1945–2009 Online Platform for Korean Modern and Contemporary Art

From Gwacheon to Seoul: MMCA Seoul’s Beginning of New Era (2009)

The year 2009 marked the fortieth anniversary of the inauguration of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA). It was also the year in which the museum faced a major transformation with its spatial expansion into Seoul. Since the inauguration of the MMCA Gwacheon in 1986, the MMCA had functioned as the country’s leading national art museum; yet the MMCA Gwacheon’s geographic accessibility was consistently identified as a chronic issue, and voices across the artistic community continued to call for the museum’s presence in central Seoul. On January 15, 2009, at the New Year’s gathering of cultural figures held in the auditorium of the former Defense Security Command (DSC), President Lee Myung-bak announced plans to “develop the site of the DSC in Sogyeok-dong, Jongno-gu, into the MMCA Seoul.” On the same day, Yu In-chon, Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism, stated in a briefing that “the historically significant site of the DSC—once home to Joseon institutions such as the Gyujanggak (Royal Library), Sogyeokseo (Royal Bureau of Taoist Rituals), and Saganwon (Bureau of the Censor-General)—will be transformed into the MMCA Seoul, to be operated as a contemporary art center showcasing cutting-edge visual practices such as installation, multimedia, and video art.”1 From the outset, then, MMCA Seoul was declared to serve as a hub for the comprehensive engagement with contemporary visual art. With the decision to establish MMCA Seoul finalized, Beginning of a New Era was held in the former DSC building in October 2009. Officially, the exhibition commemorated the fortieth anniversary of the inauguration of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in 1969, but at the same time it was also described as a “salvo to open up what had long been an off-limits space and transform it into one of communication with the public.”2 It is, in fact, highly unusual to stage an exhibition in a building that has not been repaired or refurbished after its previous use.3 Moreover, the DSC building had long been closed to the general public. Containing within it pivotal moments of Korean modern history, the DSC carried symbolic weight in its own right, and Beginning of New Era functioned like a commemorative ritual intended to transform this historically inaccessible building into an open space for communication with the public. Beginning of New Era was structured around three projects: (1) Museum Project: For New Art Museum, (2) Space Project: New Beginning of Art, and (3) Documentary Project. First, the Museum Project was conceived as “an effort, on the occasion of the museum’s fortieth anniversary and at the Seoul site heralding the opening of a new museum era, to reflect on the present state of the museum and to envision the form of the museum to come.”4 In this project, participating artists selected other artists' works from the museum’s collection—often described as the museum’s public face—and reinterpreted or appropriated them in their own works, thereby opening up possibilities for transformation and variation through the encounter of collection and imagination. The Space Project was a project in which participating artists “have transformed and changed the space and function of the facility, known as Gimusa. In their own unique ways, the artists focused on the location, historicity, and materiality of the site.”5 The artists actively engaged the site of the DSC by recycling or rearranging discarded objects from the building and its grounds, installing works that prompted reflection on the space’s meaning and history, and creating projects that connected its interior and exterior to explore new possibilities for communication. Finally, the Documentary Project was a documentary film production that explored stories related to the DSC site, with participation by artist Moon Kyungwon and experimental film director Park Donghyeon. Beginning of New Era was an exhibition that, in addition to visual artists, brought together architects, film directors, and other practitioners working across diverse media, thereby demonstrating the breadth of “contemporary art.” By embracing a multiplicity of media and presenting site-specific works attuned to the unique space and themes of the DSC, the exhibition made evident its character as a project situated within the very process of transforming the former DSC site into a museum. In particular, the terms “transformation/variation” and “project” recur throughout the exhibition’s structure. The word project, which began to be used frequently in the 2000s, carries the connotation of something temporary and process-oriented. As an exhibition embodying the museum’s orientation and future direction, Beginning of New Era may be seen as seeking to present, in its entirety, the process by which the museum’s building and spaces have been—and will continue to be—transformed and varied from past to present and into the future. Let us return once more to the meaning of “commemoration.” It is to remember and cherish in one’s heart for a long time a meaningful event or an admirable figure without forgetting it. In the Commemorative Exhibition of the Opening of the New Museum at MMCA Gwacheon in 1986, this meaning was found in the construction of an independent museum building, the attainment of international stature, and the turn toward exchange with the world. By contrast, Beginning of New Era at the MMCA Seoul in 2009 was celebrated as a festival of the artistic community, and moreover as the transformation of the former DSC grounds—once a closed space—into an open site for public engagement, thereby opening the possibility of communication with the public. At the same time, the purpose of commemoration is ultimately bound to memory. Without the ritual act of commemoration, the memories and events connected to it will inevitably fade. A commemoration that does not engender memory has no reason to exist. What society expects is a commemoration that produces rich and enduring memories.6 Just as the act of commemoration takes the form of ritual, so too can the museum exhibition be understood as one manifestation of regular ritual. The inauguration of the MMCA, together with the exhibitions commemorating it, leaves behind an institutionalized memory for the public and becomes part of history. The regular holding of anniversary exhibitions to mark the museum’s inauguration likewise represents an effort to sustain that memory over time and to reflect anew on the meaning of the museum itself. Kim Dongil has observed that “Exhibitions at the MMCA are the most dramatic form of commemoration that presents communal values that must be worshiped at the level of the nation.”7 Based on that “this exhibition embodies our joint wish that the art to be shown in this space will be fresh, fun, and new,”8 Beginning of New Era may be understood as a commemorative ritual. At once it declared and displayed the expanding transformations of artistic media, while also presenting a communal value: the desire to transform the DSC building—once a space of hierarchy—and the museum itself—once a sanctum—into an open space to be shared with the public.