[KS] Daedongyeojido at Museum of Anthropology Hamburg, the only Daedongyeojido in Europe

[Maya Stiller]

Dear all,

The exhibition displays around 120 objects, depending on the
exhibition venue. German museums (ethnological museums and art
museums) hold more than 8000 Korean objects in their collections. It
can therefore be said that this exhibition merely gives an overview of
what German museums actually have in storage.

As for the distribution of the catalogue: just ask Ms Min, the
director of the KF Berlin office: kf.europe at hotmail.com. As far as I
know, the catalogue can be bought for 25 Euros directly from the Korea
Foundation. University libraries might receive it for free (I think).

By the way, the curators from ten German museums were involved in this
major exhibition project. Dr. Uta Werlich (Linden-Museum Stuttgart)
and Dr. Petra Roesch (Museum fuer Ostasiatische Kunst Cologne) greatly
contributed to the success of this exhibition.

Best wishes,

Maya Stiller

PhD candidate (ABD), Buddhist Studies, UCLA
Dr. phil., East Asian Art history, FU Berlin
herbstmond at ucla.edu


>
> On Sat, May 28, 2011 at 3:36 AM, Frank Hoffmann <hoffmann at koreaweb.ws> wrote:
>>
>> Thank you for the posting.
>>
>> I would like to add that the book you mention is actually a bilingual exhibition catalogue. It is an *ongoing* exhibition, curated by Dr. Ken Vos: "Entdeckung Korea! / Korea Rediscovered!"
>> Museum für Ostasiatische Kunst (Museum of East Asian Art), Cologne, Germany
>> - until July 17, 2011 -
>> Afterwards the exhibition will travel to museums in Leipzig, Frankfurt/M., and Stuttgart (2012-13).
>>
>> http://www.museenkoeln.de/ausstellungen/mok_1103_korea/e_start.asp
>>  (... click small links below what must have been the inspiration for Pippi Longstocking's Horatio)
>>
>> Further info, Korea Foundation Newsletter:
>> http://newsletter.kf.or.kr/english/contents.asp?vol=158&lang=English&no=2032
>>
>> The museum in Hamburg mentioned by Kwang-On Yoo is, by the way, not the Museum of Anthropology -- that would be far too politically correct -- but the Museum für Völkerkunde, in English maybe better 'Museum of Ethnography,' but that is still too contemporary as a term. For a good reason the museum's home page avoids to translate the German term "Völkerkunde" into English (on their English language pages, I mean). The tradition that these kind of museums stand in goes back to 19th century views and German colonial and then Nazi ambitions. As a 1980s rock star (Müller-Westernhagen, for my generation insiders...he just left Hamburg for Berlin ... but did long live at Mittelweg, right next to that Völkerkunde Museum!) so nicely put it: "andere Länder - keine Sitten / kleine Hirne - große Titten." That's the context Korean and other "non-Western" "objects" from "collectors" and from "field study trips" were on display, *are* on display. What you have there is not "art" even if it is art, and are not works of "science" even if they are: these are by definition "folklore OBJECTS." It is then also no wonder that the museum had its greatest of all times during the Nazi period--and again right after its re-opening after the war, when people still had the same mindset. The museum had been bombed during the war, and a good part of its collection had been put into some off-site storage -- for decades -- still today. They are still today not so easily able to locate items, as I experienced last summer when looking for a some art work related to a 1930s exhibition. It comes then as no surprise that the mentioned "Taedongyôchido" map by Kim Chông-ho was not getting the prominent space and attention it deserved, be it because of its classification as a folklore object alone, be it because the museum has did not know what they have there.
>>
>> Catalogue:
>>   Within Europe this seems only available from the museum itself--not listed by any regular book seller like Amazon. (This is not the first Korea Foundation sponsored exhibition where this is the case. It is then easier to get the catalog of an exhibition in Germany from bookstores in Korea, same here. For an exhibition in conjunction with the 2005 Frankfurt Book Fair, for example, with Korea as the 'special guest,' the well-made exhibition catalogue became a obscure rarity, a collector's item, even while the exhibit was still going on. If some institution spends that much money to first propagate Korean culture overseas, it then seems a bit counterproductive to "hide" related publications so well.)
>>
>> EDITOR:  Korea Foundation
>> TITLE:   Entdeckung Korea! Schätze aus deutschen Museen / Korea
>>         Rediscovered! Treasures from German Museums
>>
>> 404 pages, incl. about 360 photos, in German and English language
>> Softcover
>> ISBN 978-89-86090-41-3
>> Order through: Museum für Ostasiatische Kunst Köln / Museum of East Asian Art Cologne
>> 25 ¤
>>
>> ADDRESS:
>> Museum für Ostasiatische Kunst Köln
>> Universitätsstraße 100
>> 50674 Köln
>>
>> Phone: [+49] (0)221-221-28608
>> Fax:  [+49] (0)221-221-28610
>> Email: mok at museenkoeln.de
>>
>>
>> Thanks.
>> Frank
>>
>>
>> --
>> --------------------------------------
>> Frank Hoffmann
>> http://koreaweb.ws
>>
>