MMCA Cheongju exhibition spotlights never-before-seen international collection

An installation view of the exhibition, "To the World Through Art," held at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea's Cheongju branch, North Chungcheong Province / Courtesy of the MMCA

By Park Han-sol

The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA) has decided to kick off the new year by unveiling the creme de la creme of its global art collection.

From Andy Warhol's late self-portraits to David Hockney's photographic collage, 104 paintings, sculptures and etchings are on display at the museum's Cheongju branch in North Chungcheong Province ― with more than half of them brought to light for the first time since their acquisition, dating back to the late 1970s.

While the exhibition, titled, "To the World Through Art," features big-name modern and contemporary artists like Nam June Paik, Jean-Michel Basquiat and George Segal, it sets its focus on the unique backstory of the museum's acquisition of their pieces, rather than grouping them under certain artistic themes or styles.

"For this exhibition, the museum has turned its focus to its international collection, especially paintings, with the majority of them having never appeared before the public," curator Lee Hyo-in said during a recent press preview. "As we look at the artworks acquired from the late 1970s to 2000, it's kind of a trip back in time."

The show begins with the critical fact that, for the MMCA, the process of collecting international art has been a roller-coaster ride for decades, since its founding in 1969.

When the museum first opened its doors to the public in Gyeongbok Palace, it had zero pieces to its name and simply served as a space to host the yearly annual art competition, called the National Art Exhibition. Although its domestic collection grew steadily as the years went on, the task of regularly acquiring international works still remained unthinkable, especially with its limited budget.

"It is a national embarrassment, the artists unanimously say, that the state-run museum has no foreign piece in its gallery," a Korean-language Chosun Ilbo newspaper article from November 1984 reads. "However, with well-known creators' artworks being particularly expensive, it's difficult to consider purchasing just one single piece with the museum's entire annual budget." The MMCA's budget that year stood at a mere 80 million won ($67,000).

It was only in the late 1980s, when the wave of globalization began to sweep the world's art circle, that the national museum saw a notable boom in its international collection. For Korea, the defining moment came to be the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

With such a backdrop in mind, it can be an interesting experience for viewers to situate and compare the paintings displayed in "To the World Through Art" either as pre- or post-Olympics acquisitions.

Christo Javacheff's "A Valley Curtain" (1972), purchased in 1987 / Courtesy of the MMCA

For example, just a year before the international sports event took place, video art visionary Nam June Paik was the figure who arranged and even successfully negotiated the sales of the MMCA's now-representative pieces: Andy Warhol's 1987 self-portrait series, as well as two paintings by Robert Rauschenberg and Christo Javacheff.

Javacheff's drawing, "A Valley Curtain," one of the pieces obtained through Paik's negotiation, depicts a 200,000 square feet of orange curtain unfurled across the mountainous valleys in Colorado. The curtain was later brought to life as a gigantic environmental artwork in August 1972. Although it lasted only 28 hours against the harsh wind, his sketch drawn in advance, with orange nylon fabric attached to the canvas, has forever captured the brief site-specific installation of the piece.

While the MMCA's earlier acquisition of such global artworks relied, to a certain extent, on personal connections, the Seoul Olympics indeed brought a paradigm shift in terms of the number and extent of the works in its international art collection.

Declaring the event the "Cultural Olympics," the government saw the sports competition as an opportunity to host more international cultural and artistic events, with one being the iconic Olympiad of Art.

Peter Knapp's "Wind from East IVA + Wind from East IVB" (1987), donated by the Seoul Olympic Organizing Committee in 1988 / Courtesy of MMCA

Among the flood of donated works made by artists who participated in the exhibitions held at the museum and Jamsil's Olympic Park, photographer Peter Knapp's plexiglass installation, "Wind from East IVA + Wind from East IVB" is noteworthy. While the piece depicts two fluttering Swiss flags, it is the dynamic motion and overpowering visibility of the fabric that Knapp captures rather than the flag's symbolic meaning, according to Lee.

The exhibition further moves on to the subsequent boom in the museum's collection in the post-Olympic era, introducing wide-ranging genres and styles ― from Georg Baselitz's German neo-expressionist painting, "The Oriental Woman," to Segal's life-sized plaster sculpture, "Girl on a Bed 3."

"In the case of Segal's piece, after the MMCA announced its decision to purchase his sculpture, the artist was said to have trimmed its surface again," Lee stated. "As a result, unlike the majority of his other sculptural pieces with rough texture, 'Girl on a Bed 3' shows a quite smooth human body."

"To the World Through Art" runs through June 12 at the MMCA Cheongju.

George Segal's "Girl on a Bed 3" (1973), purchased in 1994 / Courtesy of MMCA