한국국제교류재단

In the year 2002 the Philadelphia Museum of Art is celebrating its 125th anniversary. One of the largest and oldest museums in the United States, the Philadelphia Museum of Art houses an encyclopedic collection of over 400,000 examples of world art, from Neolithic Chinese pottery to a Jasper Johns painting of 2002. One of its unique features is the suite of architectural units from India, China, Japan, Europe and America, such as the Chinese Scholar's Study, the Nobleman's Reception Hall, and the Japanese Teahouse.

The museum first opened its doors in 1877 as a result of the first world's fair in the United States, the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition of 1876, held to commemorate one hundred years of American independence. The first Asian s to enter the museum's collection were purchased from the Centennial Exhibition,including three Korean ceramics.

Korean Heritage Group
As part of the 125th anniversary, the Philadelphia Museum of Art opened an exhibition of works of art donated or purchased in honor of the museum's birthday, on view until Dec. 8, 2002. Among the important new acquisitions is a group of Korean ceramics, the gift of Colonel Stephen McCormick. Another collector has donated a group of paintings and calligaphies, including a portrait of a Son Buddhist monk. A major purchase, a ten-fold chaekgeori screen, was made possible in part with funds from the museum's Korean Heritage Group. The Korean Heritage Group was founded in 1997 to support research, exhibition and acquisition of Korean art and to promote Korean culture. We are fortunate to have prominent scholars from Korea on our International Advisory Committee, including Dr. Kim Hong-nam, Professor Kim Lena and Professor Yi Song-mi. Their continued advice and encouragement have been invaluable.

A Month of Korean Cultural Events
The Korean Heritage Group of the Philadelphia Museum of Art celebrated its fifth anniversary this year with a month of Korean cultural events in October, including two concerts : one starring David Kim, the Concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra and one by the Sejong International Soloists. In addition, there were two lectures by Professor Choi Kun, Chief Curator of the Haegang Ceramic Museum. His visit to Philadelphia was a direct result of my participation in last year's Korea Foundation Workshop for Overseas Curators. The Workshop focused on ceramics, and after hearing Professor Choi's lecture last year, I invited him to speak in Philadelphia. Professor Choi also addressed the Oriental Ceramic Society in London at the invitation of Dr. Rose Kerr, another participant in last year's workshop.

Exhibition: The Arts of Korea
In conjunction with the museum's 125th anniversary, an expanded exhibition of our new Korean art works has opened in two galleries of the museum's Asian Art wing. It is entitled "The Arts of Korea" and showcases the permanent collection. The ceramics on view include a group of four underglaze blue decorated Dragon jars, as well as the museum's undisputed masterpiece, a 12th century celadon maebyeong which once belonged to the American financier: J.P. Morgan. Among paintings on display are a ten-fold screen of Reeds and Geese and a pair of hanging scrolls of bamboo by the early 20th century artist Kim Jin-Woo. Additional information can be found on the museum's website (www.philamuseum.org). I hope that many of my Korean, European and American colleagues can join our celebration of Korean Heritage and the museum's 125th anniversary. The timing of these events is fortuitous, coming just after my return from the fourth Korea Foundation Workshop for Korean Art Curators (Sept. 2-12, 2002). This year's topic was Buddhist art, and I found it an especially well-coordinated and informative experience.

Fourth Workshop for Korean Art Curators
For curators and art historians, the works of art are the primary sources for their research. The Workshop afforded us the invaluable opportunity of seeing these primary sources of Buddhist art in context in their country of origin, often in their original setting in a temple or on a mountainside. Only the original paintings and s themselves (not slides or pictures in a book) can give the bodily experience of Buddhist art: an awe-inspiring sculpture, a vibrant scene of Shaka Buddha preaching on Vulture Peak, or a delicately elegant gilt bronze reliquary container. It is these beautiful s which speak to us directly and show us the largely unfamiliar world of Korean Buddhism.

Along with the superb guidance of our Korean colleagues, the paintings and sculptures gave us new insights, and some s and experiences will linger especially, working on us mysteriously long afterward. We all came back with favorite "memorable moments" and art works, whether it be the mist rising at dusk at Seokguram, the gold floral motifs on Koryo Buddhist garments, the open/close, visible/invisible visual frames at Buseoksa, or the muscle strains of climbing Namsan which physically imprinted on us the experience of the pilgrims of Silla dynasty Korea.

Messages of the Culture of The Past
We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the Korea Foundation and its outstanding staff for these Workshops for Overseas Curators and for the opportunity to spend two weeks learning to look and to see, to compare and gain critical insights from a multitude of original Korean works not available to us in our own museums. We have all benefited greatly from our two-week total immersion, with hundreds of slides and photographs to show students and audiences back home, with catalogues and articles which we would otherwise not have known about, with contacts with our Korean colleagues who have helped identify many a "mystery " in our overseas collections, and with two weeks of "bonding" with fellow curators from Europe and America. We will all go back and look at our Buddhist sculptures and paintings more carefully (and call Dr. Park Chi-sun for conservation help). Dr. Park said in her talk that the works of art are the messages of the culture of the past. She and her colleagues have been superb teachers and I hope we will prove worthy of the happy responsibility of carrying back what we learned and transmitting the beauty, history and cultural message of Korean Buddhism through the study and exhibition of Korean works of art.