한국국제교류재단

Having long outgrown its home of 35 years in Golden Gate Park, the Asian Art Museum will open its new, expanded facility at San Francisco’s Civic Center on Thursday, March 20, 2003. Through the rehabilitation and adaptive reuse of the city’s former Main Library, a 1917 beaux arts-style building, Italian architect Gae Aulenti, best known for converting a derelict Paris train station into the celebrated Mus럆 d’Orsay, transformed the historic building into the new Asian Art Museum.

The grand opening will be the culmination of an eight-year, $160.5 million public/private partnership to a new home for the museum and its world-renowned collection of Asian art. The single largest private gift, $15 million, came from Korean-born Silicon Valley entrepreneur Chong-Moon Lee. To acknowledge Mr. Lee’s generosity, the new building will be officially recognized as the Asian Art Museum－Chong-Moon Lee Center for Asian Art and Culture. Featuring nearly 40,000 square feet of gallery display space, innovative programs and new amenities, the new quarters will allow the museum to better fulfill its mission of leading a diverse global audience in discovering the unique material, aesthetic, and intellectual achievements of Asian art and culture.

Korean Galleries at the New Asian Art Museum
Entering the Korean galleries at the new Asian Art Museum brings one face to face with a formidable figure: a ten-foot-tall painted image of the guardian king of the West. The guardian king wears a warrior’s armor decorated with a monster mask. He holds a trident and a thunderbolt suggestive of his power and determination to ward off all intruders. His widespread feet and glaring eyes also indicate his readiness to protect his domain.

Though his appearance may be frightening, the guardian king－as his name suggests－is actually protecting visitors to the galleries, according to Korean tradition. In spring and autumn each year, many Koreans－believers in Buddhism and nonbelievers alike－make excursions to Buddhist temples located deep in the mountains. As they walk into mountain temple precincts, they encounter at one of the first temple gates large images of guardian deities facing the four cardinal directions. Such deities protect the temple, the religion, and its believers. With the guardian king watching over the galleries, visitors can enter assured of their safety.

Proceeding into the new Korean galleries, one discovers ceramics, sculptures, paintings, textiles, ornaments, and lacquer wares carefully selected to present an overview of Korean art and culture, highlighting the achievements of the Korean people from prehistory to modern times. The s include both famous works from the museum’s collection and some that have never before been on display.

Gallery 21. Korea through 1392
Among the highlights of this gallery are slate daggers from the Bronze Age (1000-300 BCE), ornaments of the Silla Kingdom (57 BCE-668 CE), stonewares of the Three Kingdoms period (57 BCE-668 CE) and the Unified Silla Dynasty (668-935), Buddhist images and s (600-1300), and ceramics of the Goryeo Dynasty (918-1392).

At the first turn in the gallery appears the museum’s duck-shaped vessel, a favorite of children and those young at heart. Technological progress and changing aesthetic values are evident in ceramics dating from the Three Kingdoms period (57 BCE-668 CE) to the present. The robust stonewares exhibited here define the energy of this period, and the elegant celadons reflect the refinement of the Goryeo dynasty (918-1392).

The Three Kingdoms period saw the production of a variety of vessel shapes, ranging from small cups with stands to magnificent pedestals and globular jars sometimes with impressed cord decorations. From the beginning of the third century, many ceramic forms were thrown on potters’ wheels and fired in climbing kilns constructed on gentle slopes. These impermeable stonewares served as practical s for daily life as well as for burial purposes.

Under the patronage of the Goryeo royal court, the aristocracy, and the Buddhist elite－whose taste for luxury and refinement was unprecedented in the history of Korea－spectacular achievements were made in the arts. To meet the standards demanded by their patrons, Goryeo artisans d the most beautiful blue-green glazed wares (popularly known in the West as celadons). Since their earliest making, these glazed wares have been held in the highest esteem. In 1123, an emissary from the Chinese imperial court praised the beauty of the jade-colored glaze and the elegant forms of these ceramics, which in the thirteenth century were dubbed “the first under heaven.” Throughout Asia, Goryeo celadons (cheongja in Korean) continue to be admired by connoisseurs as among the most precious items d by Korean artisans.

Gallery 22. Korea 1392-1910 (The In Ju and Chung Hyang Kay Gallery)
The second Korean gallery is dedicated to the arts of the Joseon dynasty. It features ceramics (stonewares, porcelains, and other decorated wares) and paintings (folding screens, hanging scrolls, and handscrolls). First, one encounters simple buncheong stonewares and understated porcelains that reflect the twin characteristics－vigor and restraint－of the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910). These are followed by paintings. During the past decade, the efforts of many people have gone into increasing the size of the Asian Art Museum’s Korean painting collection. The museum includes an area devoted to the display of hanging scrolls and folding screens rarely shown in its former building in Golden Gate Park because of space constraints.

Gallery 23. Korea 1392 to the Present (The Korea Foundation Gallery)
Continuing into the third Korean art gallery, which features paintings, lacquer wares, contemporary ceramics, textiles, and ornaments, one comes upon two walls d to accommodate the museum’s increasing number of Korean paintings from the Joseon Dynasty through the present. Contemporary ceramics are on display here, representing the diverse concerns and aims of Korean potters active today. And to celebrate the artistic achievements of Korean women, a special area has been d to display works made by and for women.

For more information about the Asian Art Museum, please call +1-415-581-3500
or visit www.asianart.org.