From Closed Rooms to Open Space: Busan Museum of Art Reopens
- The separate gallery rooms on the second and third floors were combined into a single space that can be reconfigured.
- Four special exhibitions opened together, including the international show Future Museology with experimental AI works.
- Another exhibition covers art from liberation in 1945 to around the Korean War and Busan's first generation of painters.
The Busan Museum of Art opened its building and reopening exhibitions to the public at 10 a.m. on September 17, after a two-year renovation. The museum built the project around three ideas: breaking down boundaries, fluid and adaptable space, and cultural diversity. Space was opened up both horizontally and vertically so visitors have clear sightlines throughout the building. The main galleries on the second and third floors, once split into several rooms, were combined into one large space that can be reshaped to suit each exhibition.
A first-floor space now brings together design, crafts, performances and a bookshop as a cultural venue where anyone can spend time. The outdoor sculpture garden was also refurbished. Behind the scenes, the museum installed a new temperature and humidity control system and expanded its storage to protect the collection.
Four special exhibitions opened alongside the reopening. The international exhibition Future Museology, organized with a consortium of nine museums in Korea and abroad, looks at the role and function of museums in an era shaped by AI, ecology and technology. Its experimental, technology-based works include one showing Busan artists making work in real time on instructions from an AI agent, and another in which AI writes poems and creates images from a date of birth. ACMI, Australia's leading museum of the moving image, took part with two video projects on migration history and identity, selected with Busan's local character in mind. Visitors can also try the Metaverse Busan Museum of Art, a virtual version of the museum where an AI docent explains the works, and Boogi, the City of Busan's mascot, helps present them on screen.
On the second floor, the exhibition But We Are Still on the High Waves of This Sea: 1945-1953 (English titles here are translations of the Korean) traces how Korean society took shape from just after liberation in 1945 to around the Korean War, drawing on artworks and records from the period along with interpretations by contemporary artists. It includes works by painters who went to North Korea, such as Lee Qoede and Lee Yeo-seong, and uses records of art exhibitions held in Busan after liberation to show the activities of the city's first generation of painters. A separate section features artists active in Busan at the time, including Yang Dal-seok and Kim Jong-sik. An archive exhibition on the museum's 30-year history, To All the Museums of Yesterday, and a children's gallery exhibition, Secure Base, also opened. A museum official said the museum would use the reopening to grow beyond a place for viewing art into a platform that connects citizens, society, technology and nature.
Source : CBS노컷뉴스(https://www.nocutnews.co.kr/news/6579387)