Ha Jung-Woong, who is Korean-Japanese, has donated some ten thousand pieces of art and important historical records to Korea’s art museums over the past two decades. The works he has donated have greatly contributed to the construction of a domestic art museums infrastructure and to the improvement of Korea’s artistic tradition. For this the national network council of city and province art museums has come to seek a method to promote Ha Jung-Woong’s spirit of giving and for all Koreans to enjoy and appreciate the Ha Jung-Woong Collection.

The exhibition is undertaken as a touring exhibition co-sponsored by eight city and province art museums in Seoul, Gwangju, Busan, Pohang, Jeonbuk, Jeju, Daejeon and Daegu, and this is its second stop, succeeding the exhibition at the Seoul Museum of Art in April and May. Meanwhile, each participating art museum is planned to present a different theme after having researched and analyzed the Ha Jung-Woong Collection from a varying angle(s), preserving its own regional characteristics and curatorial capabilities.

The national city-and-province-art-museums network project, initiated through this sharing of the Ha Jung-Woong Collection, will present a search for methods to exchange and activate art museum collections and a progressive direction for inter-regional cultural exchange. It will also be an opportunity for the sublime intentions of Ha Jung-Woong, who has dedicated his life for the public’s benefit, to become propagated to different parts of our society.

The Characteristics of the Ha Jung-Woong Collection and the Exhibition’s Constitution The Ha Jung-Woong Collection holds a very specific life philosophy acquired by a Korean-Japanese through the special historic, period context of relations between Korea and Japan and between the two Koreas. Also, the basic purpose of Ha’s art collecting stemmed from an ethical awareness of discarding private interests for the public good, in which any concept of investing for one’s own enrichment is excluded.

The characteristics of the Ha Jung-Woong Collection can largely be grouped into three categories. First as “art as historical testimony” recording the era and lives of people, second as “art of prayers” mourning the social minorities who had been unjustly sacrificed within the whirlpool of history, and third as “art which provides happiness,” which is a message toward love and peace. The exhibition constitution is distinguished into the three sections of “evidence,” “prayers” and “happiness” in order to include the characteristics of the Ha Jung-Woong Collection in their entirety, and consists of the great number of some three hundred pieces of works by a total of forty-eight artists. This exhibition is expected to become a significant opportunity to understand the philosophy behind the Ha Jung-Woong Collection, of saving individuals through the medium of art and, further, of wishing for all oppression and poverty to disappear, as well as for the attainment of love and peace.

*image (left)
From Point, 1974
© Lee Ufan

Courtesy of Gwangju Art Museum