A rare out-of-print book provided for public reading at the Seoul Museum of Art’s retrospective exhibition 《Yoo Youngkuk: A Mountain Within Me》, commemorating the 110th anniversary of the artist’s birth, has gone missing.
 
The missing publication is Yoo Youngkuk: Life and the Horizon of Creation by art critic Oh Kwang-su. According to the museum, the book was a non-reproducible archival resource borrowed from an external institution. In addition to the loss of the book, cases of damage to reading materials, including torn or folded pages, have also increased during the exhibition period.
 
The incident became known after a notice posted in the exhibition hall was shared online. In the notice, the museum appealed, “If you have taken the book, please return it,” while a museum representative stated, “Everyone is eagerly waiting for its return.”

Cases of exhibition materials or parts of artworks going missing from national and public museums are not unprecedented. In April, at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul’s special exhibition 《Sak-da: The Poetics of Decomposition》, a part of artist Gosari’s work A Dredge Stone from the Earth, which was installed for visitors to touch and interact with, disappeared during the exhibition period.
 
Such incidents reveal the challenges involved in exhibition formats that encourage active audience participation. While there are calls for a more mature culture of engagement to ensure both future visitors’ experiences and the sustainability of exhibitions, the need for more detailed operational systems has also been raised, including clearer guidelines for on-site staff intervention and procedures for responding to incidents.

Researcher Lee Hye-jin of Sungshin Women’s University noted that while the nature of participatory exhibitions can encourage active audience engagement, it may also create confusion over the boundaries of acceptable behavior. She suggested that exhibition organizers should establish management systems that provide clear and consistent guidelines on methods of participation and visitor etiquette.
 
The Seoul Museum of Art also announced that it has expanded safety management personnel in response to the growing number of visitors and strengthened training on the management of freely accessible books and exhibition materials. These measures aim to preserve the purpose of participatory exhibitions while improving operational and management systems.
 
As exhibitions based on audience participation continue to expand, museums are now required not only to broaden accessibility but also to develop sustainable systems that can maintain and manage such openness over the long term.

References

• 진일보, 유영국전서 절판본 분실…미술관 관람 문화·보안 ‘경고등’, 2026.07.29
• 뉴시스, 사라진 절판본…열린 미술관은 무엇으로 신뢰를 지킬까[박현주 아트클럽], 2026.08.01