This paper aims to analyse the exhibition status and trends of the National Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) of Korea, focusing on special exhibition from 1999 to 2008. Museums today play a crucial role as the center of the 21st cultural industry and...
This paper aims to analyse the exhibition status and trends of the National Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) of Korea, focusing on special exhibition from 1999 to 2008. Museums today play a crucial role as the center of the 21st cultural industry and a source of tourism as well as a major contributor in formulating a national brand. Moreover, the National Museum has responsibility for establishing the identity by preserving cultural heritages and guiding to new age. Since it is the leading cultural organization which contains the national identity, it affects the national image and the global competitiveness. It also has an effect on various industries directly or indirectly. The National Museum of Contemporary Art that exists only one in Korea, however, has reached the limit of capability in performing those roles, when it has to conduct a contradictory role to consider public duties and professionalism, plus popularity at the same time. Moreover, there has been an accessibility issue raised when the museum supposed to lead the trends of contemporary art moved to Gwacheon. Under these circumstances, a new decision was made to build an annex of MOCA on the plot of the former Defense Security Command, which is expected to establish a platform for MOCA to strengthen its position as an innovative and creative body to produce and lead the 21st century cultures, with its new missions on publicity, internationality, and experimental, not to mention its physical extension. It will also greatly contribute to strengthening national competitiveness in the cultural sector as well as art circles. This study was initiated with the realization that it is essential to build a database on the trends of the exhibition of MOCA up until now regarding formulating art gallery policy, through which analysis of the current status and constructive criticism should be carried out before opening the new art museum. On top of that, this study is crucial in that analysis of the exhibition trends of a national art museum that represents the country helps measure foundation data that shows the country's cultural index.
In Chapter Ⅱ, the specific activities and current institutional status of the National Museum of Art Contemporary are divided by period, based on its foundation background and role, to identify the changes of office regulations and organizational structure in a broad manner. The Chapter Ⅲ reviewed the total number of exhibition and financial budget for exhibition to identify the overall status of exhibition of MOCA over the last 10 years. Also, it classified the exhibitions in the Gwacheon main museum and the annex of Deoksu Palace by display characteristic and type, based on which the trend of exhibition was analyzed. The characteristics of exhibition include domestic, international, and overseas ones, while the types of exhibition were divided into solo and group. As a result of the analysis based on these classifications, six problems and their supplementary factors were suggested. First of all, the current structure of the maximum five year term of the director, not based on the system of curators, did not allow experts involved in from active cooperation, with the limit of structuring a long-term vision. Thus, the characteristics of its administrative should be differentiated from other general institutions that the museum's autonomous environment should be ensured with the maximum of effort. In addition, the minimum 5-year term should be ensured to push forward with the art museum project with a long-term master plan, and a realistic system should be introduced for the former directors to continue to contribute to the development of the museum with their knowledge and experiences. Second of all, when it comes to exhibition organization, the paper mentioned that MOCA needs to make efficient exhibition organization within the budget in harmony with its role of quantitative and qualitative distribution as well as its publicness and professionalism. Third of all, the stream of Korea's contemporary art was considered by field systematically, while there have been few exhibitions that were designed to reflect social issues or to display a new stream of modern art, and there were not sufficient efforts accompanied with for research and study in systematic exhibition structure. In order to overcome these problems, the overall process for cultural consensus should be taken before human placement. Forth of all, there should be more effort made for the characteristics and transparency of the criteria for selecting artists and its method, in order to establish the prestige of the museum's representative projects to explore young artists, including `Artist of the Year' and `Young Korean Artists'. Fifth of all, the National Museum of Contemporary Art took the lead in introducing the stream of major art trends overseas to Korea or Korea's art to other countries, but it failed to identify the overall stream of the world art but focused on some particular countries. Therefore, it is required that while continuing exchange with major developed countries where contemporary art is strong, the efforts should not be biased to certain countries. In addition, more precise research should be conducted in the long term with the stream of international art circles and cultural diversity in harmony. Finally, the paper stressed that Deoksu Place at the current moment over the 10 years since the opening of the annex should carry its distinct identity as modern art gallery, not just regarded as an annex placed at Deoksu Place.
In this way, the direction made by people's thoughts and activities in charge of exhibition is called the trend of exhibition, which is an opportunity to identify the movement of the National Museum of Contemporary Art throughout the needs and transition of this age. In addition, it helps find out the levels and situation of Korea's art culture. In this sense, the analysis of the exhibition trend of MOCA over the 10 years will lay a foundation for checking the overall status of exhibition operation of the museum, in addition to contributing to providing great help to set the direction of the exhibition operation before the preparation to establish an annex on the former Defense Security Command, which may become the center for contemporary art.