서양미술제도사에서 ‘에코뮤지엄’ 개념의 전개와 그 현재적 의미

The end of museum is a usual phrase nowadays. Museums, of which the history is over 200 years in western society, are suffering an identity crisis. Then the question is what the museum will be in the age to come. The main characteristics of recent museum exhibitions are, in a word, to be a spectacle. Even the contents and forms of the shows are almost spectacle-like. The term blockbuster is now a trend in exhibition practice, seemingly in hope of attracting as many visitors as possible. Its easy to see ahistorical exhibitions which tries to leave the purism and historicism of modernism, and also, informative exhibitions, that hope to take art down to a more understandable level. Further, we quite often see the commodities are replacing the art works in the museum display. The postmodern style shows which resulted mainly from the wish to raise the number of visitors already surpassed the traditional style shows in numbers. The museums identity crisis comes from such changes in museum practice. The museum is required to follow the rule of corporations, in the sense that the art works are viewed to be art works as commodity. The museum buildings are one of the key points on the tourist map, and the curators watch with a sigh as the core of museum operations lies in the success of the museum cafe and art shop. Visitors see the blockbuster and popular shows as almost fashion, and the mega museums like Solomon R. Guggenheim are competing to expand via franchising. Eco-museum is one of the alternatives among the new museums that counter the rapid changes in mainstream museums culture. The background of the rise of eco-museum are as follows: The difficulties in centralized museum system design and operation are revealed one by one. The works for display are out of their cultural context, and thus are stuffed. Now, visitors are attracted more by the entertainment than the fine art show itself, and the cultural sensibility of the general public has changed. Easy, fast access to any type of mass culture threatens the museums existence. The higher collection budget goes, while less is the availability. However, concerns about the ecology and its necessity are raised. People realized that they may create the synergy effect between the individual projects and activities through networking, and thus, intensifying significant meanings. While justifying to and increasing the volunteer of community members, museums are expected to raise the demand and supply of services and cut expenses. Today, It is not easy to establish a hard museum that has large competing collections and archives. And even if it is possible, the maintenance costs are another bottleneck. The preference for the soft museum came from these concerns. We can see the advent of eco-museum and its concept being practiced in museum practice in countries like France, Japan, Canada, and Australia, and it is conceived to be a new approach to museums that are put in a dilemma. However, it seems that this approach follows the natural consequences rather than the discontinuous alternative. Now the museum visitors can get back the chance to reflect and appreciate at the eco-museum what theyve lost, the practice of reflection, at the modern museums that have forced them into the passive visual practice. So the eco-museum works as a mirror. At the eco-museum, it is hard to see the art works being produced on a commercial scale because being on the spot is considered as a main concept along with the showing art works in context. At the modern museum, the visitors have monopolized aesthetic experiences and indulged in the visual consumption due to the privatization of the observatory tendencies that have lasted since the 19th century. However, at the eco-museum, the visual experiences are shared among the community. Modern museum reflects, intensifies, and carves a seal on the paradigm of the society where it belongs to, while the eco-museum suggests a new paradigm. There is a distinct difference between a modern museum and an eco-museum in the basic standard of value and in the view of culture and cosmology. The one dreams of the infinite development of humans while the other tries to discover the continuous development. The solemn ritual of modern museums and the fanatic festivals in post-modern museums are common now, while the preservation and revival of our ordinary value are considered first at the eco-museum. Daily life and art are not separated but unified. For example, a rural community could be one eco-museum and then, the fact that labor in the field itself is an act of art would become evident. Even the farmers themselves could feel that all their labors are, in essence, creative ones, and realize their usual way of life is a kind of art practice. This realization will enhance their pride, and thus lead them to an ecological value of standard and finally, to a new way of life. In such eco-museums, the volunteer of community members are fundamental to museum practice. Quality of the contents and system design is more important than the isolated, mega-size buildings. The concept of museum focuses on museum as a networking center that spreads and immerses entirely into the communitys lives. It is possible to collect the items without purchasing or donations. Site-specific display or display on the spot would be introduced, rather than display in an alarmed room. They can realize that the whole community is one museum and all the community members are curators. Eco-museums will also have effects concerning matters of environmental and economical significance. It is conceived that if such new practice were realized, the management of eco-museums would be more successful than the traditional museums, in terms of economical efficiency, popular approach, active participation, originality of management system, and the intensified quality of appreciation. However, It is surprising that such efforts have been in conduct without the notion of eco-museum, and we can see some were effective. At this point, it should be noted that such alternative efforts should be systemized and realized as a model of the eco-museum. Also, a new way of viewing the museum should be suggested with the focus on the turn of the concept and the innovation of the system in museum practice without the tenacity for the eco-museum term itself. In Korea a city in the countryside studied the possibility of eco-museum as a way of exhibiting the history archive center master planning. The client, the municipal office, received the new concept of eco-museum with much positive aid. But here in Korea, where the traditional museum practice is still undeveloped, it is very possible that the effort to turn the new concept into standard museum practice would be frustrating. I have examined the concept of eco-museum in its current context, and focused on the implication of the concept of new museum practice without too much concern to the term itself. I also revealed the meaning, possibility and limitation of the concept of eco-museums within Korean museum culture.

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