Hongik University Professor Ki Hye-kyung Appointed Director of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea

[Financial News] Ki Hye-kyung, an associate professor at Hongik University Graduate School of Fine Arts, has been appointed the new director of the MMCA. The appointment brings the new director back to the museum, where Ki worked as a curator for 13 years, after an 11-year absence.
According to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Minister Choi Hwi-young will present the appointment letter to Director Ki on the 13th. The term is three years.
The Ministry of Personnel Management opened applications last July for the MMCA director position, an open position for experienced professionals. The museum has been operating under acting director Yoon Tae-wook since former director Kim Sung-hee completed her term last September.
Director Ki worked at the MMCA’s Deoksugung Palace branch and in its curatorial department, among other roles, from 2002 to 2015. Ki helped prepare for the opening of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, and co-curated the 2015 exhibition “Noisy, Hot, and Overflowing,” which explored the Korean War, industrialization and democratization through art to mark the 70th anniversary of Korea’s liberation.
Ki later served as head of operations at the Seoul Museum of Art’s Buk-Seoul Museum of Art before heading the Busan Museum of Art from 2019 to 2023. Around 94,000 people visited the exhibition “Takashi Murakami: Murakami Zombie” during Ki’s tenure, from its opening on January 26, 2023, through March 7. The Busan Museum of Art extended the exhibition, originally scheduled to run through March 12, until April 16.
Born in 1964, Director Ki graduated from the Department of English Language and Literature at Ewha Womans University and earned master’s and doctoral degrees in art history from Hongik University. In 2022, Ki co-edited “Revisiting Korean Art 3: 1990s–2008.” Ki has continued research and teaching at Hongik University Graduate School of Fine Arts since 2023 and chaired the steering committee for the MMCA’s Korea Artist Prize until August last year.
Minister Choi said he hopes Director Ki will draw on the experience gained in the field and academia to create an “MMCA that comes closer to the public and breathes together with the world.”
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