Historically, culture and art have been related to all the conditions and circumstances prevailing in our society, including politics and the economy, and thus, our lives. At the core of this argument lies the idea of art for art’s sake (L’Art Pou... Historically, culture and art have been related to all the conditions and circumstances prevailing in our society, including politics and the economy, and thus, our lives. At the core of this argument lies the idea of art for art’s sake (L’Art Pour L’Art), which refers to the argument that the absolute beauty of art must be pursued rather than the relationship between art and life. Théophile Gautier (1811-1872), a French poet and novelist of the 19th century, also said in the preface to his work Mademoiselle de Maupin (1835) that beautiful things such as flowers are useless, but nobody wants such things to disappear. In the end, the field of art and culture and works of art related to aesthetic things (or aesthetic senses) are necessary in our lives from any perspective, regardless of whether they have a practical purpose or not. The discussion of the researcher starts from this point. And the position that considers that culture and art are related to our lives supports the argument that institutional devices designed to encourage and support cultural and artistic activities should be established and supplemented in a more practical and desirable way in order to enrich our lives. Mecenat, which refers to corporations’ active support of culture and art projects in order to expand culture and art and enhance social contributions, began in earnest in Korea in 1994 when the Korea Mecenat Association was established. In other words, Korea has about 20 years of history of mecenat activities, and mecenat in Korea has recently advanced to a greater stage of maturity, after passing through the stage of introduction from 1994 to 2004 and the stage of development since 2004. In the initial stages, mecenat in Korea was confined to domestic situations and focused on publicizing the necessity of corporations supporting culture and art and laying the foundations of mecenat activities; however, at the current stage of preparing to advance further, the challenge is posed of securing temporal and spatial specificity in 21st century Korea and putting mecenat activities on a more rational footing. This is because the social environment around us is rapidly changing, with a new economic logic being formed by the demands of the era for fusion and communication among various viewpoints and genres and the emergence of digital mobile technology and new media. However, mecenat in Korea has not yet promptly responded to such changes and new environmental demands. This is because most Korean companies still remain at the level of passively funding culture and art support projects out of a sense of duty, as they believe they have little impact on profit creation. However, it may be argued that it is not fair to require companies to make unilateral investments in the arts, as the primary purpose of a company is to pursue profits. Another reason why mecenat in Korea has not progressed is that culture and art are still not closely related to everyday life in the particular circumstances of Korean society, which has been built on high-speed economic growth. Therefore, it seems that the special domestic circumstances related to Korean mecenat should be taken into consideration in order to find its most appropriate form as it proceeds toward a more advanced stage. Culture and art support projects need to be reconsidered in terms of corporations’ action plans with regard to social contributions and from the viewpoint that they are related to the establishment of measures to support a stable system for sustainable profit creation. In this study, the researcher presents a practical example of such a culture and art support project, “Art Site Naoshima,” which is the project conducted by the Japanese company Benesse on Naoshima Island. As Fukudake Soichiro, chairman of Benesse Corporation, says that he advocates a public form of beneficent capitalism, what the researcher considers as the greatest significance of the Naoshima project is that it is a type of mecenat in which the scope and aspects of the living environment and the economic activities of today are reflected. As mentioned above, the mecenat activities of corporations are not incompatible with capitalist economic logic. But the case of Benesse Corporation shows a willingness to expand the concept of capitalism to a new and more developed level by adding the meaning of public benefit to mecenat. Public benefit seems to be incompatible with the concept of capitalism, whereby companies pursue their traditional goal of maximizing profit. This is because the pursuits of profits and public interest are hard to reconcile, and companies often do not consider public benefits in their profit-seeking activities. However, the logic underpinning the project of the Benesse Corporation is that using profits earned by profit-seeking activities to support culture and art for the public interest will lead to the creation of new profits, forming a virtuous cycle. In terms of marketing, this can be viewed as an effective exploitation of culture to enhance the image of the corporation. In other words, community contributions based on support of culture and art can improve the public image of corporations, which in turn can lead to an increase in their profits. As was confirmed by the researcher’s review of various types of literature, the two biggest problems confronting Korean mecenat and culture and art support projects to promote city regeneration are the following. First, there is an absolute shortage of professional manpower that can efficiently manage culture and art support projects. As a result, the intervention of the administrative personnel in the culture and art support process has been expanded, which can confine the support activities to an administrative and bureaucratic level. This makes it hard to guarantee the distinctive characteristics of each culture and art support project and more difficult to secure professionalism in the implementation of projects. Second, there is a lack of sustainability in support projects. Support measures for the culture and art sector by the government or corporations are usually discontinued when the lifetime of a government ends. There are many cases where projects are promoted only for a few months or a few years or support measures are only provided for short-term publicity gains or based on an impulsive decision, resulting in many support measures and programs that started with good intentions ending in failure. In order to more effectively manage and operate Korean corporations’ mecenat activities and the government’s culture and art support programs, it would be salutary to refer to the Naoshima project presented in this study as a successful model. Particularly, the project is an example of achieving great success by accepting the demands of the new era and including them in the scope of today’s business activities. It proves that the public benefit capitalism that Benesse Corporation emphasizes provides the conditions where culture and art support projects can be continuously implemented and lead to the creation of new profits. The virtuous cycle of profit seeking of corporations and creating public benefits may provide a good opportunity to develop more mature and sophisticated mecenat activities in Korea and might be an effective alternative to guarantee the sustainability of culture and art support measures by corporations. ，韩语论文，韩语论文 |
