KBS Korea’s “Digital Art Museum” for the Public

“Digital Art Museum,” featured on the satellite channel KBS Korea (Thursday evenings at 11:35 p.m.) has moved on to the KBS1 channel, and adopted a new format and new content.

Featured once every week since April 2000, the program has received praise from art critics.

Lee Gwang-rok, the producer of the show, stated that “instead of simply providing information on an art piece, we will compose an art documentary that will feature cultural experiences related to art,” and that “by bestowing a new meaning onto the things that are familiar but forgotten, we want to provide the opportunity for the public to enjoy art.”

On its first airing on KBS1 on May 5, the show will experiment with mass art and cultural experiences by utilizing the topic of stationery stores. The episode, “Stationery Stores Exist,” will examine children’s cultural desires.

Though stationery stores hold everything that a child needs, they are often gawky and childish. The awkwardly bright colors of the toys, dolls, and games have a cheap look about them.

But why are children so attracted to these stores? As a place where children perform cultural consumption, the program introduces the glamour and fantasy of the “Dutta Store” of Gaebong-dong, Seoul, and “Sujin’s Stationary” in Sungnam, Gyeonggi Province.

Lee said, “Stationary stores enable children to learn the latest fashions and cultivate their sense of art,” adding, “It’s not an exaggeration to say that Koreans develop their sense of culture in this place.”

The program also introduces toy collector and illustrator Hyun Tae Joon’s “New Handicraft Factory,” a reincarnation of stationary stores from the 1970’s and 80’s. In his late thirties, Hyun collected toys such as Majinga Z and Gundam, as well as games, stamps, and cartoons, which he places in his “New Handicraft Factory.”

On May 12, the program will feature the episode ‘Art teacher,” where children in the small town of Samcheok, Gangwon-do, learn art, while on May 19, Ham Jin and Cha Min-young, selected as Korea’s feature artists at the Venice Biennale will star in: “For the small and insignificant beings’, where artists create a world of fantasy through the insignificant details of daily life.”

Jung-Bo Suh suhchoi@donga.com