2024-04-14 09:42:24
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Entered 2024.04.14 18:42 Modified 2024.04.14 21:41 Ground A1
The road to becoming a cultural powerhouse in 100 years
The world’s cities are part 2 of the culture war.
(8) Why art should be free
Korea going once morest global trendsNational treasure-level overseas exhibition costs billions of won
Japan collects admission fees to cover exhibition costs
Korea’s weak profit base limits the exhibition of masterpieces
Photo = Getty Image Bank In March last year, regarding 160 famous paintings by Paul Gauguin, Claude Monet, and others were exhibited for regarding three months at the National Museum of Western Art in Ueno Park, Tokyo, Japan. In October, the ‘Cubist Revolution’ exhibition continued with regarding 140 masterpieces centered on Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. The National Museum of New Art’s ‘Louvre Museum – Painting Love’ and ‘Tate Museum – Light, Turner’ also attracted great interest. Many domestic art lovers boarded a plane to Tokyo solely for the purpose of viewing the exhibition.
In Seoul, such a blockbuster exhibition may be held once a year. Why do masterpieces from around the world go to Tokyo but not Seoul? The answer lies in ‘money’. Even if just one piece of a national treasure masterpiece were to be released overseas, it would cost tens to hundreds of millions of won. A typical exhibition requires 3 to 10 billion won in rental fees, transportation fees, insurance premiums, etc. However, Korea’s national and public cultural and arts exhibition institutions do not have money to spend. Although it receives tens of billions of won in annual support from the government in the name of ‘cultural welfare’, it suffers from a chronic lack of funds because it does not have its own profit base. All permanent exhibitions at the National Museum of Korea are free to view, and the Seoul Museum of Art announced that all exhibitions will be free of charge. Tokyo is different. Admission fees range from 2,100 to 2,300 yen (approximately 18,900 to 27,100 won) for adults. Exhibitions by Japanese artists also adhere to the 1,800 yen admission fee.
The first issue that the Korea Economic Daily looked into as it sought to become a cultural powerhouse through a special feature for the 60th anniversary of its founding, ‘Cities around the world are in the midst of a culture war,’ was the abnormal financial structure of domestic art galleries and museums.
A country that takes ‘free art museums’ for granted will never be able to embrace world-class masterpieces.
Entrance fees to world museums range from 30,000 to 40,000 won… Only Korea calls for art welfare and insists on ‘free’
’30 Dollar Club.’ It is a keyword that penetrates famous art galleries and museums in Europe and the United States these days. In 2022, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York raised the admission fee from $25 (approximately 33,800 won) to $30 (approximately 40,600 won). Last year, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), and the Whitney Museum of American Art also increased their admission fees to $30. The Louvre Museum in Paris, France, also raised its admission fee from 17 euros (regarding 24,800 won) to 22 euros (regarding 32,200 won) early this year.
Art museums around the world are building up ‘live ammunition’
Admission fees in the 30,000-40,000 won range have already become the new normal for art galleries and museums around the world. This is a step to overcome financial difficulties caused by the decrease in visitors and rising labor costs due to the pandemic. What was the result? According to the industry on the 14th, MoMA’s sales last year were $252.23 million, up 7% from the previous year ($232.54 million). This is the result of driving growth as admission fee revenue, which was previously only $22.47 million, soared to $36.45 million last year. During the same period, sales at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Whitney Museum of American Art also increased.
The proportion of admission fees to total sales has also increased. This means that we have been able to reduce our dependence on government support and donations and stabilize our operations with our own income. Last year, admission fees accounted for 13.8% of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s sales, up 3.5 percentage points from the previous year (10.3%). Major art museums such as MoMA (14.5%), the Whitney Museum of American Art (11.2%), and the Musee d’Orsay (38%) also recorded admission fee income exceeding 10%. The revenue earned by raising admission fees was reinvested into funds to strengthen the essential competitiveness of art galleries and museums. The Pompidou Center, which raised the admission fee to 15 euros, has 1,200 photographs of Pierre Bourdieu and paintings by American painter Marsha Hafif in its collection.
The enthusiasm for securing new collections, which had dwindled following the pandemic, seems to be reigniting. Over the past three years, the Tate Gallery in London, England, has sold approximately 1,000 works of contemporary art, including those by LGBT, diaspora, and third world artists, under the theme of diversity. Last year, Britain’s National Gallery spent 8.378 million pounds (regarding 14.33157 billion won) on the purchase of new collections, including paintings by Swiss artist Ferdinand Hodler.
Korean cultural exhibition focuses on welfare
The domestic atmosphere calling for ‘free exhibitions’ is evaluated as running counter to the trend of skyrocketing admission fees to art museums around the world. This is because the government has been covering most of the admission fees to national and public art museums with taxes for decades, claiming to “guarantee the right of the majority of citizens to enjoy culture and arts.” The entrance fee to the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art is 5,000 won, which is a 1,000 won increase from last year. The National Museum of Korea’s permanent exhibitions are free to view, and the Seoul Museum of Art announced its plan to hold all exhibitions free of charge when announcing this year’s exhibition lineup in January. The problem is that such policies are producing abnormal revenue and expenditure structures for national and public art galleries and museums. The National Museum of Korea’s 2022 expenditure was 201.7 billion won, with 154.6 billion won in main project expenses and 45.3 billion won in labor costs. During the same period, the museum’s income was only 3.587 billion won. The Seoul Museum of Art’s income in 2022 was approximately 658 million won, only 3% of its annual expenditure of 15.4 billion won. The money spent on purchasing the collection was 1.3 billion won. The cost spent by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in 2022 is approximately 68.553 billion won. Admission fee revenue to cover expenditures of 70 billion won was only 1,322.3 million won. 11.078 billion won is lost annually in labor costs, but the cost of purchasing collections has remained stagnant at around 4 to 6 billion won for 10 years.
Domestic exhibition plastered with reproductions of paintings
‘Free exhibitions’ are creating a vicious cycle that will become an obstacle to improving the level of culture and arts in the long term. It begins with the fact that it is difficult to find a collection of art museums representing the country that will leave a mark on world art history.
The road to holding blockbuster masterpiece exhibitions in Korea is also jam-packed. In order to hold an exhibition in Korea featuring masterpieces by famous painters such as Vincent van Gogh and Gustav Klimt, the collections held by museums, galleries, and private collectors must be gathered in one place. This process costs at least 5 to 10 billion won, including artwork rental fees, air transportation fees, insurance premiums, and maintenance costs.
Since it is impossible to secure the basic admission fee, exhibition halls held by famous painters in Korea are often filled with only a few real paintings and posters or replicas. This is why some point out that it is time to provide cultural welfare benefits for some underprivileged groups and youth, as well as differentiated admission fees for general visitors and foreign visitors. An art industry official said, “The cultural level of domestic visitors has long surpassed the global standard, but they only sell poor exhibitions.” He added, “The number of people who go to Tokyo three or four times a year just to see exhibitions is increasing.” The museum’s solid finances lead to the nation’s soft power. This is because if you actively purchase collections from overseas auction markets and art fairs and continuously hold high-quality exhibitions, you will become a tourist resource that attracts not only domestic but also international visitors. France’s Pompidou and Louvre, and America’s Guggenheim have already become brands that move the art world and have evolved to the point of opening global branches across borders such as the Middle East, Asia, Europe, and the Americas.
Reporter Ahn Si-wook/Kim Bo-ra siook95@hankyung.com
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