2004 Yeongam Ceramic Culture Center Special Exhibition - The Breath of a House
"The Breath of a House," a special exhibition coordinated by the Ewha Womans University Museum in 2004 for the Yeongam Ceramic Culture Center, was the second modern art project, following the "Art of Soil Festival" held in 2000, to focus its attention on the particular regional characteristics of Yeongam. This exhibition moved from the soil, the origin of all life, to accentuate the concept of the house, which nurtures individual lives. It featured contemporary and diverse approaches to the house by 15 prominent modern artists including Gim Jang-seob, Gim Ju-yeon, Gim Tae-gon, Bak Sang-suk, Bak Sil, Seo Do-ho, Seo Hye-yeong, An Gyu-cheol, Yang Ju-hye, U Sun-ok, Yun Seok-nam, Lee Gi-chil, Chae U-seung, Ham Yeon-ju, and Hong Seung-hye. The participating artists, in this region where domiciles represented a unity between humans and nature, presented their visions of the various functional, aesthetic, and philosophical concepts of the house both inside the Yeongam Ceramic Culture Center and outside in Gurim Village. This exhibition, which brought back the traditional within the modern, bore witness to the fact that history flows unbroken even amidst the rapidly changing contemporary culture.
2003 Yeongam Ceramic Culture Center Special Exhibition - Wild Flowers from Mt. Weolchul and Ceramics (Mar 2003)
The 2003 Yeongam Ceramic Culture Center Special Exhibition was coordinated by the Ewha Womans University Museum. The exhibition consisted of three displays under the themes of "The Energy of Soil," "The Breath of 1,000 Years," and "The Sound of the Forest." There was also a photo exhibit of Yeongam's Gurim Village and Mt. Weolchul entitled "Window on the Wild Flowers of Mt. Weolchul," along with an outdoor exhibit organized under the theme of "Wild Flower Garden." This exhibit was in the form of installation art, with wild flowers placed in ceramics made from the red soil of Yeongam. It was a new concept that brought nature into the exhibition gallery. Six artists and three organizations worked together to create 13 pieces of installation art.
2002 Yeongam Ceramic Culture Center Special Exhibition - The Beauty of Ceramics and Table Settings (Mar 2002)
This exhibition was jointly hosted by the district of Yeongam and the Ewha Womans University Museum, and coordinated as a special exhibition by the Museum at the Yeongam Ceramic Culture Center. Leading ceramics companies and potters used soil from Yeongam to create newly designed tableware, and the pieces were organized like table settings. In addition, paintings of Korean traditional table settings from the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910) were displayed to illustrate the identity and history of Korean culture. The exhibition, in which three artists and four companies worked together to create nine table settings, demonstrated the harmony between modern location and traditional ambience.
Another History of Art : Representation of Feminity (2002)
By restoring the subjectivity of female artists and spectators in a history of art that has been heretofore dominated by the male perspective, this exhibition simultaneously facilitated examining the possibilities for rewriting the history of Korean art, and viewing our modern and contemporary history from the female perspective. The exhibition was composed of two sections--the first was titled "The Images and Spaces of Women" and the second "Feminine Subjects and Techniques"--and presented 71 works by 63 artists ranging from Lee Jong-u's "Portrait of a Certain Lady" (1927), an acknowledged masterpiece from the earliest period of Western art in Korea, to Lee Bul's "Cyborg" (2000), a search for the face of a new humanity in the 21st century.
Five Year Collection of Modern Art (Apr 2001)
Since 1999 the Museum has coordinated not only classical but also modern art exhibitions, which connect the ancient with the contemporary. Some 100 works of modern art purchased or donated during the five year period from 1996 to 2001 were put on display. The exhibition mainly consisted of paintings, engravings, calligraphy, sculptures, and tapestries by female artists active in Korea and abroad such as Yun Seok-nam, Kim Won-suk, No Eun-nim, Lee Bul, Seong Ok-hi, Kim Su-jeong, Kim Ok-jo, and Mary E. Rottger. Engravings by Oh Yun, traditional-style paintings by Lee Ho-shin and Lee Bang-ja, calligraphy by Lee Mi-kyeong, woodwork by Lim Hong-sun, and sculptures by Choi Seung-won were also put on display.
Five Year Collection of Traditional Art (Sep 2001)
During the five years from 1996 to 2001, the Ewha Womans University Museum collected traditional artifacts donated by 25 people, who are current or retired professors, alumnae, or collectors who wished to contribute to the development of the Museum. The pieces on display included earthenware, traditional clothing, shoes, wooden printing blocks, and stone sculptures, all of which were once considered merely folklore material but have recently been recognized for their value as traditional art. Chinese ceramics were also displayed, which was very significant in terms of the Museum's future development into an international ceramics research institute.
20 Years Result of Excavating Kilns (Sep 2001)
Ever since the Ewha Womans University Museum discovered a Joseon dynasty (1392~1910) white porcelain kiln in Gyeonggi-do, Bunwon-ri in 1985, it has continuously carried out kiln excavations in various areas. The excavations produced significant achievements, resulting in the discovery of high-quality artifacts, furnaces, work places, and other material with which to identify production techniques, thereby rewriting the history of Korean ceramics. The exhibition displayed the results of the past twenty years of excavation, which included seven royal white porcelain kilns dating from the 15th to the 17th century found in Gyeonggi-do, Gwangju, three provincial white porcelain kilns found in Anseong, and two Buncheong-ware kilns, all of which date from the Joseon dynasty. In addition, a kiln from the Unified Silla period (661-935) discovered in Yeongam's Gurim Village, which produced the first known Korean glazed ceramics, and ceramic fragments and kiln tools found in two kilns from the Goryeo dynasty (918~1392) were put on display. Further Goryeo pieces from a celadon kiln in Buan-gun, Yucheon-ri, as well as Joseon Buncheong-ware pieces from Udong-ri, and Joseon white porcelain artifacts from Gangwon-do, Yanggu-gun, were also put on display. Finally, excavation equipment, such as tools and cameras, used in the 1960s by the Ewha Womans University Museum was also displayed, exhibiting the excavation history of the Museum as well.
The Emille Bell: Traces of Ancient Korean Paintings (2000)
Because there are not many paintings extant from prior to the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910), the history of Korean painting is largely composed of paintings from that era. But through the murals from the Three Kingdoms period (57 B.C.-668) and the paintings, sculptures, celadon, and metal works of the Goryeo dynasty (918-1392), we can confirm that there were many magnificent examples of paintings that predate the Joseon dynasty. The Museum organized this exhibit with paintings and artifacts dating from the prehistoric age to Goryeo in an effort to fill the gaps in the history of Korean painting. Bowls with comb patterns from the Neolithic Age (5000 B.C.-1000 B.C.), bronze bowls and stone carvings found in Goryeong and Ulju from the Bronze Age, and ceramics from the Silla kingdom (57 B.C.-668) display that Korea possesses a geometrical and descriptive tradition. The paintings from Silla can also be glimpsed in the roof tiles from Unified Silla period (661~935), rubbings of the twelve astrological signs from tombs around Gyeongju, and in the rubbings taken from bronze bells such as the Sacred Bell of the great King Seongdeok (702-737). Goryeo celadon pieces with designs other than the typical arrangements of people, cranes, and peonies, metal artifacts such as copper incense burners, and Goryeo stone coffins with various designs, such as animals, plants, people, and structures, all suggest aspects of the paintings from the Goryeo dynasty.
