Korean Art from 1953: Collision Innovation and Interaction

Phaidon Press, copyright 2020

by Yeon Shim Chung, Sunjung Kim, Kimberly Chung, Keith B. Wagner

Introduction

–  first anthology of critical essays that analyze Korean art from 1953 to present

(Question: I suppose this is true because it adds images to the text. But I am currently reading a book on critical essays looking at Korean art from 1980 to 2010).

Korean liberation from Japan in 1945

Signing of Korean Armistice Agreement in 1953

Book looks at Korean visual art in the post-war period.

“Research on Korean modern and contemporary art has remained fragmented and decontextualized, often concentrating on the aesthetic aspects of singular movements such as monochromatic style known as Dansaekhwa and its increasing cultural capital in the West.” (6)

Yeon Shim Chung (art historian)

Sunjung Kim (curator)

Kimberly Chung (Korean Studies scholar)

Keith B. Wagner (film theorist)

All attended two-day symposium at LA County Museum of Art (LACMA)

They reviewed:

• “A critical reappraisal of Minjung art, for example, highlights the polemical art practices that confronted the politically charged climate of the 1970s and 1980s during Korea’s controversial rapid modernization.” (6)

Question: Why was Korea’s modernization considered controversial? (Read here: https://kellogg.nd.edu/sites/default/files/old_files/documents/166_0.pdf)

• North Korea’s post-war art in the 1950s and 1960s, less at the regional level and more as a transnational/global context, the overall Korean art diaspora

Betty – Can one look at North Korea and South Korean art as a collective diaspora when there is little/no communication between the two countries?

• “new trajectory of Korean criticism that provides in-depth study of developments in Korean art at critical social junctures.” (6)

Books to Review:

• John Clark’s Modernity in Asian Art (1993)
• Youngna Kim’s Modern and Contemporary Art in Korea: Tradition, Modernity and Identity (2005)
• Chaotic Harmony: Contemporary Korean Photography (catalog for exhibitions)
• Korean Eye: Contemporary Korean Art (2010)
• Korean Art: The Power of Now (2016)
• Korean Art from the 19^th Century to the Present by Charlotte Horlyck (2017)
  • Scholarly review of North Korean art
  • Counterpoint to Jane Portal’s publications on North Korean art
• Korean Contemporary Art by Miki Wick Kim (2012)
• Contemporary Korean Art: Tansaekhwa and the Urgency of Method by Joan Kee (2013)

Part 1

The Korean Avant-Garde, Modernism, and Modernity: 1953-1987

Part 2

From Postmodernism to Contemporaneity in Korea: 1988-Present