KF뉴스레터-KF Cultural Center Hosts 'Buddhist Art of India' Exhibition

KF Cultural Center Hosts 'Buddhist Art of India' Exhibition

"Buddhist Art of India: Exhibition from the National Museum, New Delhi," which opened on January 17 at the Korea Foundation Cultural Center, came to a close on February 28. The Korea Foundation and India's National Museum in New Delhi co-organized the exhibition, which was presented after two years of preparation, featuring 51 rare artifacts dating from the 2nd century B.C. to the 20th century A.D. Of note, this was the first-ever special exhibition of Indian Buddhist art held in Korea.
As for the KF Cultural Center, it has hosted a variety of exhibitions, one or two events each month on average, since its opening in September 2005. However, this marked the first time that the KF Cultural Center has directly participated in organizing an exhibition that displayed actual relics, including stone and bronze sculpture works.
In particular, there were a number of hurdles to overcome, such as a lack of professional curators and conservators and limited know-how of exhibiting such artifacts. Nonetheless, with much effort and the valuable assistance of such experts as Prof. Lee Ju-hyung of Seoul National University, a specialist in the Buddhist art of India who was retained as a project curator, a professional exhibition agency with much experience in organizing this kind of event for national and public museums, a transporter of artworks, and a publishing firm, the various preparations proceeded smoothly.

With this being the first-ever special exhibition of Indian Buddhist art in Korea, the event attracted much attention from the media, which featured a total of 50 related articles. And thanks to this publicity, the number of visitors to the six-week exhibition amounted to 4,520. This number is not as large as that of large-scale exhibitions at major museums or galleries; however, with the majority of visitors being university students and working professionals, with some kind of ties to Buddhism or India, they showed an especially keen interest in the displayed works.
The number of exhibits, 51 in total, was relatively limited, but many visitors spent more than three hours carefully viewing the items, and there were repeat visitors as well. In addition, notable figures of prominent museums and cultural researchers as well as leaders of the art and Buddhist circles came by to view the exhibition, who were all favorably impressed. In a survey conducted to assess the satisfaction level of viewers, of 200 respondents, more than 70 percent indicated that they were "very satisfied" or "satisfied" with the exhibition.

Added Diversity of Visitors

In conjunction with the exhibition, the Indian Embassy in Seoul provided DVDs of five Indian movies, previously not shown in Korea, which were screened on 20 occasions in February. Even though the films were in Hindi or Bengalese, with English subtitles, the response was better than expected. For the showings on Saturday afternoon, as many as 100 viewers turned up, well exceeding the normal capacity of the center's video room. And there were also requests for additional showings.
The exhibition, however, failed to attract a larger number of visitors despite it being a noteworthy special exhibition of unique relics, due to a lack of full-scale PR activities. Furthermore, it was not possible to have a comprehensive catalogue published in time for the exhibition due to an inability to reach a consensus on various details.
Despite these difficulties, the KF Cultural Center did acquire valuable expertise about the organization and exhibition of relics from abroad over the course of the two-year preparation period. Moreover, this exhibition also provided an excellent opportunity for the KF Cultural Center to broaden the scope of its visitors.

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KF Cultural Center Hosts 'Buddhist Art of India' Exhibition

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