 | ▲Jar with Dragon and Clouds (Joseon Period 18th Century). Courtesy of LACMA. |
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The summer of 2013 for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) can be summed up by two words, “change” and “transformation”. The permanent galleries of Korean art, funded by a generous grant from the National Museum of Korea, have just completed a major renovation and reinstallation. Also, LACMA welcomed their new addition to the Korean and Chinese Art department, assistant curator Dr. Virginia Moon.
The galleries of Korean Art started in 1966 where Jeonghui Bak, former president of South Korea, donated a group of Korean ceramics. It was with the desire and hope to promote Korean culture and art that the government of South Korea and the National Museum of Korea has developed a relationship with LACMA. Since then, the collection of Korean Art has grown to over 200 pieces, featuring literati paintings, ceramics, lacquer and sculpture from the Three Kingdoms, Goryeo, Joseon periods, and Korean contemporary and modern art. It is with this samegoal that LACMA received a strong support from Korea and was able to permanently install the biggest space, galleries of Korean Art, in 2009.
Dr. Virginia Moon’s appointment comes at a moment of enormous forward momentum in Korean art and culture at LACMA. Dr. Virginia Moon shared her excitement for the upcoming 2nd cultural exchange between Korea and LACMA that will take place in June of 2014. “It is a travelling exhibition from Philadelphia Museum of Art, and with whom we work well with, National Museum of Korea, to bring Los Angeles the ‘The Art of the Joseon Dynasty, 1392-1910’. It will feature the comprehensive survey of Joseon Dynasty objects,” said Dr. Virginia Moon. “A piece of this exhibition is devoted to the modern period. It will also include the last decades of the Joseon dynasty where it will reflect the struggle the country faced as it opened up to the world and decided how and in what way they would incorporate the foreign, western influences. This piece of this exhibition has yet to be displayed in the US.” The Art of Joseon Dynasty will include two masterpieces of Korean landscape painting and a rare blue–and–white porcelain jar, all dating to the mid–Joseon dynasty (1392–1910).
Korean contemporary art has been receiving a lot of love and support from the international field due to its appeal to both the Koreans and Non-Koreans alike. LACMA will continue to display Korean contemporary art, but Dr. Virginia Moon expressed her hope that they will also increase in displaying more works from the Modern era, referring to the early twentieth century where Korea was under imperialism by Japan and faced the Korean War. These historical challenges create an obstacle since a lot of the art or historical objects were lost, destroyed, or hard to locate due to these events.
More information on Dr. Virginia Moon
Dr. Virginia Moon received her BA in art history from Yale University, her Master’s Degree in East Asian Studies from Harvard University, and her PhD in art history from the University of Southern California (2010). Her PhD dissertation, written under the direction of Professor Insoo Cho (now of Korea National University of Arts in Seoul), was a study of the system of designating Korean National Treasures (The Grafting of a Canon: The Politics of Korea’s National Treasures and the Formation of an Art History). She was the Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of California, Riverside and has assumed her position at LACMA on August 16, 2013.
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