런던 대영박물관 내 한국미술재단 갤러리에서 대학원 학생들에게 설명을 하고 있는 샬롯 홀릭

2007년부터 나는 런던대의 SOAS(School of Oriental and African Studies: 동양학, 아프리카학 연구학교)에 설치된 미술사와 고고학과에서 한국미술사를 강의해오고 있으며 아프리카지역부터 중동지역의 이슬람 그리고 인도, 티베트, 동남아시아, 아시아에 걸친 물질문화를 연구하는 15명의 풀타임 교수들이 임용된 부서에 속해 있다. 이 부서는 학부과정과 대학원 과정을 통해 예술과 문화적 생산에 관한 과정을 과거와 현재의 문화에 걸친 광범위한 분야로 제공하여 이 학과를 매우 특별하게 만든다.

“당신은 왜 한국미술에 관심이 있나요?”라는 질문을 자주 접하게 된다. 이 질문에 대해서 어떻게, 언제, 왜 내가 한국미술에 관심을 가지게 되었는지 길게 설명을 하는 것이 내 성향이지만 짧게 말하자면 “왜 안돼?”가 답변이 될 것이다. 마찬가지로 나와 같이 학생들이 티베트나 동남아시아, 혹은 중국이나 일본미술과 아울러 한국미술에 대한 흥미를 발전시키지 못할 이유 또한 없다. 하지만 한국미술을 공부하는 것을 재미있고 흥미롭고 또한 적절하다고 느껴질 수 있도록 만드는 것은 매우 큰일이다. 

런던이 우수한 한국미술 컬렉션(물론 서울에 있는 것들과는 비교할 수 없지만)을 가지고 있다는 점에서 나는 행운아라고 생각한다. 그리고 너무나 감사하게도 대영박물관과 빅토리아앤알버트미술관의 큐레이터들은 내 학생들이 작품을 관찰할 수 있도록 많은 도움을 준다. 학생들은 항상 작품을 다루는 세션들을 좋아하는데 고려청자나 조선백자와 같은 유물들을 실제로 만질 수 있다는 것에 대단히 흥미를 느낀다. 또 학생들이 이 과정들을 통해 미술관 유물들을 어떻게 다루는지를 배운다는 점은 또 다른 긍정적인 교육적 결과물이다.

처음 SOAS에서 강의를 시작한 후 학생들의 분포는 엄청난 변화를 겪었다. 처음에는 상당수가 한국학생들이었고, 그 중 몇몇은 내 수업을 듣는 동기가 한국미술이 한국 밖에서 어떻게 평가되는지를 경험하기 위한 것이라고 했다. 하지만 최근에는 한국 드라마와 K-Pop을 좋아하는 중국, 대만, 동남아시아 학생들이 증가하고 있다. 내게 있어 동아시아 미술에 대한 비교학문을 공부하려는 학생들의 증가는 특히나 반가운 일이었으며, 이는 연구가 하나의 고립된 지역을 벗어남을 의미하는 것이기도 했다. 학생 분포가 바뀌면서 그들의 관심영역도 바뀌었다. 나는 이제 더 이상 삼국시대 이전의 내용에 관해서는 수업하지 않는다. 그 대신 20세기 미술과 문화에 대해 계속 증가하고 있는 관심을 충족시키기 위하여 현대와 동시대 한국미술을 다루는 과정을 발전시켜 왔다. 동시대에 관한 일반적인 관심 외에도 학생들이 이 영역을 좋아하는 하나의 이유는 바로 영어로 작성된 한국문화에 관한 매우 흥미로운 자료들을 쉽게 구할 수 있기 때문이다. SOAS 도서관의 한국미술 섹션은 한국 대학의 도서관들과 비견될 만큼 방대하다. 여기엔 꾸준히 출판물을 기부해오고, 한국국제교류재단, 국립중앙박물관, 그리고 다른 기관들의 기여도 역할을 하고 있다.

안타까운 것은 대부분의 책들이 한글로 되어있어 대다수 학생들은 접근하기 어렵다는 것이다. 지난 봄 내가 아끼는 대학원생 중 하나인 중국에서 온 어느 여학생이 내게 자신은 한국미술을 좋아하지만 자신이 읽을 수 있는 언어로 된 자료가 많지 않아 포기할 수밖에 없다는 말을 했을 때 가슴이 무너져 내리는 것 같았다. 결국 그녀는 자신의 석사논문을 한국미술이 아닌 중국미술에 관해 쓰기로 결정했다. 언어의 중요성은 아무리 강조해도 지나치지 않는다고 생각한다. 만약 학생들과 교수들이 한국어로 쓰인 그 수많은 책들과 연구 자료들을 읽을 수 없다면 그들이 한국미술에 대한 흥미를 발전시킬 수 있을 것이라고 기대할 수 없다. 요즘 몇 개의 저널들과 미술관 도록들이 영어로 출판되고, 몇몇 기관들은 번역에 대한 기금을 제공하기도 한다. 이러한 현상들은 긍정적이지만 여전히 갈 길이 멀다. 훨씬 더 많은 책들이 변역되어야 하고 그 변역의 질은 우수해야만 한다. 이를 가능케 하려면 상당한 기금이 필요할 것이다. 오직 이 험난한 과정을 통해서만 한국미술이 진정으로 세계와 깊이 있는 소통을 할 수 있을 것이다.

샬롯 홀릭(Charlotte Horlyck, 영국) BASK(British Association of Korean Studies)와 BKS(British Korean Society) 의원. 2007년부터 한국미술사를 강의하고 있으며, 2013년부터는 SOAS 한국학연구소장 역임.

On Teaching Korean Art History in the UK

Since 2007 I have been lecturing on Korean art history in the department of the History of Art and Archaeology at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies). I form part of a department which employs fifteen full-time academics whose research areas span material culture from Africa to the Islamic Near and Middle East, India, Tibet, South East Asia, and East Asia. This enables the department to offer undergraduate and postgraduate courses on arts and cultural production from a vast range of past and present cultures, making it truly unique. 

I often get asked “Why are you interested in Korean art?” To this I tend to offer lengthy explanations as to how, when and why it all started, but the short answer would be “Why not?”. Similarly, in as much as I don’t take my students’ fascination with Korean art for granted, there is no reason why interest in Korean art cannot develop alongside that of Tibetan, South East Asian, or even Chinese and Japanese art. However, it is important to make the study of Korean art exciting, interesting as well as relevant. I am lucky that London has good collections of Korean art (though of course they do not compare to those in Seoul), and thankfully curators at the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum have been extremely helpful in making the objects accessible to my students. The students always enjoy object handling sessions, as they find it fascinating to touch artefacts such as Goryeo celadon and Joseon porcelains. That the sessions also teach students about how to handle museum artefacts is another positive learning outcome of them.

The student demography of my courses has changed significantly since I first started teaching at SOAS. Initially a relatively large number of my students were Korean nationals. For some, the impetus behind taking my courses was to to experience how Korean art was interpreted outside Korea. However, in more recent years, an increasing number of Chinese, Taiwanese and South East Asian students study Korean art, often because they are fans of Korean dramas and K-Pop. For me a particular welcome development has been the rising number of students who want to do comparative studies on East Asian art, signaling a move away from isolated regional research. I have had students write coursework essays and dissertations on ‘The use of blue-and-white porcelains in 18th century China and Korea,’ ‘Japanese and Korean erotic prints and paintings,’ and ‘Ming and Joseon dress codes’, to mention but a few topics. 

As the student demography has changed, so has their areas of focus. I no longer teach on material pre-dating the Three Kingdoms period, as there is little interest in it. Instead, to cater to the rising fascination with twentieth century arts and culture, I have developed courses on modern and contemporary Korean art. Notwithstanding the general interest in things contemporary, I cannot help but wonder whether one reason why students like this area is because they can easily access a lot of very interesting writings in English on contemporary Korean culture, either through the internet or in printed form. The Korean art section in the SOAS Library is substantial, and on par with that of many Korean university libraries, thanks in part to Korea Foundation, the National Museum of Korea, and other institutions that regularly donate publications. However, the fact that most of the volumes are in Korean makes them little accessible to most students. Last spring my heart sank when one of my best Master’s students – a young woman from mainland China – said to me that she loved Korean art, but as she got so frustrated by the lack of writings in a language she could read, she decided to write her Master’s dissertation on Chinese, not Korean art. I cannot stress enough the importance of language. We cannot expect students and academics to develop an interest in Korean art, if they are unable to access the many important and very interesting books and research papers that are published in the Korean language. Nowadays some journals and museum catalogues are published in English too, and some institutions offer translation grants. This is very positive, but there is still a long way to go. Many more volumes need to be translated, and the translations have to be of excellent quality. Substantial funding is needed to make this possible. Only this way can Korean art became truly global. 

Charlotte Horlyck is Lecturer in Korean Art History at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies), University of London, where she is also Chair of the Centre of Korean Studies (since 2013). She also sits on the committees of the British Association of Korean Studies (BAKS) and the British Korean Society (BKS). She has published widely on Korean art and archaeology. Her co-edited volume (with Michael Pettid) Death, Mourning, and the Afterlife in Korea from Ancient to Contemporary Times (Hawaii University Press, 2014) was selected for a Republic of Korea 2015 Ministry of Education Award. More recently, her students' interest in 20th century Korean art has led her to work on a monograph on this topic.