Speaker
SUN Seung-hye
Affliation
Cultural Cooperation Division, MOFA
Title
Director
Session

Biography

Dr. Seughye Sun is currently the Director of Cultural Cooperation Division at Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Korea. She is responsible for all aspects of the cultural diplomacy developing innovative areas of soft power and public programming, while continuing to promoting the nation branding of Korea through cultural exchanges with all different locations around the globe. Especially she currently supports the 2018 Pyengchang Winter Olympic and Paralympic with the diplomatic mission.

Since 2001, Sun has served as curator at major museums in Korea, US, and Japan. She also balanced with academic research as the assistant professor of East Asian Studies at Sungkyunkwan University in Korea. She covers all periods of Korean art and culture from the ancient to the contemporary.

At the National Museum of Korea, where, as the curator of Asian Art Department, she planned and installed the permanent galleries of Asian art and curated special exhibitions of Korean and Asian arts. As the chief curator of Seoul Museum of Art, she overall directed the special exhibitions of contemporary arts of Korea and Africa, Europe, Africa, and etc.

In US, sun was the curator of the Cleveland Museum of Art which is one of the world’s preeminent collections of Asian art in US. In this role, she opened the first Korean Gallery in the 100year-history of Cleveland Museum of Art. Specially, she was the curator and publication author for the special exhibition, titled as “the Lure of Painted Poetry.” In Japan, she was invited as a scholar at Tokyo National Museum.

Sun has contributed to several books, catalogues and publications, including The Lure of Painted Poetry (2011), The Lure of Asia in Japanese Art (2008), Western-style Paintings in Modern Japan (2008), “Asian art galleries at the National Museum of Korea” (Orientations,2005), and “Korean Paintings of Peach Blossom Spring in the Late Joseon Dynasty” (Asia Yugaku, 2009). She also has presented at numerous conferences in Korea, China, Japan, the U.S. and across Europe.

Prior to her tenure at the National Museum of Korea, Sun was appointed a visiting fellow at the Harvard-Yenching Institute. She holds a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in aesthetics from Seoul National University, and her Ph.D. in art history at Tokyo University.


외교부 문화교류협력과장으로 세계각국과의 문화교류와 더불어 소프트파워의 새로운 방식과 국민공공외교프로그램을 활용한 문화외교의 새로운 지평을 열어가고 있다. 특히 2018년 평창동계올림픽과 패럴림픽을 지원하고 있다. 2001년부터 한국, 미국, 일본에서 큐레이터로 활동했다. 학계에서 성균관대학교 동아시아학술원 조교수로도 활동했다. 한국문화예술을 전통미술부터 현대미술까지를 아우른다. 국립중앙박물관에서 아시아관을 개관했으며, 다수의 한국과 아시아미술특별전을 기획했다. 서울시립미술관에서 학예연구부장으로서 한국, 아시아, 유럽, 아프리카 현대미술특별전을 총괄했다. 미국 클리블랜드미술관 큐레이터로서 한국실을 최초로 개설했으면, “그려진 한시” 특별전을 기획했다. 일본 도쿄국립박물관의 방문학자로 초빙되기도 했다. 서울대학교 미학과 학사, 석사, 도쿄대학교 미술사학 박사이다. 하버드대학 엔칭연구소 펠로우로 초청되었다. 주요저서로는 The Lure of Painted Poetry (2011), 일본근대서양화(2008), 일본미술의 복고풍(2008) 등이 있다.