Kim Youngna

Kim Youngna is Director-General of the National Museum of Korea,  Seoul, Republic of Korea and Chair of the ASEMUS Executive Committee. She received a B.A. in Art History from Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Art History from Ohio State University. After graduation, she started her career at Duksung Women’s University in Seoul as a professor of Art History in 1980 and was later appointed as the director of the university museum. In 1995, she became the professor of Archaeology and Art History at Seoul National University and continued teaching until she was appointed as the Director General of the NMK in February 2011.

Kim has previously served as president of academic associations of Korean and western modern art in Korea including the Association of Western Art History and the Korean Association of Art History Education. She is also a member of the Cultural Properties Committee of Cultural Heritage Administration of Korea since 2007.

Although formally educated in Western modern art, she has written extensively on Korean modern and contemporary art. Her publications comprise several books and many articles which include: The Art of the Twentieth Century Korea (Yekyong, Korean, 1998), Modern And Contemporary Art in Korea (Hollym, English, 2005), 20th Century Korean Art ( Laurence King , English,  2005) etc.

The NMK has been an enthusiastic member of ASEMUS and in October 2009 it began serving as the Asian Lead Partner of the Virtual Collection of Masterpieces (VCM), one of the most active ASEMUS projects launched in 2007. In August 2010, the NMK attended the ASEMUS General Conference in Paris where it was proposed to serve as the chair of ASEMUS for three years starting from October 2011. As Chair of the ASEMUS Exeuctive Committee, Kim Youngna pledges to devote herself to uphold the mission and vision of the ASEMUS to encourage cooperation among museums in Asia and Europe.