Post-Pandemic Art Ecosystem Recovery Program Launched
50th Anniversary of Opening, Highlighting the Social Significance of Art
Arko Art Center and Inmigong, leading the support for emerging artists along with distinctive exhibitions, announced their annual programs.
Arko Art Museum and Inmigong Announce 2023 Annual Program. Themed Exhibition 'Memory·Space' [Photo by Korea Arts & Culture Education Service]
On the 1st, the Korea Arts & Culture Education Service revealed the main program directions and annual schedule through the 2023 annual programs of Arko Art Center and Inmigong (Director Im Geunhye).
Arko Art Center completed renovations of its exhibition halls and seminar rooms over the past three months to enhance safety and accessibility. The 2023 annual program, focusing on the recovery of the art ecosystem in the post-pandemic era, will be officially launched starting in April.
In particular, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Korea Arts & Culture Education Service this October and the 50th anniversary of the opening of Arko Art Center (formerly the Art Hall) next March, exhibitions and public programs embodying the vision of a 21st-century art museum will be presented.
User-centered spatial improvements will also be made, focusing on the project space and lounge connecting the interior and exterior of the museum. Through four major operational strategies?‘usefulness, inclusiveness, collaboration, and sharing’?including the creation of a sustainable museum manual and expansion of internal and external networking, the identity and role of the museum as a ‘social bridge’ connecting art and society will be further strengthened.
Since 2020, Arko Art Center has concentrated on discovering exhibition themes and developing discourse related to the pandemic, such as climate change, ecology, mobility, boundaries, and regions. This year, alongside these achievements, the institution will reflect on its history of responding and adapting to the demands of the times while engaging with the art scene over the past 50 years.
The 50th-anniversary programs will not be limited to collections or archival materials but will focus on changes in perceptions of the museum space and highlight the roles of various people who have passed through the museum, paying attention to the generation of diverse social meanings and relationships surrounding art creation and enjoyment.
The first exhibition will be the thematic exhibition "Memory·Space" (April 14?July 23), which reexamines the functions and roles of the museum by connecting and activating various spaces of the museum through contemporary artists’ memories of Arko Art Center.
The special invitational exhibition "Nowonhee Exhibition" (August 11?November 19) will be held. As a member of the ‘Reality and Speech’ group, a core of the small group movement in the 1980s, the artist has consistently depicted social realities on canvas for over 40 years, and her paintings and words will be showcased.
The 50th-anniversary commemorative exhibition (December 8, 2023?March 10, 2024) will focus on Arko Art Center’s core function of discovering and reexamining non-mainstream, experimental, and alternative artists, exploring these through artist-centered activities such as archive-based exhibitions, interviews, and creative commissions.
The public programs will continue the practice of a ‘sustainable museum’ encompassing climate response and barrier-free initiatives, starting with the announcement of a carbon reduction manual and including various workshops and lectures. Participatory programs, which were suspended due to the pandemic, will resume with segmentation and enhanced professionalism to accommodate diverse audience layers.
Regular events connecting Marronnier Park and the museum will be held from April to June and September to October, allowing children and family visitors to enjoy together. Around October, a roundtable on establishing a barrier-free art environment for people with and without disabilities will be hosted.
As a partner of ‘K-Art,’ various networking events connecting the public and the market will also be held during the KiaF-Frieze week in early September.
The first-floor project space and second-floor archive lounge connecting Marronnier Park and the museum will be newly renovated into user-centered multipurpose spaces, aiming to leap forward as a ‘museum of open hospitality and inclusiveness for all.’
The archive and Inmigong’s creation and research support programs will also be reorganized. Inmigong (formerly Insa Art Space) in Wonseo-dong will integrate the ‘Art Talk’ program for training prospective professionals such as artists, educators, and curators, which started in 2018, with the ‘Inmigong Creative Studio’ for creation and research support, into ‘Art Talk 2.0.’ This will focus on supporting the execution of projects by prospective professionals, and outstanding projects will be given opportunities to be presented in the museum’s project space.
Arko Archive, which completed data organization centered on artist portfolios and single-channel video collections last year, will conduct a full survey for digitization of its holdings starting this year. Additionally, in connection with the 50th-anniversary exhibition, dialogue programs with various stakeholders such as artists and curators who have passed through the museum will be promoted.
An official from the Arts Council stated, "Arko Art Center and Inmigong, which resumed various face-to-face programs that had been suspended due to the three-year pandemic, will continue diverse artistic practices and discourse development for ‘audience recovery’ and ‘forming new relationships between art and society.’"
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