Seoul and hear lectures by renowned specialists in the field, while never feeling rushed or pressured. This was in large part due to the fact that we were in the capable hands of two wonderful collaborators from the Korea Foundation, Ms. Yoo Seungeun, the program officer, and Ms. Choi Moon-jung, our excellent translator.

On Saturday, the Korea Foundation organized a visit to the studio of Mr. Roe Kyung-joe in Yangpyeong. This side-trip was optional, but almost everyone joined in and were fortunate that they did so since on the way back to Seoul the Foundation arranged for an outdoor Korean barbecue. The day felt like a joyous holiday, and in the evening we had the special opportunity to visit the exquisite private collection of Mr. Lee Doo Won.

After a day off to rest, our group left Seoul for an extensive fieldtrip. We first headed south to Gwangju to visit the Gwangju National Museum, in the afternoon visited the Mudeungsan kiln site and a buncheong ware museum, and in the evening attended a Buddhist festival at Dogapsa Temple.

Curators personally viewed the detailed work being undertaken at a kiln excavation site in Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province.

The next day, we visited the Yeongam Pottery Culture Center and met Dr. Kim Hong-nam, who explained about the conservation project of the Cultural Heritage Office in this charming village. In the afternoon, we visited the Gangjin kiln site and the Gangjin Celadon Material Museum. Finally, on our last day, we visited an excavation site at Bunwon-ri sponsored by Ewha Womans University and a buncheong kiln site. In the end, the field trip was just marvelous and provided a wonderful opportunity to see some of the Korean countryside while deepening our knowledge of Korean ceramics.

The workshop ended in Icheon, which allowed us to visit the International Ceramic Symposium that was beginning there the next day. The Korea Foundation gave us a farewell dinner and asked us to evaluate the overall program. All of us were very enthusiastic about the workshop, and I was most impressed with how the Foundation's Cultural Exchange Team managed to organize a program that was both specialized and complete with lectures, visits to galleries, museums, a private collection, and a potter's studio, and a wonderful field trip that allowed us to visit kiln and excavation sites.

Although the workshop was focused on ceramics, I left Korea with a very positive and admiring impression of Korean culture as a whole. I truly hope that by attending this workshop for the first time, we will be able to now study our own Korean collection more thoroughly and maybe even discover a few Korean treasures among our Chinese and Japanese collections.

The Korea Foundation has done an outstanding job as an ambassador and promoter of Korean culture, and through its latest workshop gave participants a rare opportunity to meet with colleagues from around the world to help an international network of museum professionals working with Korean art.