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| Busan Mayor Park Heong-joon speaks in a session of the city council, April 26. Yonhap |
By Bahk Eun-ji
Busan Mayor Park Heong-joon has expressed his desire for Busan to host a museum for the donated art collection of late Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee.
The wish came after President Moon Jae-in ordered his aides to review a plan to set up a separate place to exhibit the 23,000 pieces of art, rather than dividing them up among multiple museums and exhibition halls.
On Sunday, Park posted a message on Facebook saying the tentatively named "Lee Kun-hee Museum" will become a superb tourist attraction.
"It is said that an art museum to show Chairman Lee's donated collection will be built, and news reports say that museum will be in Seoul, although the bereaved family hasn't agreed," he wrote.
He said that most of the country's cultural infrastructure is concentrated in Seoul, saying Seoul and the surrounding area already have Samsung-related museums ― Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art and the Ho-Am Art Museum ― as well as many more public and private ones.
"To meet the late chairman's desire to improve the nation's culture, it would make sense to build the museum in the southern part of the country, not in the metropolitan area," Park said, adding that Busan, an international tourist city, has already set up a plan to attract world-class art galleries to the city.
Park pledged to make the museum, if set up in the port city, a world-class art museum. "If it is built in the Seoul metropolitan area, it will be one of many art museums. But if it is built in Busan, it will be a must-visit attraction for tourists visiting the city," he wrote.
At the end of last month, Lee's bereaved family announced the donation of some 23,000 pieces of art to state museums. The government, in accordance with Moon's order, is discussing either preparing separate exhibition halls within the existing museums, or establishing a new museum dedicated to Lee's collection.
