The enthusiasm for building art museums among local and regional governments across the country is palpable. However, the purpose of these museums and the collection policies needed to fulfill that purpose are often either nonexistent or merely formalities. Each newly constructed museum touts slogans like 'an open museum that shares the diverse values of art and connects with citizens' lives' and 'a cultural exchange hub where everyday life becomes art.' These phrases, which anyone can use and apply anywhere, ultimately define nothing, leading to the proliferation of indistinct museums lacking unique characteristics.
For instance, the Chungnam Provincial Art Museum, set to open in 2027, aims to enhance the cultural enjoyment rights of residents and improve their quality of life, while the Gyeongbuk Provincial Art Museum, targeting a 2029 opening, envisions itself as 'a museum that connects tradition to the future and is open to all.' The Hwaseong City Art Museum declares its goal to transform a rapidly growing industrial and residential city into a global cultural city with an artistic foundation, aiming to create a complex cultural platform that encompasses the local arts ecosystem.
Despite the different wording, these goals share a common purpose: to promote tradition, global connections, openness, and the cultural enjoyment rights of citizens while maintaining and developing the local arts ecosystem. However, in striving to create 'a museum that does everything and can do anything,' they fail to clarify which era, which groups of artists, or which media they will focus on, resulting in a lack of clear targets.
This issue is not limited to just a few locations. When comparing the data from newly established museums across the country, one can see that they are so similar that simply swapping out the regional names and a few symbols would make them interchangeable in different cities. Terms like 'open,' 'connect,' 'hub,' and 'art in everyday life' are almost universally repeated, with the common thread being 'local.'
This reflects a desire for museums that resemble others rather than those with distinctive characteristics that set them apart from other regions. The language used is not derived from considerations of historical significance or collection direction but rather from the need for local government public relations departments to provide vague, broadly agreeable statements to civil society.
The problem is that these vague founding purposes and vision statements lead to a lack of collection policies after the museums open. Without answers to 'what, why, and based on what criteria will works be collected?' curatorial staff often resort to purchasing whatever is available to exhaust their annual budgets or collecting works from local artists, which is administratively convenient and politically least contentious. Thus, a museum without a clear goal cannot have a policy, and a museum without a policy cannot develop a unique character.
A more fundamental issue is that local museums tend to listen more to the demands of local artists than to the wishes and needs of the local residents, who are the primary consumers. In essence, museums should serve as intermediaries between artists and audiences. However, if they prioritize the requests of suppliers, the consumers will be neglected. Therefore, museums must become thoroughly consumer-oriented. Yet, local governments preparing to establish 'local art museums' often promote vague concepts of local art.
Moreover, the practice of interpreting local art as 'regionalism'—where administrative boundaries replace art history—has become a trap. The concept of 'local art' cannot simply be defined as landscape paintings by artists living in a specific area or as works created by local artists. It carries a much more complex and critical meaning. Traditionally, local art refers to 'cultural products' that reflect the unique historical context, climate, geography, and indigenous culture of a specific region through the aesthetic perspectives of artists. However, since the advent of local autonomy, it has been defined by institutional criteria such as administrative affiliation and membership in associations, losing its aesthetic originality.
To escape the 'trap of local art under local autonomy,' we must shift from administrative and political criteria based on birthplace, residence, or association membership to an artistic context and aesthetics. Today's local art is defined by its relationship with the history, ecology, industry, and community memory of a specific place, regardless of the artist's address. It has evolved into a glocal aesthetic that uncovers narratives of spaces obscured by metropolitan centrism and institutional power, testifying to global issues such as regional extinction, climate crisis, and migration in the most concrete local voices.
True local art today is not merely about 'local representation' but rather avant-garde practices where contemporary artists resonate with social fractures and regional scars through artistic language. In the 21st century, as transportation and communication have advanced, and the world is interconnected in real-time through satellites and social media, the concept of local art, which is centered on physical boundaries and lines, has become increasingly untenable. Contemporary artists now possess a nomadic identity that does not belong to a specific region, moving along international stages such as global residencies and biennales.
Furthermore, we have entered an era of glocalism, where the most local subjects are immediately globalized, continuously dismantling the binary boundaries between local and global. With the development of online platforms, distribution networks have become unified, allowing collectors worldwide to focus on the artistic quality of works rather than the artist's place of origin.
Therefore, adhering to regionally confined policies that are trapped within administrative boundaries only serves to isolate local artists, who could otherwise compete on the global stage, into the narrow category of 'local artists.' Today's local art museums need to redefine 'locality' not as a geographical limitation but as an 'original perspective' that communicates with the world.
In fact, the reason local art museums are floundering in the quagmire of local art is that the 'locality' they claim has become a superficial marketing tool devoid of essence. Museums established for the achievements of local government leaders or to compete culturally with other regions often declare their identity as 'museums centered on local art' without in-depth art historical research, leading to their downfall as ghost museums.
Additionally, in the face of competition from large, comprehensive museums run by national or regional governments, some have used the justification of 'local' as a defensive mechanism to marginalize themselves and distract attention. Furthermore, after opening, the increase in budgets and personnel has become almost stagnant, making 'support for local artists' an easy justification for political cover and managing voter bases. Administrative convenience in allocating budgets to avoid backlash from local artist groups has isolated museums into 'their own leagues.'
The drawbacks of this administrative convenience lead to market distortions and budget waste. Local governments pour budgets into hosting 'government-sponsored art fairs' that cost dozens of times the sales revenue and operate region-specific galleries in Seoul, providing subsidies for local artists to hold exhibitions without bearing venue fees. Public institutions in the region are also trapped in a patronizing approach that restricts even the purchase of art for environmental beautification to the artist's residence.
In fact, under the criteria of many local art museums, if an artist's birthplace or residence falls within the jurisdiction of the local government, they are automatically classified as a 'local artist.' Their works, regardless of artistic achievement, are automatically elevated to the status of 'local art.' Conversely, works by artists outside the administrative district, even if they are masterpieces of great artistic and historical value, are excluded from the collection. This bizarre form of lineage-based thinking views art not in its own right or within its historical context but rather through the lens of an address on a residency registration.
An even greater problem is that the museums themselves often do not know what they should be collecting. Most local art museums only boast about vague founding purposes like 'local cultural development' and complex collection review procedures, while lacking a concrete 'collection policy' and 'medium- to long-term collection plan' that define the museum's identity.
In fact, a collection policy is the standard by which institutions like museums acquire and preserve works of artistic and historical value. Without such standards, even when attempting to propose the donation of works that have undergone internal review and evaluation by experts, one must painstakingly determine which museum to approach for the donation.
This policy vacuum is filled by the local government's exclusive patriotism and administrative convenience. While museums are cultural assets and properties of local governments, they are also public spaces for preserving and sharing humanity's cultural heritage. Museums that squander opportunities to secure high-quality collections for free have lost their reason for existence.
Local governments must now unlock their closed doors and establish clear and professional medium- to long-term collection policies in collaboration with those who have expertise in museum studies and curating. Unless they end the outdated practice of ignoring masterpieces due to narrow administrative frameworks, the future of local art museums in South Korea is bleak.
The reason local art, defined solely by regional ties without any distinctive features, fails to reveal artistic, aesthetic, and historical value is that 'administration' is masquerading as 'art.' It is time to boldly shed the shell of 'local art' rooted in agricultural, kinship-based society and instead arm ourselves with a 'post-local aesthetic' that witnesses and testifies to contemporary political and cultural issues such as climate change, extinction, alienation, race and gender, discrimination, economic inequality, and globalization. Only then can local art possess its own sharp edge.
The origins of confining Korean art to geographical limits date back to the Japanese colonial period. In the 1930s, the Japanese justified their colonial rule and sought to numb the historical and political consciousness of Koreans by asserting that Korean art must reflect 'the unique climate and atmosphere of Korea.' Today's local art is a continuation of that legacy. This product of colonialism and its closed art policies, akin to 'cultural isolationism,' must be discarded. Such practices only serve to isolate local artists into the narrow framework of 'local' and lead museums to decline into 'their own leagues.' It is foolish to think that by closing off local artists from other regions, they can advance into other areas or larger regions or even other countries. To revitalize local art, it is time to break down the walls of administrative districts and realize a true 'locality' that communicates with the world.
Ultimately, the greatest crisis facing local art museums today stems from administrative convenience and the colorless founding purposes disguised as 'locality.' Collection policies trapped in narrow criteria of birthplace and residence ignore the essence of art, effectively imprisoning museums within their own closed communities. As a result, local art museums are becoming facilities that consume money and time without identity or content, each claiming to be a 'small National Museum of Modern Art.' The logic of art historical research and collection has vanished, replaced by the demands of local artist groups and political safety nets. The biggest victims are the citizens. Museums, which should mediate between local artists and citizens, are instead swayed by the voices of suppliers while excluding the public, turning into tools for administrative achievements rather than cultural assets.
Therefore, what is needed now is not the construction of yet another new museum but the establishment of at least a minimal concept and policy that can answer the question, 'What is local art?' Museums built without clear founding purposes and professional collection policies will inevitably remain identity-less exhibition spaces from the moment they open. Local art museums must break down the walls of administrative districts and implement a 'post-local aesthetic' that communicates with the world. Only then can museums be recognized as true cultural assets where artworks come to life and citizens can engage with them.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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