Reminiscences of a Museum Professional

Lee Wonbok
Chief Curator of Curatorial Affairs
National Museum of Korea

First, I would like to congratulate the 100th anniversary of the National Museum of China. It is even more meaningful given that the year 2012 also marks the 20th anniversary of diplomatic ties between Korea and the People's Republic of China. I would like to also extend my gratitude to the Director-General of the National Museum of China, Mr. Lu Zhang Shen, and the organizer for inviting me to this very place along with other museum professionals and curators who share the same goal and mission. I truly appreciate your warm hospitality.

A Museum is not only a treasure house of cultural heritage and artworks of diverse people and nations, it is also a place where the past contains the future. I've noticed that, unlike the West, the word “museum” often carries a very somber, stoic tone in Asia, but museums in Asia have begun to change. To date, the primary role of a museum has been to collect, research, excavate, and preserve cultural heritage. Now, museums are expanding their functions based on this role, so to serve as a center for lifelong education, as well as a place for relaxation, leisure, and entertainment. I have no doubt that such expansion is the major challenge that every museum in the world faces.

As of April 15 of this year, I've been working at the National Museum of Korea for 36 years. The NMK marked its 100th anniversary in 2009, and a centennial event was held to celebrate the occasion. Many of you were kind enough to come to the event, thus, I'm very glad to see many of the same faces here today. When I began working at the NMK, I was only in my twenties. Since I have witnessed a third of the NMK's history, my nickname is “The Walking History of the NMK”. My area of expertise is Korean art history, in particular, the history of painting of the Joseon Dynasty. The museum is the foundation of my entire life, and I cannot imagine my academic achievements and activities without the museum.

It is reckoned that a happy person is a person who has a job that he or she wishes to do, is able to do, and needs to do. If he enjoys what he does, then his job cannot really be called as “work”, but rather as “fun”. In Asia, paintings have long been considered as the epitome of the arts. I am constantly surrounded by paintings while I work, which makes me as if I'm working in a garden of exquisite beauty. Every day, I stroll through this garden, and explore how the previous generations celebrated and expressed the beauty of the world through their art. Therefore, I consider myself to be a very lucky man. Of course, I cannot say that all of my hard work paid off and satisfied everyone at all times, but I dare to believe that I've satisfied some, if not all. As you are all aware, my name is Wonbok, which means the source of good fortune. I can proudly say that I've lived up to my name to a certain extent.

When I started working as a curator, Korea had only four National Museums: one in Seoul, the Capital city of the Joseon Dynasty for 518 years; one in Gyeongju, the Capital city of the Silla Kingdom; and one each in Buyeo and Gongju, the Capital cities of the Baekje Kingdom. Since then, we've built one or two new museums in each province. As a result, we now have 12 National Museums under the branch of the NMK, including the Naju National Museum that is scheduled to open in the coming year. My job is full of excitement and happiness as I can encounter with great masterpieces of the past through excavation works, and prepare special exhibitions at home and abroad. I am also honored to be given the opportunity to meet scholars and museum professionals from museums all around the world through international exchange exhibitions.

We have already shared great suggestions and ideas from many participants to support and enhance the future of museums. Thus, even though it might seem a little too personal, I would like to briefly introduce a few of the many people I've met and worked throughout my career with some photos. I hope this private recollection will have some meaning for all of you as I believe history is the records of an individual.

The late, great historians of Asian art Wai-kam Ho and Sherman E. Lee, co-curated “Chinese Art Under the Mongols: The Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368)” in the U.S. to commemorate the 600th anniversary of the fall of the Yuan Dynasty in 1968. Then the Director of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Dr. Sherman Lee used to joke with me as we both shared the same last name, “Lee”, which also happened to be the last name of the Tang emperors. He always greeted me warmly, calling himself the “Big Lee,” while I was the “Little Lee.”. The first photo here was taken at the Director's office in the Cleveland Museum of Art in the summer of 1980 when the travelling exhibition, “5000 Years of Korean Art (1979-1981”), was held in eight cities in the U.S.. The person next to Dr. Lee is Professor Kang Woobang, one of my colleagues from the museum. He served as the Director of the Gyeongju National Museum, and then became a Professor at Ewha Womans University, where he started a new epoch of research on the history of Korean Buddhist sculpture.

The second photo shows Professor Michael Sullivan, who published many outstanding scholarly books, including “The Arts of China (1967)”. He visited Korea in 1981 with his wife, Mrs. Khoan Sullivan. This photo was taken when I gave them a tour of the NMK and the National Museum of Art in Deoksugung. Mrs. Sullivan expressed her strong interest in Korean modern art.

The third photo was taken at the Tokyo National Museum in the fall of 1985, when I was acting as an on-site supervisor for the Korea-Japan exchange exhibition, “Joseon Envoys to Japan”. This photo captures a gathering that I had attended with the Head of the Painting Department and researchers from the Tokyo National Museum. We are at an old restaurant in Tokyo that is famous for its specialty, unagi and where a cultural asset sometimes performs. The man in the middle is the Head of the Painting Department, who passed away in 2010. All of the researchers in the photo have now retired, with the exception of the youngest one, Mr. Shimatani Hiroyuki, who is now the Vice-Director of the Tokyo National Museum. I met him again last fall, 26 years after this picture was taken, and I handed him a digital copy of this photo. He was quite delighted!

The fourth photo shows a reception at the Zhejiang Provincial Museum in 2006. At that time, I was the Director of the Gwangju National Museum, and I visited Hangzhou to set up a sisterhood relationship with the Zhejiang Provincial Museum. At the reception, you can see Director Chen Hao welcoming me. As a result of the five-year exchange program that we started, the Gwangju National Museum will host the special exhibition, “Treasures from the Zhejiang Province”, from September through November of this year, while the Zhejiang Provincial Museum will host “Sinan Shipwreck Artifacts and Goryeo Celadon from Gangjin” from January 2012 through March 2013. Furthermore, the Gyeongju National Museum and the Shaanxi History Museum have established their own exchange relationship that has lasted for the last 10 years. The two exchanged exhibitions this year to commemorate the 10th anniversary of their relationship as well as the 20th anniversary of diplomatic times between Korea and China. The Gyeongju National Museum held “Masterpieces of the Tang Dynasty” from April through June, and the Shaanxi History Museum will host “Masterpieces of the Silla Kingdom from Gyeongju National Museum” from September through November.

Once again, I would like to congratulate you all on this magnificent occasion, and wish you the utmost success of your museum. Lastly, I would like to conclude by saying that our mission and purpose as museum professionals is to make visitors love museums, where history and art coexist in harmony. We will spare no effort to make the world a place where people can find peace, beauty, and pleasure. Thank you very much!