Tag Archives: Creative talent

Cases

Hanjin Shipping, the box project

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DML_Hanjin

MMCA (national Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art) is a representative museum located in the center of Seoul, Korea. In the museum stood an eye-popping art piece. It is “Home within Home within Home within Home within Home” and sponsored by Hanjin Shipping, the 8th biggest shipping company following Maersk, MSC, and CMA-CGM. Probably, it will take ages for a shipping company to obtain some artistic flavor. However, its effort will be paid off in the long run. Even a financial company such as Hyundai Card goes with musicians and support creative talents.

 

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… Hanjin Shipping The Box Project is an MMCA’s ambitious project through which Seoul Box is accoutered with artists’ ingenious and stimulating ideas. MMCA has selected Do Ho Suh (1962- ) as the protagonist for the Project’s first chapter held in celebration of the historic opening of National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea’s Seoul Branch…

This huge fabric installation of Suh entitled ‘Home Within Home Within Home Within Home Within Home’ is specially created to epitomize the vital spatial property of Seoul Box that can be undeniably characterized by its abundant natural light coming through its glass walls and the historical attribute of the Seoul branch’s compound in which traditional, modern and contemporary buildings embrace each other…

This work is comprised of a life-size (12 meters in height, 15 meters in width) replica of the three-story town house at Providence, Rhode Island, which was the artist’s first residence where he lived as a student in the United States in 1991 and ‘Seoul Home,’ a reproduction of his family’s traditional-style Korean house in Seoul, hanging in the middle of the former…

As one can infer from the title, the work elucidates and conjures the ever-expanding concept of space: traditional Korean house within Western-style house; Western-style house with Seoul Box; Seoul Box within the Seoul branch; the Seoul branch within Seoul… (written by Chuyoung Lee, Associate Curator. Click here for the complete introduction)

 

 

Cases

What is the right choice for museum curators?

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DML_Boston

While I stayed in Boston for the conference, I visited Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), Boston and met an intriguing decision-making question. I took a picture of a panel titled Making Choices which says,

Every gallery represents a long series of choices. Who decides which works go on view and how they should be arranged? What factors go into making that decision? Does the Museum have consistent guidelines about what should be on view — or do the rules change from gallery to gallery?

Ultimately, the MFA’s curators are responsible for deciding what you see in the galleries, for making choices from the Museum’s rich collections that do justice to the art and engage the viewer. Context is key — what is the story to be told? Should the gallery be a survey of a whole period or should it showcase just a few artists in depth? Should it provide variety or set up close comparisons? Re-create a sense of a historical period, focus on a specific style, or feature that character of individual objects? Curators work with a team of designers and educators in considering these issues and making these decisions.

And finally there is the question of quality. Which works are the most compelling? In which are the artist’s skills most effectively employed? Where are materials used with the greatest sophistication or technical ability? And what about condition: does the work still represent the artist’s intent at the time it was made?

Indeed, curators face a decision-making task regarding how to display an artifact. Do they complete the artifact to restore its original appearance (e.g., sofa with hypothetical cushions) or do they remain the artifact as-is for further studies (e.g., sofa frame only)? Unfortunately, there is no right answer for this question. I wish some behavioral decision theory researchers discuss this issue seriously.

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Reference

Einhorn, H. J., & Hogarth, R. M. (1981). Behavioral decision theory: Processes of judgement and choice. Annual review of psychology, 32(1), 53-88.