Meta-Museum Leading the Future – Busan Museum of Art Announces its Operational Vision and Renovation Plan
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□ The Busan Museum of Art (BMA) announced its new vision, operational direction, and renovation plan at a press conference on December 11, the first since a new director of the organization was inaugurated.
○ The new director, Seo Jin-seok, who was appointed on October 16, 2023, presented a direction for the BMA to head towards, as well as announced a renovation plan, and introduced upcoming major projects.
○ The BMA opened in 1998 and is a local art museum equipped with international features that strengthen the city’s brand. On the 25th anniversary of its establishment, the BMA will carry out renovations to improve aging parts of its facilities and strengthen its architectural integrity. After the improvements, the museum will continue to play a leading role in the world of art suitable for the 21st century.
□ The BMA renovation project is slated to commence in the first half of 2024, and the museum is aiming to reopen in 2026. Exhibition spaces will be improved and storage facilities will be expanded to a total floor area of 22,295m2, including two floors underground and three aboveground. Expansions and enhancements to existing viewing spaces, the entrance, and service areas are also planned.
○ New tasks, such as becoming a more sustainable, low-carbon museum, are to be added. Flexible spaces for plane, three-dimensional structures, and media are in the works as well, diverting from separated box-type exhibition spaces.
○ BMA will consolidate its role as a local center of culture and increase its importance. It will also work to enhance relations with Busan’s residents by demolishing internal and external visual boundaries and expand the third, liminal experience by widely sharing its new features.
○ BMA plans to provide a convenient, multifunctional space that reinforces communication and the concept of public service. It is aiming to improve viewers’ accessibility with a restructured main entrance for organic connection with adjacent cities. BMA’s image will be further enhanced with its outdoor sculpture park that will be enjoyed by the city’s residents.
□ BMA has mid-and-long-term plans to establish new social functions and roles as a museum of art that harmonizes the past and the present while leading the future. The plan is divided into four categories:
❶ A futuristic arts administration will be discussed, and a new arts administration manual is planned to be proposed after conducting mid-and-long-term research.
○ BMA plans to put its futuristic administration system into discussion by hosting an international forum through invitation of arts administration experts worldwide in the second half of 2024 to enhance planning flexibility, organic organizational attributes, arts genre expandability, and cultural leadership. BMA will also propose a new arts administration manual for the management of organizations, budgets, and the collections of works of art by undertaking mid-and-long-term research.
❷ BMA will discover local artists and incorporate global promotional projects to enhance local awareness of international art themes.
○ BMA has been constantly establishing its identity as an easily accessible center of culture since the ‘Rediscovery of Pusan Fine Arts’, its opening exhibition, amid the trend of internationalization. Based on research results, BMA will devise a strategy to shift to a ‘G-local ‘art museum by discovering Busan’s local artists and performing global promotions that can expand Busan’s cultural value to the world.
○ For the artists selected through various contests, BMA plans to continuously support portfolio reviews, mentor domestic and international curators and critics, and hold domestic and international exhibitions during 2024 and 2026.
❸ Metaverse platform-based exhibitions will be showcased by building a Metaverse art museum.
○ The subsequent virtual spaces will be built following the ONOOOFF exhibition in 2021. As all spaces will be closed except for Space Lee Ufan (a permanent exhibition space) due to renovations of the main building, Metaverse platform-based exhibitions are slated to be displayed in consideration of a decline of offline exhibition viewing. Various experiences, including viewing exhibitions, education, and cultural events, will be provided by fusing virtual reality with the art museum within the Metaverse, and a new dimension of arts experiences is to be offered beyond temporal and spatial restrictions and classes.
❹ BMA will reinforce global cultural competitiveness by building a cooperative network with leading modern and contemporary art museums in five Asian countries.
○ BMA plans to play a vital role in the Asian art scene and consolidate global cultural competitiveness by re-establishing modern and contemporary Asian art history. This will be done by describing history from the Korean subjective experience and building a cooperative network with foreign art museums.
○ BMA plans to co-research modern and contemporary art history with leading modern and contemporary art museums in five Asian countries, including Korea, China, and Japan, for three years from the second half of 2024 to 2026. BMA also plans to display exhibitions and publications during the period.
□ BMA aims to be reborn as a meta-museum leading the future, weaving the next 25 years with arts through continuity beyond time, experience beyond expectation, and relations beyond boundaries based on its mid-and-long-term plans.
□ Director Seo went on record to say, “Busan, a city of cultural diversity, acceptability, and confluence, has unlimited possibilities to supplement Korea’s cultural lag.” He added, “Our museum of art will focus on reconstructing hardware to show the convergence of art so that we can invigorate the city and lead the future. We will focus on consolidating the art museum’s soft power for the 21st century.”
Website of BMA: art.busan.go.kr
