Currently
the total number of works in MMCA's collection amounts to 7,840 (as of June
2016). For the past three decades since its relocation to a new building in
Gwacheon, MMCA has acquired 5,834 works of art, which comprise 74% of its
entire collection. This year marks the 30th anniversary of MMCA Gwacheon, and
thereby in its celebration MMCA presents a momentous exhibition entitled “As the Moon Waxes and Wanes” whose focal
point lies in its collection of artworks, which is the proud output of its
history.
This exhibition sheds light on the life cycle and destiny of a work of
art that proceed by the dialectical course from the conditions that prompt the
creation of an artwork to the production, circulation, acquisition,
utilization, preservation, death, and rebirth of it. The exhibition also
conducts in-depth inquiries into various issues with respect to the way that
present-day artworks are being accommodated within the institution of art.
Main Exhibition
I. Interpret (Part 1: Expansion / Part 2: Relation)
"Interpret
- Expansion" explores multilayered ways of communication through works of
art by commissioning artists, curators, and researchers from diverse fields to
create new works on the basis of the Museum's collection. Also, with the
subthemes such as "museum," "meta-structure,"
"anthropology," "performativity," and "modern
history," it attempts to define the interactive relationship between the
artist and his or her work and to extend the interpretative practice of
present-day artworks.
In "Interpret - Relation," consisting of
highlights of the Collection, the one-on-one comparisons between 16 sets of
works encourage viewers' intellectual participation, which enables them to have
a more creative appreciation of each work. As a result, they are given an
opportunity to ponder upon the time/space-transcending relations among the work
of art, the artist, and the viewer.
II. Circulate (Part 1: The Other Side / Part 2: Post-life)
"Circulate:
The Other Side" tells the behind stories of works of art focusing on some
works selected from the Museum's collection. The related facts and additional
materials accompanying the exhibits are to enable viewers to see the
significances and values of the works from new perspectives. Contemporary works
of art themselves are not fixed but are subject to constant development.
"Circulate: Post-life" delves into the cardinal nature of
contemporary art, namely, its openness to change by examining a variety of
issues in relation to the work of art: representation, remaking, commission,
transformation and restoration, and metabasis and reproduction. It also
observes different ways of presenting a work of art by accessing the genre
characteristics, the distinct characteristic with regard to content, and the
intervention of the artist.
III. Re-light
The
conception of "Re-light" was triggered by the existence of those
works that have not been shown since their acquisitions according to the
collection database. The exhibits have been selected from those works whose
longevity in the storage is considerable without being shown despite the fact
that they comprise the majority of the Collection, and here the selected works
are reunited with the current contexts of their artists.
While focusing on the
classification codes of the Museum's collection, "Re-light" reenacts
the process of a work of art's transition - its movement from the artist to a
museum's collection system through which it is reclassified and registered. The
works acquired during the early years of MMCA Gwacheon from 1986 to the 1990s
bring to light the aspects of the period in the history of Korean art that
witnessed the diversification of mediums and the active discussions on
modernity.
