On July 1, the Ministry of Personnel Management opened a public recruitment process for a new director of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA). The term of current director Kim Sung-hee expires this September.

As the search began, the names of several potential candidates quickly started circulating within the Korean art world.
 
It is natural that attention should focus on who has applied and which candidates may have the strongest prospects. Yet the current search should not be treated simply as another appointment.

The more fundamental question is what status and role the MMCA should have in 21st-century Korea, and whether the country’s current selection system and cultural administration are equipped to support that role.
 
 
 
The Role of a National Museum
 
Over the past two decades, the international standing of Korean culture has changed dramatically. Through K-pop, film, and television drama, Korea has emerged as a significant cultural producer in its own right on the global stage. In the visual arts as well, Korean artists are appearing with increasing frequency in major international museums and exhibitions.
 
This makes the role of the MMCA all the more important.
 
The MMCA is not simply an exhibition venue, nor can its performance be measured solely by the scale of its exhibitions or the number of visitors it attracts.
 
What matters is what knowledge and research it produces and accumulates, what histories of art it documents, how much critical and scholarly discourse on Korean modern and contemporary art it generates, and to what extent that work is referenced by the international art world.
 
If Korea aspires to become a cultural powerhouse in the 21st century, its national museum must be capable of operating at this level.
 
Museums and research institutions, archives and publishing, professional personnel, and supporting systems must work together to research, document, and preserve creative achievements as long-term cultural assets. Only then can the achievements of individual artists and artworks be transformed into sustainable national cultural capacity.
 
Korean culture and contemporary art are expanding rapidly onto the global stage. It is less clear, however, whether the cultural policies and administrative systems that should support this growth—particularly the personnel and governance structures of national cultural institutions—have developed at the same pace.
 
The history of MMCA director appointments over the past two decades offers an important case in point.
 
 
 
A History of Controversial Appointments
 

In 2008, MMCA director Kim Yoon-soo was notified by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism that his contract would be terminated before the end of his term.
 
The ministry cited, among other reasons, problems in the process of acquiring artworks. Kim challenged the decision in court, and in 2010 the Supreme Court upheld a lower-court ruling that the termination had been invalid. The case went beyond the dismissal of a single director.

It raised a broader question about how securely the tenure and professional independence of the head of a national cultural institution should be protected from changes in administrative and political circumstances.
 
 
In 2015, the selection procedure itself became controversial.
 
Choi Hyo-joon, former director of the Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art, advanced through the Ministry of Personnel Management’s selection process and competency assessment, but the Ministry of Culture ultimately concluded that there was “no suitable candidate” and reopened the search.

Choi criticized a structure in which a candidate who had passed the formal evaluation process could subsequently be judged unsuitable, while the ministry maintained that it had conducted a comprehensive assessment of the candidate’s ability to perform the duties of director and that the procedure had been proper.
 
The central issue was not simply which side was right. It was whether professional screening, competency assessment, and the final appointment decision each had clearly defined purposes and were being applied according to consistent standards.
 
Following the reopened search, Bartomeu Marí of Spain was appointed as the MMCA’s first foreign director. His appointment was significant as an attempt to bring in an internationally experienced external professional.

Yet controversy over an exhibition censorship dispute during his tenure at the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona prompted opposition within the Korean art community from the outset.
 
The case should not be reduced to whether the appointment of a foreign director was a success or failure. Rather, it demonstrated that international experience and the ability to lead Korea’s national museum are separate qualifications that must be assessed independently.
 
 
In 2019, consistency in the selection procedure again became a source of controversy.
 
The final candidates included Kim Hong-hee, Youn Bum-mo, and Lee Yong-woo. Youn failed the initial Senior Civil Service competency assessment but subsequently passed a reassessment and was ultimately appointed director.

The ministry maintained that the appointment was made in accordance with the relevant procedures, but questions were raised about the reassessment process and the consistency of the standards applied.
 
 
In 2023, the opposite situation arose.
 
The Senior Civil Service competency assessment, which had played an important role in previous director selections, was waived during the appointment of current director Kim Sung-hee. This in turn raised questions about precisely what status and purpose the assessment was supposed to have in selecting the MMCA director.
 
The cases of 2008, 2015, 2019, and 2023 were different in character. They involved different governments, candidates, and administrative circumstances. It would therefore be inappropriate to reduce them to a single political intention or the interests of a particular faction.
 
Yet precisely because they occurred under different administrations, a broader structural question emerges.
 
If controversies over selection criteria and procedures continue to recur in different forms despite changes in government and personnel, they cannot be explained simply as isolated failures of individual appointments.
 
The selection system for the director of a national museum requires more than legal compliance. It also requires professional expertise, consistency of standards, procedural fairness, and sufficient public trust for the outcome to be regarded as credible.
 
 
 
Short Terms and the Problem of Institutional Continuity
 
Alongside the controversies surrounding selection, another structural issue deserves attention: the tenure of the director and other key professional leaders.
 
Recent MMCA directors have generally been appointed to three-year terms. It would not be accurate, however, to describe this as an absolute statutory three-year limit. Korea’s Executive Agencies Act allows the period of service of an agency head to be set within a broader framework and provides for extensions based on performance, including, under specified conditions, the possibility of additional extensions beyond a total of five years.
 
The central problem, therefore, is not that the law imposes an absolute three-year ceiling.
 
Rather, the MMCA has in practice operated through relatively short leadership cycles, without sufficiently establishing an institutional framework capable of sustaining long-term strategy and continuity.
 
The issue extends beyond the director. The current chief curator, for example, was appointed as a fixed-term senior professional official for a two-year term. This illustrates the broader question of continuity within the museum’s senior curatorial leadership as well.
 
Major museum exhibitions often require years of research and preparation. A newly appointed director may inherit exhibitions and programs initiated under a predecessor, while the research and projects developed under the new leadership may not reach completion until much later.
 
Meaningful evaluation of a museum director therefore requires more than simply allowing for the possibility of an extension. A director must be given sufficient time and authority to carry out a long-term strategy, followed by a credible professional assessment of whether that strategy has produced results and whether continued tenure is warranted.
 
International examples can be useful here, provided that their different governance structures are recognized.
 
Glenn D. Lowry served as director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York from 1995 to 2025, a thirty-year tenure. MoMA, however, is a private nonprofit museum governed around a Board of Trustees rather than a national institution operating under government rules for open public positions and civil-service appointments. The two institutions therefore cannot be compared directly.
 
 
Tate in the United Kingdom offers a somewhat more relevant point of comparison.
 
Tate is a publicly funded non-departmental public body. Its director is appointed by the Board of Trustees with the approval of the Prime Minister, and the board also bears substantial responsibility for institutional strategy and performance oversight. In July 2026, Jessica Morgan was announced as Tate’s next director and is scheduled to take office on January 1, 2027.
 
 
The significance of this comparison is not that Korea should privatize its national museum.
 
Rather, it demonstrates that even a publicly funded museum can be governed through a structure in which a professional board plays a substantive role in appointing the director, setting institutional strategy, and evaluating performance, while creating a degree of distance from short-term political and administrative cycles.
 
The key question is therefore not simply whether a museum is public or private. It is who appoints the director, according to what criteria, what authority and time the director is given, and how performance and reappointment are assessed.
 
 
 
Institutional and Administrative Responsibility
 
It is not enough to describe the problem simply as an outdated system.
 
Institutions are designed and administered by people. When problems recur, responsibility for correcting and improving the system also lies with the administrators and decision-makers who operate it.
 
If selection criteria are unclear, they can be clarified. If evaluation procedures are applied inconsistently, governing principles can be standardized. If the reasons for final decisions are insufficiently explained, transparency can be increased. If short leadership cycles make long-term planning difficult, the structure of tenure and performance evaluation can be redesigned.
 
If similar problems nevertheless continue to recur over ten or twenty years, the issue extends beyond institutional defects. It becomes a question of the capacity of cultural administration to correct itself and to accept responsibility for persistent institutional problems.
 
The expertise of those responsible for selecting the director is another critical factor.
 
The director of the MMCA is not simply a senior civil servant. The position involves determining the direction of the national collection and research agenda, interpreting the history and present condition of Korean modern and contemporary art, and connecting that work to the international art world.
 
The people and institutions responsible for evaluating candidates must therefore possess a corresponding level of cultural and professional judgment.
 
A strong pool of candidates alone does not guarantee a strong director. There must also be a selection system—and evaluators—capable of recognizing and assessing the strongest candidates.
 
 
 
What Matters More Than a Résumé
 
Many of the individuals currently discussed in connection with the MMCA directorship have extensive careers in public museums and other public cultural institutions.
 
Such experience is clearly valuable. It would be difficult to run the MMCA without understanding public budgets, audits, organizational management, and administrative procedures.
 
But the ability to manage a public institution reliably is not the same as the cultural leadership required to define a new direction for a national museum.
 
Understanding shifts in global contemporary art and its discourse, identifying areas of Korean contemporary art that remain insufficiently researched, and developing them through collections, research, exhibitions, publishing, and international discourse require a distinct set of professional capabilities.
 
International experience is not sufficient in itself either.
 
Experience at a major overseas museum or a long record of organizing international exhibitions does not automatically make someone the right person to lead Korea’s national museum. A deep understanding of the history, institutional context, artists, and current realities of Korean modern and contemporary art must be combined with substantive experience of the international art world.
 
The decisive criteria should therefore not be whether someone comes from the public or private sector, or whether their career has been primarily domestic or international.
 
What matters is how deeply a candidate understands Korean modern and contemporary art, whether that person can determine where Korean art should be positioned within a changing international art world, and whether that judgment can be translated into an actual strategy for the national museum.
 
 
 
What Needs to Change
 
Reforming the MMCA director selection system should not stop at minor adjustments to the recruitment procedure.
 
 
First, the MMCA needs a clearly defined long-term mission for the next five to ten years.
 
Only when that mission is established can the right person be selected to carry it out. Korea needs to determine how research and collections should develop, how archives and publishing can become an internationally relevant knowledge infrastructure, and how Korean artists and art history should be positioned within the global art world.
 
 
Second, the criteria for evaluating the director must be redesigned.
 
Administrative and organizational ability are necessary, but not sufficient. Art-historical expertise alone is also insufficient. Candidates should be evaluated comprehensively on their understanding of Korean art, knowledge of and networks within the international art world, philosophy of research and collecting, organizational leadership, and ability to formulate and execute a long-term institutional strategy.
 
 
Third, the professionalism and transparency of the selection process should be strengthened.
 
The process should include not only administrative specialists but also experts with substantive knowledge of contemporary art and museum management in Korea and abroad. It should also become clearer what vision and strategy the final candidates presented and according to what criteria they were assessed.
 
There is no need to disclose every detail of the process.
 
But once one person has been selected to lead the national museum, the system should be able to explain why that individual is the most appropriate person to lead the MMCA at this particular historical moment.
 
 
Fourth, tenure and governance should be reconsidered together.
 
It is contradictory to demand long-term vision while failing to provide meaningful continuity of leadership. Directors should be given a sufficient initial period in which to pursue clearly defined long-term objectives, followed by professional and independent evaluation. When performance justifies it, the system should provide a genuine opportunity for the director to continue implementing that vision.
 
There is a wide range of possible governance models between direct government control and complete institutional independence. The MMCA should consider how to strengthen professional decision-making and institutional autonomy while maintaining its public character and national accountability.
 
 
Fifth, the selection system must be capable of learning and correcting itself.
 
Controversies and procedural problems arising from each recruitment process should be reviewed and reflected in the next one. If the same problems recur every time governments change, the system is failing to learn adequately from experience.
 
 
Finally, accountability must be made clear.
 
Those who design the system, administer it, evaluate the candidates, and make the final decision should all be accountable for their judgments.
 
At the same time, safeguards are needed to prevent ambiguities or gaps in the system from operating disproportionately in favor of particular candidates, organizations, or established interests.
 
 
 
A Cultural Powerhouse Is Built Through Institutions
 
Korean culture and Korean contemporary art are now at an important turning point.
 
Growing international attention represents a genuine opportunity. Whether that attention develops into lasting cultural influence, however, is another question.
 
For the international success of individual artists to become an enduring asset for Korean art as a whole, research, art history, archives, publishing, professional personnel, institutions, cultural policy, and international networks must develop together.
 
The MMCA is one of the national institutions expected to perform precisely this role.
 
The appointment of its director therefore cannot be reduced to the selection of another senior civil servant.
 
The MMCA is not only an institution that represents the present state of Korean contemporary art. It is also a national cultural infrastructure that helps determine what will be preserved as the history and value of Korean art for future generations.
 
If the institution is to operate at a world-class level, world-class exhibitions and collections alone are not enough.
 
The criteria and procedures for selecting its director, the professionalism of the cultural administration responsible for that process, the design of tenure and governance, the institution’s capacity to correct its own shortcomings, and a culture of accountability must all advance together.
 
The competitiveness of a cultural powerhouse in the 21st century is not completed by the achievements of artists alone.
 
It is completed through the quality of the institutions and systems capable of researching, preserving, and transforming those achievements into globally relevant cultural value—and through the quality of the people who operate them.
 
That is why the current search for a new director of the MMCA should not be allowed to end as merely another personnel appointment.
 
The international rise of Korean culture and Korean contemporary art has already begun.
 
What must now catch up are Korea’s cultural institutions and policies, and the professionalism and accountability of the cultural administration responsible for operating them.
 
 


References
 
Ministry of Personnel Management, “Open Recruitment for Director of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea,” July 1, 2026. (Ministry of Personnel Management)
 
「Supreme Court Confirms Invalidity of Dismissal of Former MMCA Director Kim Yoon-soo」, Kyunghyang Shinmun, September 9, 2010. (Kyunghyang Shinmun)
 
Han Yun-jung, 「Former Gyeonggi Museum Director Choi Hyo-joon and Culture Ministry Clash over Failed MMCA Director Search」, Kyunghyang Shinmun, June 10, 2015. (Kyunghyang Shinmun)
 
「Culture Ministry: ‘We Merely Notified Him of the Decision That He Was Unsuitable; There Was No Pressure’」, Yonhap News Agency, June 10, 2015. (Yonhap News Agency)
 
「Youn Bum-mo Appointed MMCA Director after Passing Competency Reassessment」, Kyunghyang Shinmun, January 31, 2019. (Kyunghyang Shinmun)
 
「Minister Park Bo-gyoon’s Questionable Waiver of the MMCA Director Competency Assessment」, The Hankyoreh, September 20, 2023. (The Hankyoreh)
 
「Kim In-hye Appointed Chief Curator of MMCA」, Yonhap News Agency, September 12, 2024. (Yonhap News Agency)
 
Cho Sang-in, 「MoMA Director Serves 30 Years, While MMCA Is Constrained by a ‘Three-Year Term’」, Seoul Economic Daily, July 2, 2026. (Seoul Economic Daily)
 
Act on the Establishment and Operation of Executive Agencies and its Enforcement Decree, Korean Law Information Center. (law.go.kr)
 
UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport, The Tate Gallery Framework Document 2025 to 2028. (GOV.UK)
 
Tate, “Jessica Morgan Appointed Director of Tate,” 2026.7.22. (Tate)
 
The Museum of Modern Art, Year in Review 2024–25. (The Museum of Modern Art)

Jay Jongho Kim graduated from the Department of Art Theory at Hongik University and earned his master's degree in Art Planning from the same university. From 1996 to 2006, he worked as a curator at Gallery Seomi, planning director at CAIS Gallery, head of the curatorial research team at Art Center Nabi, director at Gallery Hyundai, and curator at Gana New York.

From 2008 to 2017, he served as the executive director of Doosan Gallery Seoul & New York and Doosan Residency New York, introducing Korean contemporary artists to the local scene in New York. After returning to Korea in 2017, he worked as an art consultant, conducting art education, collection consulting, and various art projects.

In 2021, he founded A Project Company and is currently running the platforms K-ARTNOW.COM and K-ARTIST.COM, which aim to promote Korean contemporary art on the global stage.