Korea Gallery in US to Be Renovated
By Chung Ah-young
Staff Reporter
The National Museum of Korea signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) Wednesday with the Smithsonian Institution to work together for three years in an effort to renovate the institution's Korea gallery.
Choe Kwang-shik, director of the National Museum of Korea, and Julian Raby, director of the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Galleryat the Smithsonian Institution, attended the signing ceremony in Seoul.
It is part of the national museum's project ― launched this year ― to support Korean galleries overseas.
Under the memorandum, the two museums will collaborate in moving the gallery to a new place, conduct research on the collection, hold a special exhibition of Korean relics, publish Korean cultural contents and establish a Web site for the gallery by 2011.
The Smithsonian Institution is home to 19 museums and nine research centers. The Institution holds priceless artifacts, natural historical relics and scientific materials from all over the world.
Among subsidiary museums, the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery is the only Asian art museum under the auspices of the Smithsonian.
The Freer Gallery has an annual average of 900,000 visitors and holds more than 500 pieces of Korean relics.
Established in 1993, the gallery currently displays 30 pieces of Korean ceramics, which are an integral part of Korean culture and an important vehicle of Korean aesthetics.
These 30 relics were made between 200 and 1900 during both the Three Kingdoms period (1st to 7th centuries) and the Joseon period (1392 to 1910). Also included in the collection are tableware, Buddhist cinerary urns made for courtiers, as well as bowls, bottles and storage jars used by peasants.
The museum said that the Korea gallery will reopen in October in 2011 after renovating the exhibition items, facilities and lighting. After the renovation, the number of Korean relics on display will be increased to 50.
It also dispatched a Korean curator to the Korea Gallery of the British Museum last month for the first time.
Choe has vowed to send Korean curators to Korea galleries overseas in an attempt to expand the curator support program to other foreign museums, as part of globalization efforts.