Mihindo and Hunminjeongeum Haerye Edition... Gansong's Treasures Gathered in Daegu

Opening of the 3-Day Daegu Kansong Art Museum Exhibition 'Yeose Dongbo'
All 97 National Treasures and Treasures Including Beauty Portrait Displayed

A large-scale exhibition where you can see the rarely displayed Shin Yunbok’s Portrait of a Beauty and the Hunminjeongeum Haerye edition, along with national treasures and treasure-level 'Gansong Collection' cultural heritage, will be held in Daegu.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

The Gansong Art Museum branch, the first private art museum in Korea established by Jeon Hyeongpil (1906?1962) in 1938, is opening in Daegu. The Daegu Gansong Art Museum announced that it will hold the national treasure and treasure exhibition “Yeosedongbo (與世同寶) ? Treasures Shared with the World” from the 3rd until December 1st to commemorate its opening.

The opening exhibition “Yeosedongbo” offers a chance to see 40 national treasures and treasures, totaling 97 pieces, which had been kept only at Bohwagak in Seongbuk-dong. These 97 pieces are moved to a new space for display. It is the largest-scale exhibition ever held by the Gansong Art Museum.

Unlike the usual practice of placing major works in the middle or latter part of an exhibition, this exhibition provides a precious opportunity to closely examine each rare piece from the Gansong Collection that had not been thoroughly explored before. In Exhibition Room 1, viewers’ attention is captured by the wide display of Shin Yunbok’s late Joseon dynasty genre paintings from the Hyewon Jeonsincheop, Kim Hongdo’s Old Story Figures, works by Kim Deukshin, and the grand masterpiece Chokjando Scroll by Sim Sa-jeong.

In Exhibition Room 2, Shin Yunbok’s Portrait of a Beauty is displayed alone, greeting each visitor in the darkness as if having a private audience. Initially, the museum planned for visitors to enter the exhibition room one by one to feel as if they were meeting the woman in the painting alone, but anticipating large crowds, they increased the capacity to six people at a time.

Kansong Art Museum, the first private art museum in Korea, will open a permanent exhibition space called Daegu Kansong Art Museum in Daegu next month.
The opening exhibition "Yeose Dongbo" (與世同寶), starting on the 3rd, will showcase 97 items of 40 national treasures and treasures from the Kansong collection, making it the largest exhibition of national treasures and treasures ever held by Kansong Art Museum.
The photo shows the Hunminjeongeum Haerye edition.
Photo by Daegu Kansong Art Museum
Image source: Yonhap News

In Exhibition Room 3, titled “House Built with Sound,” visitors can experience the Hunminjeongeum Haerye alongside a sound art piece that interprets it through the voices of modern Koreans. The Hunminjeongeum Haerye, a national treasure and UNESCO Memory of the World, is said to have been personally protected by Gansong even during the Korean War. Apart from brief exhibitions at the National Museum of Korea and the National Hangeul Museum, this is the first time in 84 years that it is displayed outside Seoul.

Exhibition Room 4 is dominated by Chusa Kim Jeonghui’s representative calligraphy works and four ink orchid paintings collected in the Nanmaengcheop. Also, national treasures such as the celadon inlaid with cloud and crane patterns vase, white porcelain with blue underglaze and iron-red, copper-red, and cobalt decorations, and other vessels like the celadon giraffe-shaped incense burner and celadon duck-shaped water dropper emit a subtle glow. Additionally, the Gye-mimyeong Samjon Buddha statue and Buddhist shrine, along with models of two stone pagodas (Oesari Stone Pagoda and Octagonal Stone Pagoda) collected by Gansong, appear in the background, calming the viewer’s mind.

Exhibition Room 5, located on the basement first floor, allows visitors to enjoy media art videos of major works from the Gansong Art Museum collection, including Geomjae’s true-view landscape paintings, accompanied by Mahler’s symphony.

Daegu Gansong Art Museum exterior view. [Photo by Gansong Art and Cultural Foundation]

The Daegu Gansong Art Museum, along with Bohwagak in Seongbuk-dong, Seoul, is entrusted with the important task of managing and preserving Gansong’s collection. Designed by architect Professor Choi Moon-kyu of Yonsei University, the museum is a three-story building above ground and one basement floor, with a total floor area of 8,003 square meters. The Gansong Cultural Foundation signed a contract with Daegu City in 2016 to build the Daegu Gansong Art Museum, recognizing the need for a new exhibition space to preserve and manage precious cultural heritage alongside Bohwagak. The museum is a city-run art museum with the site provided by Daegu City and operated by the Gansong Cultural Foundation. Its operational model is based on the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. Bilbao, which had experienced economic decline, was reborn as a European cultural hub after the Guggenheim Museum was established there.

After this exhibition ends, the museum plans to hold permanent exhibitions starting January next year. In Seoul, regular exhibitions will be held in spring and autumn, while in Daegu, Gansong’s collection will be displayed permanently to increase public engagement.

Jeon In-geon, director of the Gansong Art Museum, said, “We aim to expand collaboration with other major cultural heritage institutions such as the Leeum Museum of Art to provide diverse exhibition opportunities for cultural heritage enthusiasts.” The exhibition runs until December 1. Admission is 10,000 KRW for adults and 5,000 KRW for children and adolescents.