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Memory, Desire, and Spectacle: the Making of the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Korea

Eunhee Yang 1

1홍익대학교

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ABSTRACT

The opening of the National Museum of Contemporary in Korea's new building in the suburban Seoul in 1986, rather a remote place for a museum, signaled a new age in the history of art museums in Korea, by consolidating art professionals'long wish to build their own 'sanctuary' or 'hall of fame' in a grand scale. This study begins with the premises that the very idea of "white cube" remains with the ideal of 'place of art's own sake' not with the physical site, and that the idea of "white cube"has been working in the formation of the museum. The focus of the study is on how the making of the "white cube" was affected by the politics of the 5th Republic, led by President Chun Doo Whan who had arisen to power via a military coup, drove Korea to the Cold War ideology, and subsequently to a series of spectacles in order to disorient people's attention from democracy-demanding demonstrations and to pompously convince them to believe that they were living in a better country. For that, four aspects of the museum building process were discussed: the efforts of the former directors who served the museum in the 1980sto secure the finance and the site of the new building, and to implement new policies of special exhibitions the complicated ambition of the then-rather-unknown architect Kim Tae Soo who had been selected to design the museum after a long stay and education in the U.S. the spectacle-making strategy of the 5thRepublic such as 1986 Asian Games and 1988 Olympic Games, and the establishment of a series of other professional sports gamesthat overshadowed the museum building spectacle and finally the contribution of Nam June Paik, who had eagerly answered a calling from his homeland and donated one of his largest pieces The More The Better to the new museum. Thus, the "museal desire" of the Korean art world was met with the President's plan of cultural spectacle along with other sports-related spectacles. In the age of spectacles, however, the presence of North Korea and its threat to hinder those spectacles surfaced above all the events. The museum building was comparably successful in the art world but was neglected in the politics of Cold War.

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