War-Scarred 'Stonebook' Returns to MMCA Collection

War claims not only human lives but also artworks and cultural heritage. The Golestan Palace in central Tehran — known as "Iran's Versailles" and a UNESCO World Heritage Site — suffered irreversible damage from U.S.-Israeli airstrikes earlier this month. Similarly, one artwork nearly failed to return home due to a sudden outbreak of war. That was Ko Young-hoon's 1985 painting "Stonebook."

After the Soviet Union collapsed in the late 1980s, winds of reform swept through Eastern Europe. South Korea established diplomatic ties with these nations and launched cultural diplomacy in earnest. In 1989, South Korea and Yugoslavia established diplomatic relations. To commemorate this, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) hosted an exhibition of contemporary Yugoslav paintings in 1990. The following year, in 1991, a Korean contemporary painting exhibition toured various cities across Yugoslavia. The MMCA-organized touring exhibition was a large-scale show comprising 84 works by 25 Korean artists spanning Korean painting and Western-style painting. The ambitious project was planned as a long journey starting at the National Central Art Museum in Zagreb, then moving to Ljubljana, Sarajevo, and Belgrade. However, when the Yugoslav civil war erupted in the second half of 1991, the exhibition was abruptly cut short. Bringing the exhibited works "home" proved equally difficult. Nearly a year of agonizing uncertainty followed. Finally, through the efforts of the Korean Embassy in Yugoslavia, the works were dramatically and safely returned. Let us examine Ko Young-hoon's "Stonebook" — a work that nearly vanished amid war but is now one of the museum's most celebrated holdings.