The purpose of this article is to consider effective exhibition planning and their meaning
of Shamanist paintings through a case study on a special exhibition organized by the Gahoe
Museum in Seoul. Shamani st paintings represented Shamanist gods and goddesses have a
long history as the Korean people. However they have no attraction at present to the laymen
except some persons such as art hi storian, folklorist, photographer, etc. The reason is that
laymen have few opportunity to access Shamanist paintings in their daily life and also only
a few person have very limited knowledge on Shamanistic objects and its history. 1n order
to undergo these problematic matters, the first step must go to show closely Shamanist
paintings in a museum or cultural center in the perspecti ve of hi story or art history, and the
second step must go to interpret the meaning of Shamani st paintings as cultural heritage of
the Korean people.
1t is a first consideration that planning an exhi bition on shamanist paintings is to provide
basic understandings of them in relation to place or space, time or period, use or utilization,
maker or us er, skill or technic, rol e and fun c ti ons, etc. There are two as pects of
consideration so as to plan a special exhibition on shamanist paintings; one is Shamanist
paintings as religious objects, the other is Shamanist paintings as art objects.
A special exhibition hall of Shamanist paintings is better to be taken account of their
characteristics, the demand of gallery space, v씨IS잉ltorγ convenience and their expectation.
For a good planning exhibition 0 11 Shamanist paintings, it is necessary to consider lighting,
temperature, humidity, installation of showcases etc. in the gallery, so that Shamanist
paintings should not to be deteriorated and any inconvenience in the gallery should not to be provided to a visitor.
A special exhibition on Shamanist paintings organized by the Gahoe Museum from 4th
Oct. 2004 to 12th Dec. 2004 was not satisfied by myself on account of the narrow and small
exhibit hall and undeveloped special exhibition planning. It is needless to say that in order
to a good exhibition, the special exhibition hall should be expanded, and the systematic
process of exhibition planning should be required, and furthermore visitors ’ continual
interest and support should be followed .