II._2. General Situation of Private Korean Art Museums(2)

Art Museums
Their History, Present Situation and Vision:

the case of the Republic of Korea : through historical survey, the case studies of private art museums and the "Mo-am Collection"

 

 

Present Situation of Private Korean Art Museums
The history of Private Korean Art Museums is very short and limited. Almost all private art museums in Korea were founded after the 1980s in relation to Korea’s economic boom. Despite their short history, Korea’s (Non-Profit) Private Museums５７ have played a significant and central role in society. They have been offering diverse art activities and events based on their specialties, such as a variety of forms of art exhibitions and art programs, etc., to the people in Korea. According to the most recent research performed by the Korea Cultural Policy Institute in 2005, the portion of private art museums in Korea now is 78 percent５８ (Table 3). Even though this kind of statistics does not tell everything, private art museums play an important role in Korea５９.

 

To review the geographical distribution of Korean Art Museums, 50 percent of art museums are located in the metropolitan area, Seoul and Gyeonggi province６０ (Table 4). This is very problematic. The Korean government has realized this problem and has been trying to resolve this point by founding national and public art institutions in collaboration with the provincial governments in Korea６１.

Table. 3 <The Number of Korean Art Museums>
National & Public
Private
Total
Korea
18
62
80

Table. 4 <Geographical Distribution of Korean Art Museums>
Total
Seoul
Pusan
Inchon
Daegu
Gwangju
Daejeon
Ulsan
Gangwon
Gyeonggi
CB
CN
JB
JN
GB
GN
Cheju
National/
Public
18
2
1
1
-
1
1
-
1
1
2
0
2
2
0
2
2
Private
60
23
1
2
-
2
2
-
1
14
3
4
1
3
3
0
1
University
2
1
1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Total
80
25
3
3
0
3
3
0
2
15
5
4
3
5
3
2
3
*CB (Chungbuk), CN (Chungnam), JB (Jeonbuk), JN (Jeonnam), GB (Gyeongbuk), GN (Gyeongnam)

Except in a few cases, almost all private Korean art museums are suffering from financial difficulties. The National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea６２ and the Korean Art Museum Association６３ have researched almost all issues and matters on Korean museums and Korean art museums. In this section, I will describe the present situation of Korean art museums mainly based on the interviews with several representatives of those institutions in Korea.

The Interviews:
The interviews with administrators of private art museums and executive associates of the Korean Art Museum Association were performed during two days, on Jan. 25th, 2007 and Feb. 5th, 2007. For their privacy, however, the interviewees will remain anonymous. Each interview lasted for over two hours. Especially, the first interviewee offered me an opportunity to join one of the public lecture series, which are regularly provided and sponsored by the Korean Art Museum Association.

1. How to operate
As already mentioned above, most private Korean art museums are suffering from financial difficulties due to the deficit of financial resources. The majority of private art museums in Korea are run based on limited private financial resources. The percentage of financial self-reliance of private Korean art museums is approximately 25 percent (approximate total revenue: $ 4.1 million, approximate total expense: $ 16.4 million)６４. The deficit of the expense is made up from mostly the private financial sector. This causes some serious problems, such as the quality of exhibitions, shortage of human resources, and overall capability of the administration to maintain private art institutions. Because of the shortage of financial resources, most private Korean art museums can not organize qualified art exhibitions. Many Koran art museums don’t have even one curator. Naturally, this effects the quality of exhibitions. About 22 percent of private Korean art museums could not organize an exhibition for the past year (2004 to 2005), and 80 percent of private Korean art museums can not purchase any art work for the collection６５. Even worse, over 50 percent of private Korean art museums haven’t published any catalogue for exhibitions and collections６６.

In order to make better circumstances for private Korean art museums, in 2004, the Korean government created the Lotto lottery endowment. Since then, the government has been offering about 9 to 10 percent of Lotto lottery revenue (approximately $ 4 million

per year) to the Korean Museum Association. The KMA６７ distributes the fund to Korean museums and Korean art museums. The fund was allocated about $ 1 million to Korean art museums for the aid of mainly organizing art exhibitions６８. In 2007, most recently, the Korean government decided to sustain the whole budget to private Korean museums and art museums for hiring researchers and organizers of exhibitions through the Korean Museum Association. However, according to some representatives of the Korean Art Museums Association, some limits should be settled for direct support to private Korean art museums in this project６９.

2. The difficulties
On the basis of the interviews of the representatives of private Korean art museums, the most difficult factor of private art museum management is the deficit of financial resources. All the representatives I spoke with as part of this research mentioned financial hardship as the biggest barrier to the proper operation of their private institutions in Korea. As I described above, almost all private Korean art museums are suffering from financial difficulties. This basic cause of this weak financial base is the limited support that comes from the Korean government. The Korean government does not have systems for the direct support of private museums.

 

The other major problem the interviewees said is the perception of private Korean art museums that Korean people have. The perception is very different between the general public, government officers, and representatives of private art museums. In the view of the general public and the government officials, private Korean art museums are just private properties. They and their art collections are seen as the personal belongings of a private individual, and that these collections bear no relationship to the public sector in Korea. Thus, it is thought that the Korean government doesn’t have a place in supporting them. While, the representatives of private Korean art museums urge their public role of art museums in Korea. They insist that even though these art museums are privately owned, they are in the habit of offering a variety of art activities, such as exhibitions, lecture series etc. The representatives of private Korean art museums also said it is believed that the only difference between national, public art museums and private art museums is the ownership. Even so, the representatives of private Korean art museums constantly insist the Korean government should directly support their collections.

In my view, this is a very complex and hard issue to resolve. As I mentioned briefly before, the demonstration of the publicity of private Korean art museums is the key to receiving financial support from the government. Even though private Korean art museums have some public role in a society, it would be hard for me to see that private Korean art museums are public institutions. Most private Korean art museums charge fees for their art exhibitions and events, and these fees are totally deducted and exempted by the Korean government. The difference in “ownership” of collections and institutions is one of the most important matters to judge whether institutions are public or not.

In relation to financial difficulties of private Korean art museums, it is worth taking into account the admissions numbers. According to the interviews and statistics, the number of admission is too low. The representatives I spoke with said that most Korean people are not interested in art and art activities at present. Yet, they predict that as time goes by the people in Korea will become interested in art. That could be right. However, in my view, they need to very carefully look at the situation and try to find the reason; why the general public in Korea do not visit and participate in the exhibitions or other art activities of private art museums. I will mention this more in the next chapter.

3. Governmental policy
Basically, there is no specific governmental policy for supporting private art museums in Korea. The Korean government has been offering some tax reduction and exemption for such institutions. The fundamental direction of Korean governmental policy and the plan for private art museums is to create a supportive, effective, and harmonious atmosphere and to set up a strong base of cultural infrastructures in collaboration with national and public museums and art museums. When I had a meeting with the Mr. Byung-dae Lim, Deputy Diector of Arts Policy Team, Arts Bureau, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, he mentioned that it was hard to directly support private art museums and to accept every request for support from those institutions due to the limit

of the budget and in the interests of equality with other areas. However, he insisted that the Korean government is trying to improve social and cultural conditions and to promote the amount of budget for the area of art and culture in Korea. They are discussing this issue with the National Assembly of Korea.

In 2004, as I described above, the Korean government created the Lotto lottery fund and the human resources support programs for Korean museums and Korean art museums in 2007. In addition, for the creation of practical and effective art museum policy, the government set up the Art Museum Policy Division, from 2004 this special department was situated in the National Museum of Contemporary Art. Before this time, art museum policy was administered by the Library and Museum Department of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism with the lack of expertise on art museums in general. The Art Museum Policy Division of the National Museum of Contemporary Art has created the future master plans for Korean museums and Korean art museums, based upon its researches, through collaborations with several institutions and associations, such as the Korean academic world, the Korean Museum and Art Museum associations, etc. The major works of the Art Museum Policy Division are to create a comprehensive plan for the improvement of Korean art museums in general, to promote and support art museums, to set up the art studios, to make harmonious development between metropolitan areas and provincial areas, to support artists, to create the budget and inspect facilities７０. In my view, this is a great improvement for the direction of art museums, and this includes private art museums.

ⓒ 모암문고 www.moamcollection.org