The South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism‘s 2022 budget of 7.153 trillion KRW ($6.1 billion) passed the parliament, and 5.8 billion KRW ($5 million) was allocated to the late Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee’s donated collections.
Exhibition view of "MMCA Lee Kun-hee Collection: Masterpieces of Korean Art," MMCA, Seoul. Courtesy of Korea Policy Briefing (www.korea.kr).
Of the 23,181 donated works, 9,797 (about 21,600 pieces) went to the National Museum of Korea, and 1,226(1,488 pieces) are at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art.
A total of 2.5 billion KRW will be used to organize special exhibitions at public museums around the country to create an accessible cultural resource for the public.
Another 3.3 billion KRW will be used to set up a database to manage the artworks, research the collections, and equip facilities.
김환기(Kim Whanki), 여인들과 항아리, 1950년대, 캔버스에 유채, 281.5x567cm. ⓒ (재)환기재단·환기미술관 Whanki Foundation·Whanki Museum
이중섭(Lee Jung-Seob), '황소(Bull'), 1950년, 종이에 유채, 26.5x36.7cm © Lee Jung-Seob
Meanwhile, the Culture Ministry announced in July that the “Lee Kun-hee Donation Hall,” where the collections will be placed, will be built in Seoul.
The collection is known to be worth billions of dollars, and it is expected that the newly built museum will create a vast cultural and artistic infrastructure around the area.
