The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA) has officially launched < MMCA Research Lab >, an online platform for research on Korean art. < MMCA Research Lab > shares extensive knowledge and information on Korean contemporary art and related research results. It especially aims to promote a deeper understanding and further research of the development of Korean Art after the liberation of Korea in 1945 until the present day.

< MMCA Research Lab > service is launched on a separate website (www.mmcaresearch.kr) and structured with sections such as ‘Timelines’, ‘Features’, ‘Essays’, and ‘Art Terms’. First, ‘Timelines’ organizes the history of Korean art chronologically so that it can be read at a glance; ‘Features’ introduces in-depth research findings by identifying new themes of Korean art every year; ‘Essays’ introduces various literature related to key topics, artists, and works; and ‘Art Terms’ is a list of key terminology and names in the field of Korean Art. Currently, there are 654 events in timelines, 62 essays, and 400 art terminologies in Korean and English, and more than 1,000 visual materials related to each content are posted to enrich the information on Korean art.

In particular, the first screen of the online lists keywords of Korean contemporary art organized by month from 1945-1999, which can be clicked to explore major events and activities intuitively. You can also click on the yearly chronology on the first screen to see a list of articles and related references that outline and describe the development of Korean contemporary art by decade.

< MMCA Research Lab > plans to continue to strengthen and activate the online platform to support research on Korean art, including expanding the technical scope of the art history timelines. To this end, a seminar exploring the possibilities of online platform-based research will be held in March at the MMCA Seoul. The seminar will share the launch and development process of the , and discuss the possibilities of online platform-based research activities with the audience.

Kim Sung-hee, director of MMCA, said “We hope that the , which has been the result of a long period of research in collaboration with various disciplines, will be widely disseminated to relevant researchers in Korea and abroad, as well as to the general public, and will become a major foundation for the study of Korean contemporary art.”

References

• 국립현대미술관 리서치랩(MMCA Research Lab)