The fragmentation and recombination of art production and museum productivity under the heterogeneous demands of management, economics, sociology, and public administration cannot be explained solely by the internal motivations or dynamics of the art world. What has emerged instead is a terrain in which disciplinary specializations converge on the museum, only to expose irreconcilable tensions and produce a cacophony of contending discourses with little substantive dialogue across fields. Even when such exchanges do take place, they are often subsumed under what Kaneko Atsushi has termed the “museum as imperative.”
[Museum as imperative] does not seek to explain how museums have existed, but rather to prescribe how they ought to exist. In this view, the image of the museum is posited as its “proper” form, functioning as a goal to be pursued or a slogan to be upheld. What was emphasized, in other words, was not the recognition of the museum as it actually was, but the possibility of what it could be. This has made it structurally difficult to adopt a stance that objectively analyzes the museum as a social entity.[1]
Kaneko’s proposal to treat the “museum as a social entity,” rather than the “museum as imperative,” carries a clear critical orientation. He underscores that the museum, as a “social apparatus,” has always had its character defined—whether willingly or unwillingly—by the multilayered power relations of its time and that it has been repeatedly reshaped through its mediation by changing social conditions for the purpose of “comprehensively objectifying the museum itself within its relationship to society.”[2] The social history of the museum that he unravels encompasses precisely those dimensions that the “museum as imperative” could not acknowledge and therefore sought to evade or exclude. In this way, it urgently calls attention to the fact that the museum’s darker past was not only the result of choices made by individuals and societies of the time but also a projection of certain imperatives toward the future. From today’s perspective, any discussion of the “museum as imperative” remains inseparable from these past futures and choices, as well as from the debates they continue to provoke.
Nonetheless, we have become accustomed to taking the social demands placed on museums as already given, treating the present as a “zero point” and seeking ways to adapt to it. The “digital transition” long pursued by global big-tech corporations, once mediated by urgent state-led industrial policies, swiftly permeated not only the operational and administrative systems of museums but also education and research infrastructures more broadly. In this process, museums kept pace—breathlessly—with the state, with science and technology, and with the corporate market. To characterize these developments simply as “unprecedented” is, once again, to reset the present to a zero point.
Therefore, in this essay I aim to revisit the historical moments when complex networks linking the state, science and technology, the corporate market, and the museum were formed, and to trace their continuous or intermittent transformations. The story that unfolds reaches beyond the framework of museum history. To borrow the insight of anthropologist Clifford Geertz: If “man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun,” [3] then this is a narrative of one such web—specifically, the ways the aforementioned complex networks have been woven to entangle the museum. I take as my focal point the world’s fairs (Expos), which, although often studied as the modern origins of art and the museum, cannot be confined to that genre alone. As multifarious apparatuses, expos continue to thrive on powerful political, economic, and cultural desires. They thus provide both an intersection and a model through which such “webs of significance” are spun. In particular, my focus is on the period from Expo ’67 in Montreal to Expo ’70 in Osaka, a historical turning point when the social standing of science, technology, and culture in Korea was significantly reconfigured.
The emergence of the modern museum in Korea, as in other parts of East Asia, was closely tied to responses to Western imperial expansion and encroachment. It was particularly entangled with world’s fairs, which functioned as crucial apparatuses through which nations sought survival in the struggle for existence, ensuring they would not be excluded from the order imposed by the Western powers. In the era of the Industrial Revolution and colonial development, these fairs were monumental state projects aimed at pursuing industrial modernization modeled on that of the West. They sought to promote industry and enrich the nation, while simultaneously striving to shed the stigma of “barbarism” or “primitiveness” and ascend to the ranks of “civilization” as judged by Western eyes. After liberation from Japanese colonial rule (1910–45) and the devastation of the Korean War (1950–53), Korea displayed intense interest in world’s fairs abroad. At the official expositions of the Bureau International des Expositions, Korea consistently mounted national pavilions or dispatched large delegations, exploring how best to promote and export an image of the nation as a composite of politics, economy, industry, and culture on the global stage. Beginning with its first postliberation pavilion at the Century 21 Exposition in Seattle, 1962, Korea went on to establish pavilions at Expo ’67 and Expo ’70—two presentations that diverged sharply in both appearance and theme. In Korea, the term manguk bakramhoe (world’s fair) had long been used interchangeably with segye bakramhoe (international exposition). It was at Expo ’70 that the term “expo” entered everyday Korean usage as a naturalized loanword. This linguistic shift itself marked a broader transition: from seeking industrial and economic advancement rooted in “tradition” within the paradigm of the world’s fair—where an Orientalist, exotic cultural identity was emphasized—to a “future-oriented” pursuit of technological industry, in which Korea sought to secure a new competitive position on the global stage while experimenting with the convergence of advanced technology and art.
Press coverage of Expo ’67, themed “Man and His World,” makes clear the expectations Korea invested in both the exposition itself and in its own national pavilion.[4] Foremost among the press was the fascination with scale: the “world’s largest” fairgrounds, the “unprecedented” levels of financial outlay, the number of participating countries, and the total visitors. Pavilion size was regarded as a direct measure of national strength, sparking fierce competition to assert the “greatest” presence. Most striking, however, was the rivalry between the American and Soviet pavilions—a stark reminder of the reality of the Cold War. In both expenditure and scale, the Soviet Union and the United States ranked second and third after the host nation, Canada. Their competition played out most pointedly through displays of military technology. The US pavilion, positioned beside the Korean pavilion and the Soviet pavilion across from it, vied for attention with spacecraft models, zero-gravity simulators, and other exhibits, staging what was in essence a “space race.” Equally captivating to the Korean press were the cutting-edge audiovisual technologies deployed in each of the national pavilions: the simultaneous projection of multiple images on different screens, geometrically segmented screens that fragmented into smaller units only to recombine into dynamic configurations, circus performances unfolding over images projected onto the surface of a swimming pool, and 360-degree panoramic screens encircling audiences. These latest innovations inspired nothing short of wonder.[5]
The spectacle of new technologies, however, did not become a prevailing issue in Korea at the time. Rather, the Korean pavilion at Expo ’67 placed “tradition” at the forefront, both culturally and industrially. Designed by architect Kim Swoo Geun (1931–86) and themed “Man and His Hands,” the pavilion was a wooden structure that combined “traditional architectural beauty” with a “modern sensibility.” Its interior walls were finished with exclusively Korean materials such as satin, brocade, arrow-root wallpaper, and bush clover—while a two-meter-tall chandelier modeled on a Silla golden crown hung overhead. The pavilion was described as “a handcrafted wooden building that demonstrates the intricate artistry of human handiwork.” This emphasis on traditional architectural aesthetics likely reflected an acute awareness of Korea’s relative modesty in scale. With a “meager budget of 400,000 dollars, less than one-thirtieth of that of the US or Soviet pavilions,” the Korean pavilion ranked among the smallest of the eleven Asian participants. Inside, the exhibition was divided into general and cultural sections. The general section presented industrial products such as textiles, garments, radios, and Korean-language typewriters, along with handicrafts. The cultural section showcased more than three thousand items, including national treasures and replicas on loan from the National Museum of Korea, demonstrations of ancient printing technology, a model of The Turtle Ship (a ship that played a key role in defeating Japanese navy in the Japanese Invasions of Korea between 1592 and 1598), and folk artifacts such as traditional instruments and masks.
That Korea’s participation in Expo ’67 was organized under the auspices of the Korea Trade Promotion Corporation makes clear that its overriding objective was to promote the export of Korean products. As attendance at the Korean pavilion grew, traditional handicrafts such as mother-of-pearl goods, brassware, dolls, straw slippers, cigarette cases, and ashtrays proved immensely popular, selling briskly at the pavilion’s directsales shop. The news was reported with delight, and the press optimistically declared that, with Expo ’67, Korean handicrafts had at last established a foothold in the Canadian market. In this sense, the backbone of Korea’s exports was not products of advanced industrial technology, but rather “crafts” rooted in traditional handiwork. Accordingly, the pavilion itself emphasized traditional architectural aesthetics and the artistic value of human “handiwork.”
View of the Republic of Korea pavilion, Expo ’67, Montréal, Québec, 1967 (ARCH256311). Courtesy of Canadian Centre for Architecture. Gift of May Cutler.
This disjunction between the admiration aroused abroad by the spectacle of cutting-edge science and technology and the positive reception of the Korean pavilion’s celebration of handicrafts linked to dynastic traditions or to Japan’s discriminatory colonial policies was noted by the press of the time without any apparent sense of contradiction. The pavilion’s appearance recalled the visual conventions of earlier world’s fairs, where imperial powers represented their colonies within a hierarchy of civilization and barbarism. Moreover, it seemed curiously detached from the historical diagnosis that, by the turn of the twentieth century, Korea had already recognized the urgent need to master Western science and technology for modernization and that, by around 1900, an unconditional, even blind, reverence for science and technology had already taken root.[6]
Kim Geun Bae has argued that the “scientific and technological legacy of Japanese colonial rule,” which constrained and distorted the development of science and technology in Korea, continued to wield influence after liberation across institutional, human, material, and intellectual domains. Over time, however, this legacy was gradually pushed to the margins through the destruction and reconstruction brought by the Korean War and the establishment of a national science and technology system tied to American aid. On this basis, he identifies the 1960s as the true starting point for the formation of a “modern scientific and technological system.” This shift, he contends, was driven by the Park Chung Hee government, which seized power in a military coup in 1961 and began in earnest to link science and technology with its policy of driving “economic growth” through the promotion of exports.[7] However, in the world’s fairs of the 1960s, the urgency of economic growth was not yet made visible through the achievements of cutting-edge science and technology. The Korean pavilion at Expo ’67 testifies to this: The principal exports it advertised were cultural and colonial inheritances—dynastic traditions and the refined handicrafts of household industry.
Enthusiasm for world’s fairs grew even more in the years that followed. In January 1968, a coalition of industrial and trade organizations across the public and private sectors founded the Korea Exposition Association. The association’s purpose was to promote international trade, improve domestic industrial technology, and advance the national economy by ensuring the success of expositions held in Korea and by actively supporting participation in expositions abroad. Accordingly, Expo ’70 was immediately designated as one of the organization’s principal undertakings.[8] During the preparation stage, the state pressed for nationwide participation, exerting quasi-compulsory pressure on private enterprises, state-run companies, and even Korean residents in Japan to contribute funds.[9] The Ministry of Commerce pledged robust support for participating firms.[10] To “improve the quality of export goods,” it made the dispatch of technicians mandatory for member cooperatives of the Federation of Small and Medium Businesses. The government further announced the planned dispatch of some five thousand representatives, encompassing major corporations as well as small-scale traders.[11] Although the Japanese government, emphasizing the civilizational significance of hosting the first expo in Asia, prohibited all commercial exhibitions, Korea nonetheless approached Expo ’70 in the spirit of a “total mobilization” for the urgent national policy of economic growth through export promotion, enlisting not only entrepreneurs, technicians, and traders but also overseas Koreans, whose contributions were to offset the nation’s precarious finances.
The Korean government regarded Expo ’70 as a prime opportunity for “overseas publicity,” and this perception had multiple implications. Economically, participation costs would be reduced due to geographic proximity to Japan, and foreign visitors traveling to Japan could be drawn onward to Korea as tourists.[12] There were political motives as well: to “inform the world that ancient Japanese culture had originated in Korea” and to exert pressure on pro–North Korean groups in Japan by underscoring that communist states such as North Korea, China, and Vietnam would not be participating.[13] In particular, with its heightened sense of rivalry and vigilance toward North Korea, the Korean government urged Japan to bar North Korea’s participation and, at the interministerial level, formed a Comprehensive Publicity Committee, led by the Ministry of Culture and Public Information, to “block North Korea’s propaganda offensives and carry out effective promotional activities through the Expo.” Police and prosecutors were even mobilized for counterespionage measures under the so-called Expo ’70 Operation, whose ultimate objective was to isolate North Korea in the international community.[14]
Amid this atmosphere, the Korean pavilion at Expo ’70, under the theme “Progress and Harmony for Mankind,” adopted the theme “Deeper Understanding and Friendship.” Its stated goal was “to highlight a new image through the introduction of the Korean people’s creativity and cultural development, thereby promoting mutual understanding and strengthening ties with friendly nations.” The exhibition was organized into three sections—past, present, and future—linking Korea’s cultural heritage (past), industrial development (present), and national land planning (future).[15] In its ambition to showcase national treasures alongside goods for export, the approach remained similar to that of Korea’s pavilion at Expo ’67. What was new, however, was the active incorporation of the “future” as a distinct time frame. Under the banner of becoming an “industrialized nation,” an unprecedented vision emerged that sought to bridge the present and the future. Even before the expo opened, the construction of pavilions—hailed as an “Olympics of architectural technology”—was said to evoke “the sense of being in a fantastic city of the future, rather than at an exposition.” The Korean pavilion, with its vast roof supported by fifteen cylindrical steel columns, was likened to an “oil refinery,” a design intended to symbolize “the rapid industrial development achieved by Korea since the end of World War II” and to proclaim its arrival as a “modern industrial state.”[16] The domestic press praised it as “a symbol of Korea’s advance, comprehensively expressing the nation’s traditions, present achievements, and future aspirations.”[17]
View of the Korean pavilion at Expo ’70. Courtesy of National Archives of Korea.
Nevertheless, in this state-led project of large-scale “overseas publicity”— in practice aimed at isolating North Korea while boosting exports and tourism revenue—the question of whether Korea could truly renew its national image around a vision of the “future,” and how that “future” would be represented, remained highly contentious. Even before the pavilion opened, disputes over and criticism of its architectural design arose. The fact that the government eventually dispatched an on-site inspection team to consider revising the designs reveals one aspect of this tension.[18] It was, of course, never merely a question of design. At the time, the US and the Soviet Union remained locked in the space race, while Japan, having achieved rapid economic growth in the 1960s, sought not only to display the achievements of economic and technological “progress” but also to reflect on its light and shadow, proposing instead a vision of the future defined by “harmony.” Such circumstances underscored how the hegemonic struggle over the representation of the “future” was becoming increasingly complex and intense. Expo ’70 thus marked the moment when Korea fully entered this global competition. The decisive question, however, was what kind of “future” it would design—and how that “future” would be rendered.
Commissioned by the Korea Trade Promotion Corporation, Kim Swoo Geun, director of the Human Environmental Design Institute, assumed responsibility not only for the architectural design of the Korean pavilion at Expo ’70 but also for its exhibition planning. The exhibition halls were arranged in the sequence of past, present, and future, though without any strict scholarly or chronological logic.[19] Rather, they reflected what the Korean government of the 1960s wished to display to “foreigners” as a “proud” account of the nation’s progress. The “present” section opened with a presidential message, while the “future” unfolded the visions embedded in the government’s economic development and national land-planning schemes. This structure emphasized the developmentalist vision of a nation under construction, while positioning the absolute leader (the president) as both heir to a glorious past and architect of the future. This curatorial narrative emerged through continual revisions, as the government and the press repeatedly intervened in the pavilion’s design and exhibition plan. The result was a form of collective creation—or a precarious compromise—so fraught with conflict and tension that Kim himself decried it as an “insult” to the architect/artist. Unsurprisingly, the outcome drew pointed criticism: that the exhibition was “encyclopedic” to the point of lacking focus, that its methods were makeshift and its content crude. Detractors directed their harshest assessments at the “future” section, which, as the exposition drew to a close, steadily receded from public and media attention. The prevailing view was that it was “so abstract that, while experts might make sense of it, ordinary visitors could not help but be bewildered. In short, it was impossible to grasp what it was trying to say.” 20
The difficulty dismissed as “abstract,” however, cannot be attributed solely to the government’s nationalist or developmentalist narrative. After seizing power in 1961, the Park Chung Hee regime had consistently proclaimed national modernization centered on economic reconstruction. This rhetoric gained traction by aligning with shifts in the global Cold War order and with changes in American policy toward East Asia and foreign aid.21 In 1961, shortly after taking office, President John F. Kennedy pursued legislation to separate military aid from economic aid, placing greater emphasis on the latter. With respect to Korea, the Kennedy administration prioritized economic growth and stability sufficient to ensure political order and sustain military strength; the promotion of export industries within a regional integration strategy linking Korea, the US, and Japan; and the restoration of a division of labor with the Japanese economy. To this end, Washington pressed Seoul to devise and implement ongoing economic stabilization plans, while urging Tokyo to normalize diplomatic relations and rebuild economic ties with Korea. Underlying these measures was Washington’s interest in strengthening Korea as an anticommunist ally— militarily, politically, and economically—while reducing the scale and cost of direct US involvement.22 In response, the Park regime established the Economic Planning Board in 1961 and implemented national “Five-Year Economic Development Plans” (1962–96), thereby concretizing policies of agricultural modernization, export promotion, foreign capital inflows, and industrialization—all in pursuit of economic growth and self-reliance.
The decisive turning point came in 1965, when President Park accepted US President Richard Nixon’s proposal to dispatch Korean troops to the Vietnam War (1955–75). In return, the US confirmed in a joint communique its commitment to continued military aid and the stationing of US forces, the extension of military and economic assistance following the normalization of relations with Japan, the provision of development loans, sustained cooperation to improve Korea’s balance of payments, and, beyond these, new forms of support: technical assistance and the establishment of institutes for industrial technology and applied sciences.23 The following year, 1966, witnessed the founding of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), celebrated as the “largest in Asia,” with a mandate focused on industrial applications.24 President Park announced that, to meet the technological demands of the “Second Five-Year Economic Development Plan” and to lay the foundations for national development across economic, social, cultural, and military spheres, a “Five-Year Plan for the Promotion of Science and Technology” would be implemented.25 In May of the same year, at the First National Conference of Scientists and Engineers, he declared: “The importance of science and technology in a nation’s economic development has been amply demonstrated by the achievements made in the process of building our self-reliant economy,” praising science and technology as the “foundation of increased production,” the “source of economic development,” and “a precious capital in modern society.” 26 Later that year, the “Five-Year Plan for the Promotion of Science and Technology” was finalized, accompanied by the enactment of the Science and Technology Promotion Act and the creation of a new ministry dedicated to the field, the Ministry of Science and Technology. In 1967, amid this rapid pace of reform, Kim Ki-hyung was appointed the first minister of science and technology. He declared that “science and technology are the framework and backbone of production, export, and construction,” and he pledged to ignite a “boom in science and technology.” 27 What is clear is that this so-called science and technology boom was the calculated outcome of authoritarian state-led economic planning, secured through political bargains such as the dispatch of Korean troops to Vietnam and the normalization of relations with Japan.
The “boom in science and technology” was further magnified through its convergence with the “boom in futurology” that swept across Korea. In 1967, as governments worldwide established futurological agencies and issued a torrent of forecasts, a similar enthusiasm for futurology took hold in Korea. Spurred in particular by Herman Kahn and Anthony J. Wiener’s The Year 2000 (1967), a study published by the US Commission on the year 2000, Korea saw the launch of its first futurological society, the Korea 2000 Society, in 1968 (renamed the The Korean Society of Future Studies in 1969).28 Fascination with the temporal horizon of the year 2000 outpaced debates over the academic legitimacy of futurology. The field came to symbolize an epochal shift, tied to emerging theories and experiments in ergonomics, information theory, cybernetics, space travel, electric and autonomous vehicles, electronic media, heart transplants, artificial life, cryogenics, robotics, and computing. In this climate, the conviction spread that “pessimistic, dystopian visions of the future have come to an end, and a new era of optimistic utopia is dawning.” 29 At the same time, the discourse of “technological forecasting”—the belief that rapid advances in science and technology would transform society and that the future must therefore be anticipated and prepared for—came to dominate government, the press, and academia.30 As a result, the government and ruling party adopted a “Ten-Year Long-Term Economic Development Plan” based on futurological principles. Its projects included the construction of nuclear power plants and even the development of nuclear weapons.31 This atmosphere decisively influenced the design of the Korean pavilion at Expo ’70, the conception of its Future Hall, and the responses it elicited.
The Human Environmental Design Institute reportedly held three seminars and more than ten rounds of expert consultation to design the Future Hall. Korea’s futurologists were mobilized to envision what the nation might look like in the year 2000. However, the impression was that the effort amounted to little more than an act of “self-consolation” of its organizers, which provoked outright anger among observers.32
This surge of “anger” can be seen as stemming from the frustration of expectations invested in a nationalist, developmentalist narrative converging on an “optimistic techno-utopia.” During the Expo ’70, members of the The Korean Society of Future Studies—Choi Jung-ho, Lee Han-bin, Choi Hyung-sup, and Son Jung-mok—participated in an international future-studies conference in Kyoto organized by the Japanese futurologist Hayashi Yujiro (1916–2011).33 At the time, Lee Han-bin argued that the futurology of advanced nations and that of developing (or underdeveloped) nations must inevitably diverge. For advanced nations entering the postindustrial era, he observed, it was natural to focus on problems such as leisure, pollution, education, and social institutions. By contrast, underdeveloped nations in the early stages of industrialization had no choice but to pursue self-sustaining growth, so the “future” could only be bound to “development.” In such contexts, futurology necessarily crystallized as a form of “development studies.”34 In short, for developing nations like Korea, only futurism as “developmentalism” was considered viable. Any vision of the “future” that strayed from this framework ran counter to prevailing expectations, appearing incomprehensibly “abstract” and even provoking anger.
As Shin Chunghoon has discussed in detail, the “future” staged by Kim Swoo Geun was fundamentally different from this developmentalist futurism and the state-centered developmentalist narrative.35 In preparing the Future Hall, Kim convened fifteen futurology seminars and three symposia between October 1969 and February 1970, prior to the opening of Expo ’70. These efforts resonated with the Delos Symposia, initiated in 1963 by the Greek architect Constantinos Doxiadis (1913–75). The Delos Symposia gathered not only leading figures in architecture—such as Kim’s mentor Tange Kenzō, as well as Sigfried Giedion and Buckminster Fuller—but also scholars including Marshall McLuhan and Margaret Mead. They debated the conditions of future urban life, encompassing both the alienation induced by urbanization and the threats of ecological crisis. In the November 1969 issue of his journal Space, Kim published the “Declaration on the Human Environment” as part of a special feature titled Man and the Environment: Korea in the Year 2000. The images featured words such as peace, freedom, harmony, North and South, technology, human recovery, nature, art, and wisdom, floating among lunar landers and satellites.36 When read alongside Kim’s own explanation of the Expo ’70 Future Hall—described as employing “spatial effects through illusions of mirrors and light” and as “illogical, sensory, and attempted in the manner of a happening”37—and recalling that happenings were at the time understood as “simultaneous and inclusive, without focus or center, enveloping, musical or tactile modes characteristic of the ‘electronic civilization era,’” it becomes clear that his vision exceeded the logic of developmentalist futurology.38 Instead, it connected the “future” to an avant-garde artistic imagination. Nonetheless, the future envisioned through avant-garde art was ultimately expelled from the Korean pavilion during Expo ’70. Such was the fate of Park Seo-Bo’s installation Genetic Factor and Space (1970), displayed in the Present Hall but closely aligned with Kim Swoo Geun’s conception of the future.39 Writing in a manner that echoed Kim’s own position, Park observed:
The true achievement of Expo ’70, opening the decade of the 1970s, must be seen in its cultural impact, linked to a revolution in human sensation and, by extension, in consciousness. It may be summed up in the way advanced technology and refined artistic sensibility reveal the possibility of realizing humanity’s dreams for the future. […] The dreams and hopes of the next generation seem to have come to reign as a modern deity, creating a “second nature” through the wondrous advances of science and technology in union with art. […] Equally significant is the fact that the world created through the synthesis of images, light, and sound (mechanical, bodily, and natural) enables humanity to encounter a “new experience.” At this world’s fair, the elements most widely deployed were images, light, sound, mirrors, escalators, and computers, while the most compelling pavilions offered visions of a “future world” or challenges to outer space.40
The “future world” born of the fusion of science, technology, and art thus emerged as an experiential totality of images, light, sound, and mirrors. Within this “second nature,” Park envisioned the human figure as “void”—a body dissolved, drifting weightlessly in midair. It was a future that could be neither imagined nor tolerated within the frameworks of an optimistic techno-utopia or developmentalist futurology.
Park Seo-Bo’s sketch of Void of Space and Genetic Factor and Space. SPACE, no. 39 (February 1970), 12–13.
During Expo ’70, Park Seo-bo exhibited Hereditarius No.1–68 (1968) at both the Exhibition of Contemporary Korean Painting and the International Art Exhibition in Celebration of the King’s Birthday in Kathmandu, Nepal.41 Soon after the expo closed, he held a solo exhibition titled Hereditarius (Seoul Gallery, December 10–17, 1970). Although Genetic Factor and Space was not included, the exhibition presented works on the theme of the “genetic factor,” exploring the concept of the human being as “void.” 42 Not long thereafter, however, Park abandoned this line of inquiry and firmly established his position as one of the leading figures of Korean dansaekhwa (monochrome painting).
At the time, the press introduced computer art, light art, electric art, kinetic art, and happenings with great excitement, heralding them as advanced culture from abroad, the new aesthetics of the age of modern science and technology, modernity’s challenge toward the future, and an expansion of the sensory world through the fusion of engineering and art. Favorable attention was also given to the avant-garde computer music of Kang Sukhi (1934–2020), performed in the Korean pavilion. It was around this time that the activities of Paik Nam June (1932–2006) were first introduced in Korea. Yet this enthusiasm evaporated almost instantly, vanishing like a bubble in the wake of Expo ’70.
Instead, the computer began to attract particular attention as a tool for the rationalization of management and administration in the age of informatization. Within the vertically structured system of technology transfer linking the US, Japan, and Korea consolidated during this period, the computer was actively examined as a technical instrument of corporate revolution— that is, of scientific management grounded in rationalization and standardization. Just as futurology in the form of “developmentalism” had been officially adopted by the Korean government, so, too, did the computer become a strategic tool for Korean corporations—the driving forces of export-led growth—in fueling a “boom” in business management.
Seen in this light, not only Genetic Factor and Space but also the intersection— or clash—between the state-led developmentalist “future” and the avant-garde “future” flared briefly, like a flash of light, before vanishing during the historical moment of Expo ’70. By the late 1960s, the government had begun policing and prosecuting avant-garde artists as “public morals offenders,” eventually introducing a Detailed Implementation Plan for the Purification of Decadent Trends that intensified its control and censorship of the arts. Among its measures was the strengthening of the Minor Offenses Act to facilitate crackdowns on “decadence” associated with hippie culture and the avant-garde.43 Avant-garde art was thus relegated to the collective category of “decadence” as a “practice of imitation,” and targeted for “purification” as if it were criminal behavior.44 In effect, artists were stripped of any social license to imagine or represent the “future.” From this perspective, the avant-garde “future” was a rejected future— excluded from the state’s planned vision of the year 2000.
Is it too speculative to suggest that, from the year 2000 to the present in 2025, Korean art and museums remain suspended in this very “web of the future”? It was at the threshold of the year 2000 that unfamiliar concepts such as the “productivity” or “operational efficiency” of museums first emerged as concrete policy agendas. Since then, the successive incorporation of ever-renewing advanced technologies, beginning with the computer, has been naturalized as the future of “rationalized management.” Such policy imaginaries have become common sense. This is one dimension of the long-standing projects of the “future” that extend into 2025. It is worth asking what other futures, alongside the avant-garde future, have been rejected and erased along the way.
Park Sohyun is a professor of Digital & Cultural Policy at the Graduate School of Public Policy and Information Technology, Seoul National University of Science and Technology. Her research spans across art history, museum studies, and cultural policy. She currently serves as president of the Korean Society of Art History, committee member of the National Hangeul Museum, and editorial board member of the Korean Society of Museum Studies and The National Museum of Korea Journal. She has co-authored books including Eleven Thoughts on the Future of Culture (2025), Kim Dae-jung’s Cultural Politics (2024), Lee Bul—Beginning (2021), Reading Korean Contemporary Art through Keywords (2019), On Curating (2019), Landscapes of Korean Cultural Reality (2019), Red Asia Complex (2019), and Crafting the Everyday Object (2018). Her Korean translations include Stealing the Mona Lisa (2010) and Perspective of Agony (2009).
[01] Kaneko Atsushi, The Politics of the Museum [in Korean], trans. Park Kwang-hyun et al. (Seoul: Nonhyung, 2009), 11.
[02] Ibid., 12–18.
[03] Michael E. Latham, Modernization as Ideology: American Social Science and “Nation Building” in the Kennedy Era, trans. Hyeok-eun Kwon et al. [in Korean] (Seoul: Greenbee, 2021), 40.
[04] “Montreal Expo Korean Pavilion,” Dong-A Ilbo, December 17, 1966, 7; “Montreal Expo Opens on the 28th,” Kyunghyang Shinmun, April 27, 1967, 3; “Man and His World,” Kyunghyang Shinmun, August 5, 1967, 3; “Korea Praised for Its Modest Charm,” Dong-A Ilbo, September 14, 1967, 3. Unless otherwise noted, all references and direct quotations concerning Expo ’67 in the text are drawn from these sources. All newspaper citations have been translated from Korean.
[05] “Screen: Astonishing Techniques and Methods,” Kyunghyang Shinmun, July 10, 1967, 5.
[06] Park Seong-rae, “The Reception of Science in the Enlightenment Period,” in Science in Modern and Contemporary Korean Society [in Korean], ed. Kim Youngs-ik and Kim Geun Bae (Seoul: Changbi Publishers, 1998), 15–39. Park Seong-rae, “The Perception of Modern Science in the Hansŏng Sunbo and Hansŏng Jubo,” in Kim and Kim, ibid., 40–83.
[07] Kim Geun Bae, “Beyond the Colonial Science and Technology: Korean Evolution of Modern Science and Technology,” Journal of Korean Modern and Contemporary History [in Korean], no. 58 (2011): 252–283.
[08] “Korea Exposition Association Established,” Maeil Business Newspaper, January 27, 1968, 3.
[09] “Domestic Industry to Shoulder 700,000 Dollars,” Maeil Business Newspaper, May 24, 1969, 7; “Bitter Struggle to Raise Expenses for the Independent Pavilion,” Maeil Business Newspaper, August 21, 1969, 1.
[10] “Government Pledges Strong Support for Participating Firms at Expo ’70,” Maeil Business Newspaper, January 17, 1970, 3.
[11] “Dispatch of Technicians to Expo ’70 Made Compulsory,” Maeil Business Newspaper, January 12, 1970, 3. The Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry announced plans to send some three hundred businessmen to assess global economic conditions and seek to expand exports. See “300 Businessmen to Be Dispatched,” Maeil Business Newspaper, January 13, 1970, 7.
[12] Under the slogan “Tourism Korea,” the Korean government sought to attract foreign visitors traveling to Japan onward to Korea as a means of earning money from tourists.
[13] “Progress and Harmony to Compete in Cultural Display,” Chosun Ilbo, June 18, 1968, 5.
[14] “Comprehensive Publicity Committee Formed,” Maeil Business Newspaper, December 6, 1969, 7; “Art Troupe to Perform in Japan as Part of Expo Countermeasures,” Dong-A Ilbo, December 6, 1969, 7; “Operation to Outflank North Korea at Expo ’70,” Kyunghyang Shinmun, December 18, 1969, 3; “Focus on Blocking North Korean Propaganda,” Kyunghyang Shinmun, December 29, 1969, 1; “All to Be Indicted,” Kyunghyang Shinmun, January 15, 1970, 3; “Plans to Isolate North Korea,” Chosun Ilbo, February 7, 1970, 3.
[15] Maeil Business Newspaper, February 14, 1969, 3.
[16] “Plaza of Human Concord,” Maeil Business Newspaper, April 28, 1969, 3; “Balloon-Style Architecture,” Kyunghyang Shinmun, June 4, 1969, 7; “Korean Pavilion First Shown to Reporters,” Maeil Business Newspaper, March 11, 1970, 3; “Plaza of Progress and Harmony,” Kyunghyang Shinmun, March 11, 1970, 5.
[17] “Expo ’70: Four Months Before Opening,” Chosun Ilbo, November 11, 1969, 5.
[18] “Inspection Team Surveys Expo ’70 Korean Pavilion Ahead of Opening,” Dong-A Ilbo, January 22, 1970, 7; “‘Deep Understanding and Friendship’—Strengths and Weaknesses of the Korean Pavilion at Expo 70,” Dong-A Ilbo, January 22, 1970, 3; “Inspection Team Divided over Renovations to Korean Pavilion,” Dong-A Ilbo, January 23, 1970, 3; “Design Changes Recommended for Expo ’70 Korean Pavilion,” Maeil Business Newspaper, January 24, 1970, 7; “‘Not Inferior to Other Pavilions,’” Chosun Ilbo, January 24, 1970, 3; “Amid Criticism, Architect Kim Swoo Geun Speaks on Designing the Korean Pavilion,” Chosun Ilbo, January 27, 1970, 5.
Fellow Sooyoung Leam
