The museum’s permanent collection and its present status at the Seoul Museum of Art
In 2019, works in the permanent collection of the Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA) totaled 4,913 in number. Starting with its very first collection, "Korean Residents in Japan(4)" (1985) by Park Saeng-gwang, collected in early 1985, the museum currently has approximately 5,000 works in its collection. This yearly introduction of new acquisitions in the form of an exhibition demonstrates what collection means to a museum, and "Multi-Access 4913" is an attempt to present the overall nature of the museum collection on top of its new acquisitions. Just as newness is generated through history, it’s essential to look at the present state of new acquisitions by ruminating on the past and analyzing the collection’s existing works in order to explore the history of the collection in the future.
In 2018, SeMA acquired 162 works (139 purchased and 23 donated). "Multi-Access 4913" regards the storage of the museum where the collected works are kept as a mechanism of storage, and is organized to access that medium from multiple angles through the archive, exhibition and screenings. "Multi-Access 4913" takes off from the conventional notion of a new acquisitions exhibition as a routine annual display of the museum’s new collected works. Rather, its purpose lies not only in presenting the newly collected works, but also in the general organization of the collection to function as a mechanism of the museum’s history and memory, as well as in the expansion of the ways through which to ‘access’ the collection.
First, the archive room, which shows the overall nature of the museum collection, holds materials that categorize history by the period/genre of the work, as well as its year of acquisition and year of production. This space functions as the background on which speculations on the history of acquisitions to come take place and the future plan is drawn. In addition, it becomes a site where the relationships between the newly acquired works and the existing works in the collection are formed. For reference, the standards for classifying the genre of the archive material is based on the ‘work category (Korean painting, Painting, Drawing & Print Media, Photography, Design, Calligraphy, Sculpture, Installation, New Media, Craft)’ according to the ‘Seoul Museum of Art Collection Organizing System’.
In particular, the ‘Design’ category was first created in the museum in 2017 with the receiving of a work donated by Ahn Sang-soo, but has become exempt from the genre category due to the lack of sufficient data for analyzing the age. ‘Calligraphy’ and ‘Craft’ are genres established through the museum’s acquisition of most of the works that were exhibited in "Seoul Craft Exhibition" (1991-2000) and "Seoul Calligraphy Exhibition" (1993-2000), for the stable operation of the museum. However, the two categories do not demonstrate a historical continuity and are thus difficult to be analyzed based on linear history; therefore, the two categories were not included in this project.
The exhibition and screenings introducing the new acquisitions from 2018 reject art historical style and thematic composition; instead, the works are presented as a symbol, installed in the order of organizing number, or the unique code given to the work when it was brought into the museum storage. Such a method seemed suitable for an exhibition introducing a large number of the collection’s works in the sense that it allows the audience to browse through the works in a more liberal way without being pressured to understand the theme of the exhibition.
"Multi-Access 4913" reflects on the museum’s collection, which went through a continuous process of self-redefinition in SeMA’s efforts to establish its identity, from its periods of experimentation and exploration, to expanding its practice through exhibition planning and implementation of educational programs. Just as the museum must continue to ask what role it must play in order to continue to exist, this exhibition explores such questions by presenting screenings of new acquisitions based on the organization of the existing collections. Tracing back on the history of the museum and writing the history of the new acquisitions are fundamental processes in demonstrating how “an outstanding collection provides the framework for all exhibitions through which the establishment of the museum is formed and changed.” By calling forth the museum’s collection, "Multi-Access 4913" is a new endeavor to write the history of tomorrow, together.
Seolhui Lee (Curator, Seoul Museum of Art)
