'What Do Art Museums Aim For?'... National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art to Hold International Symposium on the 18th

18th at National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Seoul Multi-space
Publicness of Art and Museums
Reflection on Political, Social, and Practical Meanings

The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA, Director Kim Sung-hee) announced on the 10th that it will hold an international symposium titled "What Do Museums Aim For: Art, Museums, and Publicness" at the MMCA Multi-Field Space on the 18th.

National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art_Symposium Poster: What Does a Museum Aspire To? [Photo by National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art]

This symposium is an opportunity to deeply discuss the meaning of publicness, which has become a core value of art and museums, with six domestic and international experts.

The symposium will be conducted in three parts. In Part 1, "The Concept of Publicness," Professor Kim Young-min from the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Seoul National University will review "ostentatious publicness" and "rational publicness" and propose "exhibitional publicness (artistic publicness)" as an alternative. Following this, Professor Shim Bo-sun from the Graduate School of Communication at Yonsei University will explore the potential for museums to function as spaces for dialogue and debate.

In Part 2, "Publicness as a Principle of Practice," Malaysian curator Nur Hanim Khairuddin will introduce public projects planned in Southeast Asia, highlighting the connection between art and political spaces. Professor Cho Sun-ryeong from the Department of Arts, Culture, and Film Studies at Pusan National University will investigate the potential of temporary communities formed through exhibitions and focus on the possibility of museums functioning as such platforms.

Part 3, "Expansion of the Public, the Place of Publicness," will address future approaches to expanding publicness. Rodney Harrison, Professor of Heritage Studies at UCL, argues that museums should respond to global issues such as climate change and strengthen ecological publicness. Professor Choi Chun-woong from the Department of Architecture at Seoul National University will reflect on the current state of museum architecture and suggest architectural directions for future museums that realize publicness.

The discussions from this symposium will be published as a research series titled "What Do Museums Aim For: Art, Museums, and Publicness." Applications for participation can be made free of charge through advance reservation (first-come, first-served for 250 people) on the official website of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art starting at 10 a.m. on the 10th.

Since 2018, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art has been conducting MMCA research projects to activate discourse on contemporary art and museums and strengthen research functions, including this event. Starting with "What Do Museums Research?" (2018), it has consecutively held "What Do Museums Collect?" (2018), "What Do Museums Move?" (2019), and "What Do Museums Connect?" (2021).

Applications for symposium participation can be made free of charge through advance reservation on the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art website starting on the 10th.