Museumification Issues of Korean Folk Sculpture in the 21st Century

Annotation. This paper raises the problem of attitude to the folk sculpture in South Korea and beyond. While Korean Buddhist sculpture is considered as traditional form of art and could often be found in the museums, folk sculpture is preserved only as several items in the Folk Museum of Korea and in a few ethnographic villages. Meanwhile, there are many types of folk sculpture with various iconography and made of diverse materials. This uniqueness suggests the necessity of preservation and museumification of the Korean folk sculpture for the future generations. The main purpose of this research is to identify the problems of the museumification of Korean folk sculpture and to offer some solutions to these problems. This purpose is achieved by analyzing the current place of this type of sculpture in the art and culture of the Republic of Korea. The main objects of the current research are Jangseung, Sotdae and Dol Hareubang folk sculptures made of wood or stone. These types of the Korean folk statuary were chosen for the study due to their prevalence in South Korea and worldwide. Illustrious is the case of the 15 Jangseung totem poles donated to the city of Saint Petersburg’s by Korean diplomats in 2003. These fine sculptures were gradually destroyed by weather and vandals by 2015. In the the study, the following methods are used: iconographic, social history of art, as well as formal analysis and case study. This paper consists of three chapters. The first one depicts the tradition of creation and usage of Jangseung, Sotdae and Dol Hareubang sculpture as well as the preservation of this tradition nowadays. The second chapter researches some examples of placing these sculptures in a modern rural and urban spaces. This is especially important as South Korea has turned into a state with a highly developed urban culture, partially absorbing the village, where these sculptures were originally erected. The third chapter examines the approaches to the museumification of folk plastics in other countries comparing them to the Korean ones. As the conclusion some suggestions on how to preserve Korean folk sculpture will be offered.