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네이버 공유 카카오 공유 트위터 공유 페이스북 공유

Promoting Korean Art through Personal Relationships

At the Icheon World Ceramic Center, the autumn skies slumped low, practically within your reach, somewhat obscuring the view of Mt. Seolbong that rises above the sprawling exposition complex. Milling about the center were participants of the Ninth Workshop for Korean Art Curators, a program that has paid handsome dividends for the Foundation.



Lecture Session and Museum Tours
This year’s workshop (October 4-12) included the participation of 34 Korean art curators from the prominent museums of 12 countries, including the British Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Smithsonian Freer & Sackler Galleries, and National Museum of China. The curators stopped off at Icheon to attend a lecture on contemporary Korean ceramics, presented by Director Choi Geon of the Gwangju Joseon Royal Kiln Museum, followed by tours of the Icheon World Ceramic Center and Gwangju Joseon Royal Kiln Museum, in Silchon-eup, Gwangju, Gyeonggi-do Province.
In a two-hour lecture and slide presentation held at a seminar room of the World Ceramic Center, Director Choi described recent trends of contemporary ceramics in Korea and showed images of the works of Korea's representative ceramic makers with a beam-projector system. Though he spoke in Korean, it was followed by interpretation into English.
Director Choi noted: “Since most of the workshop participants have a doctoral degree, and many have already published books, I considered this in my explanation of the status and outlook for contemporary Korean ceramics.”

Revealing the Essence of Korean Art
The participants of the Workshop for Korean Art Curators program are selected by the Foundation from the curatorial staff of world-class museums that maintain Korean art collections. Early on, the Foundation came to realize that there was a dearth of Korean art experts, with most in the field being Asian art specialists, in a broader sense. In response to this situation, the Foundation has been conducting the workshop program since 1999, on an annual basis, in an effort to cultivate museum curators with more in-depth expertise on Korean art.
For this year, the workshop adopted a theme of “Modern and Contemporary Korean Art.” The participants attended lecture sessions by experts of designated subject areas, along with visiting the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Cheongju International Craft Biennale, Leeum Samsung Museum of Art, and the Icheon World Ceramic Center. In addition, a seminar was arranged to discuss how contemporary Korean art was being introduced abroad.
In fact, the shortage of Korean art curators has become an even more urgent problem due to the sharp increase of Korean galleries in museums abroad. Since there is no quick or easy solution for this reality, the workshop program strives to maximize the effectiveness of existing curatorial professionals by facilitating the development of personal relationships and networking, in an effort to boost exchange and potential synergy.



Global Network of Art Curators
Today, some 50 world-leading and regional museums maintain a Korean art gallery. Moreover, the Korea Foundation is providing support for the development of a new Korean gallery at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, which is slated to open in December this year, while another similar project at the University of Michigan's Museum of Art is targeting a 2008 opening. This represents a tremendous increase, since there were only about 15 museums with a Korean gallery prior to 1980. The Workshop for Korean Art Curators program thus seeks to realize an enhancement in quality that can match this expansion in quantity.
This year again, the curators highly praised the workshop for its promotion of personal relationships among the individual specialists from different countries, which will enable them to engage in information exchange and collaborative endeavors. Indeed, the workshop program is a proven means of helping to present Korean art to worldwide audiences in a more positive light. The 219 curators from 21 countries, who participated in this program over the past eight years, have been instrumental in the organization of 10 Korean cultural outreach events in three countries.

Interview
Susan S. Bean,
KoreaCurator, Peabody Essex Museum

Korea: Representative Country of World Ceramic Culture

Following her first visit to Korea to attend the 2003 World Ceramic
Biennale, Ms. Susan S. Bean returned to Korea, this time to participate in the workshop. She said: "I did see all kinds of Korean ceramics at the previous biennale event." But she added it still was exciting to visit the Icheon World Ceramic Center a second time.
“It is very interesting to see what kinds of works are currently being
exhibited at the venue where the biennale was held.” As a museum curator, she was not only observing the exhibited ceramics but also detecting
changes in the display of works with the passage of time. “I was
very pleased to talk with so many curators from various countries and
get to know the characteristics of their museums.” As for the session
on contemporary Korean ceramics, she noted: “I learned from the lecture and the tour of the
Icheon World Ceramic Center that Korea is indeed a representative country of world ceramic
culture.”

Lee So-young
Curator, Korea Gallery, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Facilitating International Exchange

“I found the program to be very efficient. It enabled us to attend a lecture, with a focus on a specific theme, and then view various exhibitions.
Especially, I liked the opportunity to have personal experiences through the visits to museums and other sites, in addition to attending
the lectures.”Ms. Lee So-young has served as the curator in charge of the Korean
collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York since 2003. After relocating to the U.S. with her family in 1984, she went on to graduate from Columbia University with a master’s degree in art history. Despite the fact that she has lived in the U.S. all this while, her Korean is as fluent as any Seoul resident. She visits Korea quite often, but this was her first time to participate in the Workshop for Korean Art Curators.
“It is a new experience to have exchanges with scholars from various countries working in the same area, which can be a stimulus for research.” She said that the workshop was a unique program, with nothing similar being organized by other countries for foreign art curators. She added that the curators seemed to greatly benefit from the workshop.
“There are not many chances to see Korean art in such places as Europe. So, the participants from around the world have shown very favorable responses to the workshop.” Even during the break after the lecture, Ms. Lee was busier than others, connecting a foreign curator with a Korean specialist, in addition to assisting other workshop participants.

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