Korea Rediscovered! Treasures from German Museums presents for the first time a selection of roughly 100 objects from the most important collections of Korean art and culture in Germany comprising a total of more than 6,000 items. The exhibition provides an insight into the diversity and unique tradition of Korean art. It includes outstanding examples of Celadon ware and Buddhist painting from the Goryeo dynasty (918-1392)
alongside examples of painting from the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910) with its Confucian influences and also shows objects of monumental and highly colourful shamanic art as well as works of popular religion. At the Museum of East Asian Art in Cologne this selection from the fields of ceramics and Buddhist painting will be complemented by additional works of art.

The unique show highlights the origins and history of German collections of Korean art. These were begun at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries when German diplomats and art collectors as well as missionaries and explorers set off for Korea to research the culture of this country which had for centuries been closed to the outside world. They amassed collections which were either influenced by the early 20th century view of art or by their interests in ethnography or applied art. While the exhibition makes possible an appreciation of Korean art by themes and genres, the essays in the catalogue provide an insight into the history of the collections of the various museums and the history of German-Korean cultural and political relations. Thanks to loans from Museum Ludwig the Museum of East Asian Art has the unique opportunity to create a bridge to the present-day and as a complement show important works by the Korean video artist Nam Jun Paik (1932-2006), who was active in the Rhineland for many years.

After its first stop in Cologne the exhibition will be shown in 2012 and 2013 at the Grassi Museum in Leipzig, the Museum of Applied Art in Frankfurt and the Linden Museum in Stuttgart, in each case with different foci.

Korea Rediscovered! Treasures from German Museums was made possible on the initiative and with the generous financial support of the Korea Foundation.

Our sincere thanks also go to the Linden Museum in Stuttgart, especially to Uta Werlich, who supported the preparations for the exhibition and together with Maya Stiller (UCLA, University of California, Los Angeles) edited the German-English catalogue. Ken Voss was responsible for the selection of objects; Maya Stiller provided expert input and was active in an advisory capacity.

Without the willingness of the nine German museums taking part to put their works of art at our disposal for this exhibition, it would not have been possible to realize the project. Our gratitude is due to all who provided loans. The Museum of East Asian Art is also sincerely grateful to Museum Ludwig for its expert and unbureaucratic assistance in the preparations of the loan of the works by Nam Jun Paik.

Shamanism

There is archaeological evidence of the animistic religion of shamanism (Mugyeo) on the Korean peninsula from the early Bronze Age. As the Samguk Yusa, the Korean history book reports, shamanic sacrificial rituals were carried out as early as the period before the Three Kingdoms (1st century BC – 3rd century AD) by the kings who acted as priests. The great importance of shamanism in Korea is also reflected in the crowns elaborately made from beaten gold sheet which bore numerous c-shaped jade pendants, gold sequins and antler-like protrusions derived from north Asian priestly crowns. Although Buddhism was elevated to the rank of state religion officially in 527 AD by King Pophung, Korean kings carried out shamanic rituals un-til well into the 12th century. The fact that from the United Silla Kingdom (688-918) onwards Buddhism was linked in part to shamanism can be seen in the "ideology of the flower youths" (hwarangdo), which provided spiritual and military training for young aristocrats and which contained both Buddhist and shamanic elements.

First indications of pictorial representations of shamanic deities are to be found in the text "The collected works of Minister Yi of the Land of the East" from the Goryeo period, in which there is a report of a dancing shaman, who created an altar in her house surrounded by painted deities. During the Choseon dynasty (1392-1910) shamanism practised also by women was officially persecuted, as the music and the dance performed by both sexes was regarded as immoral. Nevertheless, the shamanic rituals in which mainly priestesses (mudang) made contact in trance to the world of the spirits, have been preserved to this day. In these rituals it is intended that the spirits should make contact with clients, ensure good fortune or heal illnesses.

In addition to trance-like dancing, music and sacrificial offerings, female shamans dressed in colourful gowns also call upon the help of tutelary deities represented in images. These include the mountain god Sanshin, the sun and moon as deities, and also the Buddhist guardian god Witae as well as Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.

Buddhism

Buddhism came to Korea via China and according to written records was introduced to Goguryeo (37 BC-668 AD), the most northerly of the Three Kingdoms, in the year 372. In the year 384 Buddhism is also attested in the south west in the state of Baekje (18 BC-660 AD) situated on the Korean peninsula. It was not until 528 that it finally spread to the south eastern kingdom of Silla (57 BC-668 AD). With the conquest of the entire peninsula and the unification of the country under the United Kingdom of Silla (668-918) the alien religion became increasingly established with the absorption of shamanism and left impressive monuments to royal patronage especially in the capital Gyeongju located in the south east. During this period and under the subsequent Goryeo dynasty (918-1392) Buddhism had the function of supporting and protecting the state. It experienced a considerable heyday. Evidence of this is to be found in the aesthetic forms of the celadon ceramics inspired in part by Buddhist metal vessels and in the richly detailed Buddhist hanging scrolls painted in gold on fine silk. There are numerous representations of Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara on the mountain of Potalaka, receiving the boy Sudhana on his way to Enlightenment. He belonged to the religious line of the Avatamsaka or Flowergarland Sutra (Hwaeomgyo) presided over by the universal Buddha Vairocana who united all opposites in his person.

During the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910) Neo-Confucianism, which was adopted from China, was elevated to the state doctrine at court. The influence of Buddhism waned and it was increasingly relegated to the private sphere. The decline of state patronage is reflected in the simple hanging scrolls painted in opaque, bright colours on hemp fabric but also in the increase in importance of divinities of popular religion such as the shamanic mountain god Shansin. Numerous ceremonies were dedicated to the dead who after their death had to go through ten Buddhist Hells before being reborn. Images of the Ten Kings of Hell or the water-land-ritual to nourish the souls of all deceased creatures were donated for the Buddhist temple halls.

Alongside these forms of popular religion the meditation school (son), which came into being under the Goryeo dynasty, still exists. This line is maintained by the Chogye Order, one of the few Buddhist churches to survive in the face of Christianity which is important in present-day Korea.

Confucianism and literati art

Under the Goryeo dynasty (918-1392) Buddhism was supported by the Korean royal family and nobility. Towards the end of the dynasty, however, more and more officials and cultured literati (sadaebu) turned their backs on it. Instead they modelled themselves on the Chinese Song dynasty (960-1279) and adopted Confu-cian ideas to explain the origins of man and the universe as well as the ideal of a harmonious social order. The views of the Neo-Confucians of the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910) with regard to the family and society were based on the "Family rules of the Zhu family" formulated by the Chinese philosopher Zhu Xi (1130-1200). The central principles of Confucian social ethics were loyalty of the subject towards the ruler, childlike respect of the son for his parents, subordination of the woman towards the man etc. Military and civil officials (yangban), who had replaced the old aristocracy and were recruited from the freemen of the country, formed the new élite of the dynasty. In the early 15th century education developed into a means of upward social mobility. In this atmosphere the invention of the Korean syllabic script (hangul) took place, which was no longer based on Chinese characters and which reproduced colloquial Korean speech in a phonetic script. The representations of bamboo, landscape and literary themes in ink inspired by Chinese models served to decorate the studies of the cultured literati. The pure white porcelain, which was used in everyday life especially in ancestor worship, also reflected the preferred simplicity of Confucian aesthetics.

The destruction and losses resulting from the invasions of the Japanese ruler Toyotomi Hideoshi in the late 16th century and the attacks of the Manchurian Qing dynasty (1644-1911), which ruled China, brought about a turning point in the history of the Joseon dynasty.

In the 18th and 19th centuries groups of literati who were not close to the government and who were interested in the reform of Confucian norms, grew stronger and turned back to the independent tradition, history and geography (silhak) of Korea. From the 18th century onwards this development inspired not only the depiction of the Korean landscape in painting but also the systematic representation of Korea on maps.

The video artist Nam Jun Paik and the film "Global Groove"

Nam Jun Paik (1932-2006), the pioneer of video art, came to the Rhineland at the end of the 1950s as a musician and composer, where he studied under Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007) in Cologne. Paik was fascinated by Stockhausen's crea-tive use of the new electronic possibilities in music. The approach of John Cage (1912-1992), according to which the production of art no longer requires an author as it is left to chance and the everyday, also inspired Paik. He valued John Cage highly and integrated him in his work on several occasions.

Nam Jun Paik realized numerous artistic performances in the 1960s as a member of the Fluxus movement, which rejected the traditional concept of art and saw the es-sence of art exclusively in the idea itself. For example in the "24-hour happening" in 1965 at Galerie Parnass in Wuppertal with Charlotte Moormann (1933-1991) and other artists, the cellist undressed and finally fell into a deep sleep on the stage clad in transparent cling foil. In the late 1960s Paik began to experiment with TV sets, composing different and electronically alienated TV pictures.

From 1979 to 1996 Paik was a professor at the Düsseldorf Art Academy but lived mainly in New York. Although he suffered a stroke in 1996 he continued to work with the help of his assistants and in the year 2000 was honoured in a great retrospective of his work at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Nam Jun Paik died in 2006 in Miami, Florida.

In 1973 he created the video collage or musical composition "Global Groove". Dance scenes, synthetic artistic settings and also television commercials are electronically distorted using a video synthesizer and interpret the accompanying music visually. In Global Groove Paik contrasted eastern and western dance and music scenes in the sense of Marshal McLuhan (1911-1980) as the "global rhythm" of the modern period. In this video Paik was interested in the medium itself and in the demonstration of the power of a flood of images.