한국사회에서 미술은 무엇일까요. 정말 세간에 비치는 것 처럼 세속적인 비자금 조성이나 상속수단일까요. 물론 머리좋은 나쁜 사람들의 손에 들어가면 미술품의 팔자가 그리 될 수도 있겠지요. 뒤웅박 팔자라는 말처럼.

하지만 오늘날의 미술은 단순하게 아름다운 것을 표현한 것도, 작가의 세계관이 반영된 철학적 이고 미학적인 것도 아닙니다. 실은 미술이란 당대의 세상 모든 것을 포함하는 종합예술입니다. 예술을 의미하던 ART라는 단어가  미술 즉 FINE ART를 대체하는 뜻으로 사용되는 것도 그런 이유에서입니다. 

이번 정부가 그런 점을 간파하고 '문화융성'을 통해 '창조경제'의 기반을 조성하려했는지는 모르겠으나 유럽엽합의 향후 5년간의 프로젝트는 정말 그들이 문화와 예술 그리고 창조라는 것을 어떻게 이해하고 있는지를 명징하게 보여주는 일 같습니다. 장르와 국가의 융복합을 시도하면서 그 중심에 미술을 아트를 위치시키는 그 자세와 태도야 말로 그들이 역시 문화선진국이라는 것을 다시한번 강하게 드러냅니다. 

그리고 유명한 수완좋은 화상(그림장사)이었던 제프르 다이치가 2년전 세계최초로 화상으로서 LA의 MOCA 관장으로 취임해서 찬반 양론이 엇갈리더니 5년임기중 2년이 지났는데 경질소식이 들려옵니다. 

글쎄 미술관 관장이란 자리가 영업력 좋은 화상이나 명망가 또는 기업의 CEO가 맏는 자리는 아니라는 사실이 입증된 셈입니다. 자란 환경과 일하고 일을 배운 조건과 환경도 매우 중요한 것 같습니다. 그런 점에서 우리 국공립 미술관의 관장들의 면면을 다시한번 새겨보게 됩니다. 누구나 다 할 수 있지만 아무나 해서는 안되는 일이 있어 전문직이란 말을 사용하는 것인가 봅니다. 얼마전 드라마에서 이런 말이 나오더군요. 야 이 창호가 바둑판을 지켜야지, 왜 장기를 두려고 해? 하고 말입니다. 하지만 바둑으로 입신한 사람들 중 장기판이나 오목판은 물론 카지노까지 넘 보는 사람들이 있는 것이 우리의 현실이 아닌가 합니다.     

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1신 

European culture fund grants €1.9m to five-year global art project

Headed by Spanish artist and philosopher, Metabody aims to generate “unprecedented convergence” of art, technoscience, philosophy and social activism

By Laurie Rojas. Web only

Published online: 24 July 2013

Metabody's founder Jaime del Val says the project aims “to invert the mechanistic approach to movement” and the view that “bodies can be analysed and reduced to a set of universal human emotions”

Despite public arts funding drying up across Europe, the EU’s Culture Programme has granted €1.9m to Metabody, a five-year global art project that starts this July. Headed by the Spanish artist and philosopher Jaime del Val, Metabody, which stands for Media Embodiment Tékhne and Bridges of Diversity, is a collaborative project among 11 partner organisations and 19 associated partners in 14 countries across Europe and the Americas.

The Culture Programme funds projects that “aim to encourage the mobility of artists, arts professionals and cultural workers across different countries”, says Christoph Jankowski, a UK representative for the programme. “We are not interested in supporting touring exhibitions, but in something that makes a real change through collaboration, and has a life beyond the funding period. It's all about how how many citizens participate and collaborate.” Projects are not selected by bureaucrats either, but by a rotating jury of independent professionals in culture, heritage, visual and performing arts.

The programme has funded several large-scale collaboration projects before, but Del Val says, “this project generates an unprecedented convergence of art, technoscience, philosophy and social activism”. Metabody aims “to invert the mechanistic approach to movement” and the view that “bodies can be analysed and reduced to a set of universal human emotions”. Del Val sites the proliferation of “emoticon culture” and “reductionist” facial recognition technology as examples of one of the most fundamental problems of our time. “In the example of the Snowden case,” he says, “the issue is not our right for privacy, but how corporations are using all sorts of data, giving form to our desires and capitalising on everything we do.”

Metabody's five-year schedule of 25 events includes conferences, workshops and research, leading to the completion, in the fifth year, of an interactive laboratory for understanding how technology affects bodies. This mobile architectural structure will travel to nine countries and will be designed in collaboration with the Hyperbody research group in Delft University in the Netherlands, who are experts in interactive and digital architecture, along with other architectural partners in Chile and Spain. 

The first conference, “Metahuman/Metaformance Studies: 3,000 Years of Posthuman History”, at Medialab Prado in Madrid, will run from 24 July to 31 July, 2013. The keynote speaker of the conference is Katherines Hayles, the author of the 1999 book, How We Became Post-Human and will include presentations of projects received from open calls, many on topics focused on diversity. The conference will be live-streamed through a link at metabody.eu. Artists can visit the site for further programming and open calls. Metabody conferences will be taking place every four months in a different country for the next five years. 

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2신 

Speculation grows about change at the top at MoCA, Los Angeles

Board expected to meet as rumours swirl about Jeffrey Deitch’s imminent departure

By Javier Pes. Web only

Published online: 24 July 2013

Deitch at the opening of “Art in the Streets” at Moca's Geffen Contemporary space

Although the director of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), Los Angeles, Jeffrey Deitch, has two years to go of his five-year contract, his departure may be imminent. Unnamed sources close to the institution have told the Los Angeles Times and New York Times that the museum’s board is due to meet today (23 July) and a statement is expected shortly about finding his successor. The institution did not respond to our request for a comment after LA Weekly first reported that he was in the process of resigning.

See also:

• Is a LA MoCA/Lacma merger on the horizon?

• Spate of high-profile resignations at Los Angeles museum

• Deitch to take over MOCA

A gallerist turned museum director, Deitch took the helm of MoCA in 2010, having run the New-York-based, for-profit Deitch Projects since 1996. Through shows such as the graffiti art blockbuster “Art in the Streets” (2011) and the launch of MoCA TV (2012), the institution aimed to attract a bigger and younger audience. 

Soon after Deitch’s arrival, MoCA’s galleries on Grand Avenue were re-hung, giving prominence to works from the Panza collection, something close to the heart of Eli Broad, the LA-based philanthropist, key MoCA supporter and general mover and shaker. Deitch’s strategy worked initially: attendance shot up to 402,000 in 2011 largely due to “Art in the Streets” at its Geffen Contemporary space. But last year, total attendance across the institution’s three venues had fallen to 249,000 visitors. 

Last summer, the institution weathered a storm of criticism when its longstanding chief curator Paul Schimmel left abruptly, closely followed by the resignation of its artist-trustees, including John Baldessari, Catherine Opie and Barbara Kruger. And this spring, MoCA’s trustees were forced to issue a statement insisting that the board was “committed to independence” after speculation that a merger with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art was possible. 

A fundraising drive resulted in pledges of more than $75m by MoCA’s trustees and supporters, which if received will do much to restore the finances of an institution that was in financial disarray before Deitch’s appointment. Cost cutting and unfilled posts have left MoCA with only two full-time curators.