The intention of this essay is to give light on Lee Kyung-Sung(1919-2009)’s museum related activities. He was born in Incheon in 1919 when the March First Independence Movement occurred. He had been grown up under the Japanese Imperialism in his youth, and since the age of 26 when he had become the director of Incheon Municipal Museum after gaining independence from Japan, he was solely in the field of museum establishment until his death in 2009. Lee particularly contributed much in establishing the National Museum of Contemporary Art Korea and its process of settlement.
What motivated him to be involved in the activities for the museum in Korea where the field was so barren and alien? What was the value he was seeking for while concentrating on the task of museum establishment throughout his whole life? How do his activities in the field associate with the national development of museum system, formation of nation-state and the worldwide development of museum system after the Second World War? These questions are the starting points of this writing.
His activities in the field began amid the flow of the Western invasion on the East and Japanese colonization of Korea. Being immersed in ‘the fine art’ was his way of transcending the unfortunate reality of the nation, and therefore working on the issue of museum system became his place of act. As soon as gaining liberation from the Japanese regime, he served as a director of Incheon Municipal Musuem, which is recorded as the nation’s first public museum that was both established and managed by him. After that, Lee worked as a staff in museums of Ehwa Woman’s University and a director of Hongik University respectively. And subsequent to the April 19 Revolution, he derived a conclusion for establishing the National Museum of Contemporary Art Korea ? in 1986, he directed and developed schemes for the settlement of the museum as a director, pioneering a public realm for the fine art in Korean society for the first time.
As he set an objective for going beyond the ill-fated Korean historic reality during the modern period, his perception and practice regarding the museum in the field of fine art was first designed to focus on forming ‘subjectivity’ within the formation of nation-state, which was foundered during the colonial era. So the concept of ‘rationalization’, ‘modernization’ and ‘globalization’ were taken into account, paving the road for a public realm in the fine art by the establishment of National Museum of Contemporary Art. In that respect, Lee’s vision and practice for museum establishment was anchored in reality of the time, and his lifelong commitment in the activities were closely related to the task of forming a nation-state.
It is doubtlessly the fact that the field he strived for was no one ever stepped into before him during the postwar years in Korea. His task of objective was that of Louvre Museum signifies the symbol of the French Revolution in one hand; and since then the museum contributed to the internalization of the revolutionary spirit, modern museum system in the West function as a project in order to form a nation-state or to overcome the difficulty it faces in other hand. Given that points, Lee’s activities in the field of museum establishment provide interesting comparisons to be explored with the cases. However, what kind of ‘modern fine art’ he actually sought for with the application of ‘rationalization’, ‘modernization’ and ‘globalization’ is still remained as an issue.