Miscellaneous & Archiving Highlight

MISCELLANEOUS

World Seen by Kim Hongdo

The Calligraphy and Painting Gallery on the second floor of the Permanent Exhibition Hall is now presenting Everyday Lives through the Eyes of a Traveler, an eight-panel folding screen painting by Kim Hongdo 1745–after 1806 . If you want to know what Joseon looked like to the eyes of Kim Hongdo, one of the master painters of the late Joseon period, this is the right place to find it. This eight-panel folding screen painting features lives of people seen by a scholar traveler. One fine day, a scholar set out on a trip on the back of a donkey. In his trip, the scholar came across a magistrate making a ruling on the street, blacksmiths on the street, and men and women working in the field. Sometimes he waited for a boat to cross the river. Admiring Kim Hongdo’s masterful yet humorous descriptions of the scenes, Kim’s teacher Kang Sehwang 1713–1791 wrote his impression on each panel of the painting. In this exhibition scheduled to continue until late November, visitors will be able to take a glimpse of the lives of Joseon people as they see paintings and inscriptions on those paintings one after another.

One Hundred Days’ Rest for Pensive Bodhisattva, National Treasure

In celebration of the sixteenth anniversary of the NMK’s relocation to the present site at Yongsan, the NMK will open a permanent exhibition of two Pensive Bodhisattvas, designated as national treasures, at the same exhibition space on October 28. For this exhibition, Pensive Bodhisattva (National Treasure) is now removed from the Buddhist Sculpture Gallery to be housed at the storage and a new exhibition space for these bodhisattvas are now being prepared on the second floor of the Permanent Exhibition Hall. Equipped with architectural design and facilities optimized for the exhibition, the new gallery will become a special space where visitors can create their own stories about Pensive Bodhisattvas as they appreciate the thoughtful smile of the bodhisattvas. In the storage, Pensive Bodhisattva (National Treasure) will undergo condition check, photographing, and lighting test in preparation for the new exhibition. On its YouTube channel, the NMK shows Pensive Bodhisattva being taken out of the gallery and moved to the storage for one hundred days’ rest under delicate care of collection management experts.

Exhibition at the Egypt Gallery Extended

The NMK extends the exhibition at the Egypt Gallery, previously scheduled to end on November 7, 2021, to March 1, 2022. Presenting the long history of Egypt and the unique world view of Egyptian people under the theme of “Story of Life, Death, and Resurrection,” the exhibition has drawn great interest of the public since its opening. The Egypt Gallery on the third floor of the Permanent Exhibition Hall is showcasing 94 articles of Egyptian cultural heritage from the collection of the Brooklyn Museum in the United States. The NMK has prepared exhibitions for people to appreciate diverse cultures of the world whenever they want for free. Regrettably, however, it failed to provide visitors with sufficient time to enjoy exhibitions in 2020 as it closed four times due to the government measures to prevent the spread of the COVID-19. The NMK and the Brooklyn Museum discussed such difficult situations and recently agreed to extending the exhibition period by around four months (114 days). Only by making a reservation for permanent exhibitions, any person can see the extended exhibition at the Egypt Gallery for free.

ARCHIVING HIGHLIGHT

Exhibition title: Five Hundred Arhats of Changnyeongsa Temple Site - Reflection of Our Hearts

Venue: Special Exhibition Gallery

Period: April 29 – June 16, 2019

No. of visitors: 48,257

Content: 97 items including arhat sculptures excavated at Changnyeongsa Temple Site in Yeongwol, Gangwon-do

This special exhibition in Seoul, originally organized by the Chuncheon National Museum, garnered a lot of attention for its collaboration with contemporary artists that presented cultural heritage items in a new way. Part I showed “Arhats in Nature” and featured 32 arhat sculptures from Changnyeongsa Temple Site placed on individual pedestals standing on a floor paved with old bricks. Part 2 showed “Arhats in the City” by placing 29 sculptures in a tower-like installation. In this exhibition, the National Museum of Korea broke away from the conventional notion of exhibitions that see exhibitions as opportunities for learning about cultural heritage, and successfully showed the potential for a new kind of exhibition experience where the visitors can emotionally connect with the cultural treasures on display.