[KS] Daedongyeojido at Museum of Anthropology Hamburg, the only Daedongyeojido in Europe
Frank Hoffmann
hoffmann at koreaweb.ws
Sat May 28 06:36:26 EDT 2011
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
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