Greetings from the Director

Since The 100th Anniversary of the Founding of Sookmyung Women’s University: Snowflakes, an exhibition held with the participation of renowned artists in Korea, Moon Shin Museum has sponsored a number of overseas and domestic exhibitions including the exhibition at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City, Valencia International Biennial in Spain, and an exhibition commemorating the World Cup in Baden-Baden, Germany. The museum has also hosted exhibitions by Park Chong-bae, Kim Young-won, Shim Moon-seop, and Park Suk-won, some of the most prominent sculptures who have been leading new trends in Korean contemporary sculpture. It has also contributed greatly to academic advancement by hosting the National Assembly Symposium for national branding of artists as well as the Moon Shin Authorship Award on two occasions.

Moon Shin was a Korean painter and sculptor who relocated to Paris in the 1960s. Well-known for demonstrating the aesthetics of symmetry based on the laws of nature through sculptures, he was catapulted to fame in Europe after producing the sculpture [Soleillonautes], which he created for an international sculpture symposium in France in 1970. Later, he became one of the few Korean artists to be invited to various salon exhibitions, and his works combining the curves of Eastern art and geometric shapes of Western art became widely beloved by European art enthusiasts. After declining the French government’s entreaty to become a naturalized French citizen, he returned to Korea in 1980 and established Masan Moon Shin Museum of Art. In 1988, he entered the Sculpture Olympiad where he created a 25m-tall monumental sculpture called [Olympics 1988]. Between 1990 and 1992, around the fall of the Iron Curtain, Moon Shin went on an exhibition tour across Western and Eastern Europe that kicked off in Paris, and in recognition of his achievements, the Government of France awarded him the Officier de Légion d'Honneur. In the same year, the celebrated artist was honored with the Sejong Culture Award in Korea. This attested to his achievement in bridging the East and the West and Western and Eastern Europe through cultural exchange. This achievement aligns with the vision of Sookmyung Women’s University to become the “global best,” and we promise to strive toward growth and development with an understanding that art and culture are the most essential and best media for connecting the world.

Moon Shin Museum formed ties with Sookmyung Women’s University in 1999 initially as a research institute, and now, as an affiliated institution, Moon Shin Museum will take giant strides to bolster the cultural prestige and stature of the university.