Sample Translations
kyunghwa JANG The Aesthetics of May: A History of People's Art in Korea E ng l i s h
Book Information
The Aesthetics of May: A History of People's Art in Korea (5μ μ λ―Έν ) 21st Century Books Publishing corp. / 2012 / 26 p. / ISBN 9788950945275 For further information, please visit: http://library.klti.or.kr/node/772 This sample translation was produced with support from LTI Korea. Please contact the LTI Korea Library for further information. library@klti.or.kr
The Aesthetics of May: A History of People's Art in Korea Written by JANG kyunghwa 1 This book is dedicated to the people’s artists who toil day in and day out in cold and clammy studios, staking their lives on their brushes in the quest to discover new worlds.
Foreword by the Author
Among the numerous forms and genres of art that exist in the world is "people's art" which organically emerged in South Korea in the 1980’s as a means of confronting the military dictatorship through visual expression. Throughout the world, artistic movements have been part of political and social changes as seen in France in the 1860’s, Russia in 1910, Mexico in 1910, and China in 1920. The people's art movement in South Korea began around the end of the dictator Park Chung-hee's rule (under a system known as the Yushin) in 1979, and spread explosively throughout the country after the May 18th Gwangju Democracy Movement.
During the tumultuous 1980’s I was a graduate student in Gwangju, and wrote my graduate thesis in 1986 on the new genre of "people's art" in Korea. Partly out of a sense of obligation to those who sacrificed their lives on May 18, 1980, for the past twenty years I have worked for the Gwangju Museum of Art where I planned exhibitions of people's art, studied various artists within the genre, and analyzed their works. On the basis of my experience and the artistic material I gathered over the years, in 2010, the 30th anniversary of the Gwangju
Democracy Movement, I began writing a year-long series of articles in the newspaper on the topic of people's art. These articles have served as the basis for this book, which seeks to explain Korean people's art in an accessible way.
For more than 30 years, "people's art" has expressed the relationship between people and society, politics, life, the environment, and even human rights. Art scholars from other countries who have actively collaborated with me in organizing international exhibitions have mentioned their surprise at the uniqueness of Korean people's art.
"People's art" has an undeserved popular reputation as being “intimidating, uncomfortable and abstruse,� a genre to be avoided. Ironically, however, indigenous people's art most effectively expresses the characteristics of modern Korean society while challenging us to achieve true modernity. It is my hope that through this book, the many artists who have struggled and suffered over the years while creating people's art will find some small measure of comfort, and that the general public will gain a proper understanding of the genre and hopefully take an interest in it.
I would like to thank The Kwangju Ilbo’s Chairman Seo Young-jin and the newspaper staff for providing me with space to write my year-long column on people's art in commemoration of the 30th Anniversary of the Gwangju Democratic Movement. Also, I express my gratitude to Chairman Kim Young-gon and the staff of Books21 publishing company whose support has made this book possible. Finally, I would like to thank my friend and mentor, Prof. Hwang Young-sung, for giving me advice and encouragement despite my indolence and procrastination.
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December 2012 Jang Kyunghwa
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Introduction Korean People's Art as the Aesthetics of May
In order to better understand the aspirations of Koreans and how they were able to survive a history of hardship, I decided to study the works of 30 creators of people's art in Korea. In the 1980’s, the development of truly Korean modern art came about through the spontaneous and ubiquitous appearance of realist people's art addressing relevant social issues of the day. People's art in Korea was critical of naturalism, the Park Chung-hee dictatorship, the military junta that carried out massacres in Gwangju, and foreign modernism that focused excessively on formal aesthetics. People's art was an ingenious form of resistance against injustice.
In this book, I will examine and redefine 30 people's artists through the lens of the Gwangju Democratic Movement, which began with the “May Incident” in the city of Gwangju, setting the aesthetic perspective for an entire era. May 1980 Gwangju is not only an important historical topic in its own right, but is also a spiritual and cultural asset for people's art in Korea.
During the 1980’s the genre could be divided into two major types. The first type was associated with selfless and dedicated pro-democracy groups calling for a Truth Commission to investigate the Gwangju massacre, while the second type was an outgrowth of indigenous efforts to find an alternative to the uncritical acceptance of Western aesthetics through discourse and the creation of new aesthetic forms. All of the people's artists active during the 80’s were influenced by these two trends which will serve as the context for examining the past and future of Korean people's art.
Now is an important time to evaluate the genre, which is why I want to trace the evolution of people's art from harsh and combative images of resistance to the varied styles we have today. I will also discuss how this evolution fits into Korean art history and the myriad influences on the genre from capitalism, the environmental movement, human rights, and other spheres. Finally, I will review the current state of people's art in South Korea.
The First Stirrings of People's Art in Korea
At the birth of the people's art movement in 1979, progressive young artists dissatisfied with harsh military rule began to exercise their beliefs in justice and a better future by leaving the art studio and using their creative energies as tools for social criticism and resistance. These youth were motivated both politically and artistically.
On the one hand, they joined pro-democracy organizations, inculcating themselves with resistance ideology which would form a solid foundation for the people's art movement. By
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1977, Gwangju had become ground zero for artists participating in social activism and the pro-democracy movement. Young creatives who eventually developed people's art into an independent genre probably chose to create a new medium of expression useful for propagating progressive ideology. They formed the core of the Freedom Art Collective Gwangju (FACG), which was responsible for producing visual media during the May 1980 Democratic Movement.
On the other hand, young artists of the period pursued people's art to combat the blind adherence to Western aesthetics that was sweeping South Korea and to generate creative discourse on the aesthetics people's art. In particular, modernism had just reached the shores of South Korea, and was spreading like wildfire throughout the creative classes. The people's art movement created and championed by progressive young Korean artists served as a counterfoil to Western aesthetic domination.
In 1979, young artists armed with democratic ideology and a fierce desire for artistic independence created the Freedom Artists Collective Gwangju (FACG) and “Reality and Utterance� (RU) in Seoul. Other similar organizations which began as underground university art troupes soon sprouted up, including the Tomal Art Collective (1982), 59 of 60 (1982), Furrows (1983), as well as Work and Play (1984).
Following the Gwangju Democratic Movement in 1980, Gwangju became the epicenter of the people's art movement and was the birthplace of the Gwangju Visual Arts Research Institute and the Gwangju Woodcut Research Association, which were both founded in 1986. They merged in 1989 to becoming the Gwangju-Jeonnam Artists Collective (hereafter referred to as the GJAC), which was affiliated with the National Association for People's Art.
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<Photo> Tomal Art Collective (Hong Sung-min, Park Gwang-soo, Kim Sang-sun) - The People's Struggle: In this troubled world - 7000 x 174cm, acrylic on silk paper, 1983
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Is People's Art True Modern Art?
Three currents have coexisted in the art world. The first is “fine art,” or art for art's sake which can be likened to a silkworm nestled among mulberry leaves. Another is “participatory art,” which serves as a tool of history. The last is “decadent art” in the Romantic style, which is distinct from the previous two types.
Whatever form art might take, it has value as a witness and repository of an era's culture and spirit. At the same time, we can subjectively judge art on its authenticity, universality, and how faithfully its aesthetic form and content reflect the environment or era in which it was created.
When I entered the Korean art world in the 1980’s, I began to have misgivings about the supremacy of modern art. I thought to myself, “Can true modern art exist in South Korea? If so, what specific works can we point to and truly call our own?” It can be argued that the birth of modern art in Korea occurred during the Japanese colonial period, continuing through liberation from Japanese rule when Korean artists haphazardly aped Western forms and tried
to keep up with foreign aesthetic trends. I found it difficult to answer the question I had posed to myself and fell into confusion regarding my graduate studies in Korean art history.
I still had faith, however, that it wasn't too late for South Korea to develop its own aesthetic fundamentals and perspectives, but such a grand undertaking would require the participation of enlightened creatives.
Following this line of reasoning further, the spontaneous and ubiquitous appearance of realist people's art in the 1980’s constituted true South Korean modern art which sought to address relevant social issues. South Korean realist art of the 1980’s struck a blow against the distorted modernism that had been grafted onto the local art scene and rebuked the naturalists who were more concerned with art world politics than artistic creation. South Korean realists created a visual medium for criticism of the oppressive Yushin military dictatorship and the new military junta that consolidated its power after the massacre of civilians in Gwangju. Through resistance against tyranny, people's art in South Korea gave rise to a new form of modern aesthetics.
Restoring Korea's Cultural Foundation through the Aesthetics of Gwangju
Researching the lives of 30 people's artists covered in this book has been a journey of selfdiscovery and enlightenment regarding the tumultuous events of South Korea’s recent past, and has shown me the power of hope and positivity in the unrelenting struggle for freedom. I
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also learned that artistic imagination and freedom ultimately triumph over power and authoritarianism.
Although history books tell us that the people's art movement in South Korea was born in Gwangju and Seoul in 1979 through the efforts of progressive groups, the people's art movement gained fierce momentum and developed its indomitable spirit of struggle through the Gwangju Democratic Movement of May 1980.
May 1980 Gwangju became a national flashpoint and battle cry for progressive political and labor movements well into the 1990â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s. People's art evolved from its roots as a form of protest against tyranny into a form of visual expression for political and labor movements. Greatly influenced by the trauma of May 1980, the people's art movement propagated the spirit of resistance nationwide, repeatedly demanding that an official investigation be opened into the Gwangju massacre and calling for those responsible to be punished.
There are important reasons why people's art should be collected and organized in Gwangju. First of all, Gwangju has styled itself as being an Asian cultural city, but living up to its name requires that its spiritual and aesthetic foundation laid 30 years ago in May 1980 be properly understood. By analyzing and introducing readers to the works of 30 people's artists, readers will hopefully become aware of the connection between the aesthetic roots of people's art and the spirit of Gwangju. In particular, the genre must rediscover its spiritual and cultural past from May 1980 Gwangju, which gave rise to the original aesthetics of people's art.
<Photo> Oh Yun - Father - 36 x 35cm, woodblock print on paper, 1981
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Once this is accomplished, Gwangju can develop a market for people's art-related cultural content and share this work with the multitude of peoples, nations, and cultures throughout the world. Through cultural exchange, non-Koreans will be able to reinterpret the aesthetic perspective of Gwangju and create new works furthering the genre of people's art.
Integration Creates Value
The spark that started the people's art movement in South Korea has yet to be extinguished, particularly in Gwangju, where the flame still burns bright and where ideology as well as aesthetic forms remain distinct from those anywhere else in the country. Why is this? Perhaps the Gwangju Democratic Movement has yet to be concluded or maybe the movement has moved on to new ideological battles.
Whatever the case may be, the people's art movement centered on Gwangju is alive and kicking. While it is indisputably true that todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s movement lacks the strength of collective purpose it had in the past, its members continue to create new works in a panoply of directions and styles. The eternal candle still burns. I believe it is very important to reexamine the legacy of people's art from its Big Bang in Gwangju, which is why this book begins with the first generation of people's artists from the 1980's while also including the new generation of artists who never experienced May 1980 Gwangju. I will examine the achievements of the peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s art movement in incorporating traditional Korean aesthetic elements, attitudes, and
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forms in creating visual works with wide popular appeal and influence that continues to the present day.
<photo> Min Jeong-gi - Chronicle of the Han Family No. 5 - 29 x 38.5cm, copper plate print, 1984
Korean people's art is a precious part of Korea's cultural heritage as it is a record of modern life. The time is right for Koreans to examine the genre in a new light and embrace it as our own for the sake of its future development.
If the promotion of people’s art is the burden which Gwangju must shoulder, then Gwangju must do so with aplomb. This will create added cultural value and expand the market for people's art with Gwangju as its center. Gwangju has the potential to become a focusing lens and energy source for art and culture, in particular other genres of participatory art that have grown out of democratic movements in other countries throughout Asia. Promoting people’s art and maintaining the core spirit of the Gwangju Resistance is a must for Gwangju to live up to its image as an Asian city of human rights.
Before 30 iconic people’s artists on the forefront of the progressive movement from the 80’s and beyond get any older, I would like the Korean public to rediscover their works.
Remaining Tasks
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Although I have interviewed and profiled 30 people's artists in the current volume, I regret that I could not include more artists. For personal or other reasons, some didn't respond to my requests for an interview. While I did my best to analyze the legacy of the thirty profiled in this book, there will invariably be some omissions and errors for which I apologize in advance.
<photo> Yim Ok-sang - Earth - 350 x 135cm - oil on canvas, 1981
One of my dilemmas while conducting research for this book was the selection of works for showing readers the basic form of the Gwangju aesthetic. I did my best to cover the diverse aesthetic characteristics of 30 icons in the genre to show how each artist interpreted the Gwangju aesthetic, yet I admit there are some inconsistencies in my presentation. As this is my first book covering the genre, I will have to satisfy myself with getting the ball rolling, however I promise to fill in the gaps in the future.
In closing, I call upon the City of Gwangju to construct a Museum for Peace and Human Rights. If Gwangju deigns to call itself a â&#x20AC;&#x153;city of human rights,â&#x20AC;? the least it can do is establish such a museum which will play an important role in the creation of new cultural content and the development of a market for people's art.
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<photo> Kim Ho-seok - It feels good, doesn't it? - 95 x 108cm, ink and color on paper, 1993
Through embracing and claiming people's art as its own, Gwangju can become a genuine city of human rights, proud of its spiritual and cultural heritage. This will prepare Gwangju for the future while burnishing Korea's national image.
To the 30 people's artists I met while writing this book: I salute you, who toil day in and day out in cold and clammy studios, staking your lives on your brushes in your quest to discover new worlds.
Table of Contents
Author's Foreword
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Introduction: Korean People's Art as the Aesthetics of May
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Ch 1 Wind and Rain in a Barren Land
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Weighty subjects portrayed with an "essayist's pen"(Roh Won-hee)
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Fireworks and human forests in ink(Hong Sung-min)
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The free soul who opened new horizons for people's art(Oh Yun)
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Expressing the universality of Koreans' collective historical experience through grotesque portrayals of everyday life(Ahn Chang Hong)
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Deconstructing the city by brush - the advocate of Korea's mountains and streams(Min Jeong-gi)
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Fear and anxiety disguised as capitalism(Lee Wonsuk)
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Faces of survivors who have overcome a “bitter history”(Lee Jong-ku)
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Ch 2 Water is Tinged with the Color of Sky
Artistic responsibility: Sublime and lyrical depictions of rural landscapes (Kang YeonGyun)
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“Gypsy aesthetics” during uneasy times(Yim Ok-sang)
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People's art rooted in the lyricism of the South(Son Jang Sup)
104
Koreans' self-portraits found in the faces of mothers(Yoon Seok Nam)
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Diligent carpenter-painter and vanguard people’s artist(Choe Byung Soo)
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Bosom buddies: Realism and people's art(Kwak Young-hwa)
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The “brightness of life” in the darkness(Shim Jung-soo)
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Citizens' debt to society, the 80's, hope & despair(Park Eun-tae)
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Ch 3 Life Rises from the Passing Darkness
Modernism as the beginning of official Korean history and reality’s horizons (Shin Hak-cheol)
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“Divine Art”: the legendary liaison between heaven and earth(Kim Bong Jun)
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Gwangju in May: people’s art in the coalmines(Hwang Jae-hyung)
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The ink tears of people's art(Heo Dal Yong)
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The sharp edge of May sharpened through diligent practice(Hong Sun-woong)
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Criticism of capitalism through photo collages(Park Bul-Dong)
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History and realism as seen in 'the land and soil'(Kim Jung-hun)
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The beloved woodcut artist(Lee Chul-soo)
216 15
Ch 4 The Fiery Heart Lighting the Dawn
Beyond resistance: messages of creativity(Hong Sung Dam)
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History as told through paintings of everyday life: people's art as lyrical poetry (Kim Ho-suk)
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The sound of light in history(Kang Yo Bae)
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An unseen world wrapped in chains(Son Bong Chae)
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Seeds growing into the flower garlands of May(Chung Jeong-yeop)
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The miserable marching tune of the lower-middle class(Koo Bon Moo)
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Should the peoplesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; lives be portrayed nationalistically?(Park Young-gyoon)
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A timeline of people's art 1979~2012
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Ch 1 Wind and Rain in a Barren Land 16
It was a frightful era for those who loved freedom. Heavy footfalls of combat boots echoed off the asphalt roads in the center of the city while armored vehicles blocked off the entrances to universities. The junta that came to power through a military coup twisted the peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s spirit in their iron grip. True artists felt creatively stifled as if dying of thirst. However, the muse visited this barren tundra of creativity like a wind blowing between the bare branches of a tree. Artists were soaked by rain and lashed by the wind, which tore encrusted dust from their skin to bring in a golden age of modern Korean culture.
Rho Wonhee Weighty subjects portrayed with an "essayist's pen"
Due to the nationwide media blackout in May 1980 and the fact that Rho Wonhee lived in Daegu at the time, she had no idea of the terrible events occurring in the city of Gwangju. It was like being unable to clearly see a tree because one lies deep in its shadeâ&#x20AC;Ś she later
learned of the civilian massacre when an activist group gave her a photo album filled with photos of atrocities from the incident.
Rhoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s works possess maternal warmth and feminine delicacy that embrace and soothe those who lived through South Koreaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tumultuous 80's. Her unpretentious and lucid works are drawn in a simple and detached style.
Her carefully-measured realist works resonate with a strong sense of emptiness brought about by the general shock of brutal events only hinted at in her works rather than an emptiness stemming from ennui or the monotony of everyday life.
Paying Tribute to Gwangju & Life as Seen through the Eyes of the Dispossessed
While Rho was in university and grad school, she pursued her own style grounded in traditional Korean art forms and remained unaffected by the rise of Western art in Korean art circles.
While she was living in Daegu in May 1980, she received no news of the harsh military response to protests in Gwangju. She later heard occasional snippets of information about the incident from social activists and friends attending night school classes at her university. The serious state of national affairs only hit home when she tried to help an underclassman avoid arrest after martial law had been declared. While they were on their way to Ssangae Temple in the Jiri Mountains to seek shelter, they were stopped at a military checkpoint. Later Rho
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and her friends attempted to travel to Gwangju, but were stymied by the state of emergency declared by the military and the subsequent strict restrictions on travel. Rho mentioned feeling trapped in the shade of large tree.
The shock and sorrow she felt for the people of Gwangju were sublimated in works such as <Group Photo> (1980), which is a tribute to those who perished on May 18th. The painting depicts survivors holding bags containing the cremated remains of their loved ones and is a depressingly stark reminder of a dark period in modern Korean history.
Rho also created <Missing in May> (2001) which went on exhibit at the Gwangju Museum of Art in 2001. This work depicts the free soul of a student dancing for joy in the treetops and was painted in remembrance of the many high school students who disappeared on May 18th in Gwangju. In contrast to the bright colors portraying the student, the rest of the painting is dark and murky.
Although Rho's unstated goal in creating this work was to heal the wounds of Gwangju, such a motive is hard to glean from the painting itself. One must keep in mind, however, that in the early 80's, calls for an official investigation into the Gwangju massacre were taboo and the socially marginalized were effectively chained and pilloried, living under constant fear and oppression which Rho captured in her works. These two works were part of the inaugural exhibition held by the progressive art collective Reality and Utterance in 1980. Many of the works in the exhibit portrayed the lives of the oppressed and forgotten.
<Photo>
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Missing in May - 116.7 x 90.9cm, oil on canvas, 2001
Most of the progressive artists at the time used recent social incidents or places of historical significance as subjects in their works. Some people's artists also borrowed from Western art forms and experimented with various to techniques to strengthen the stark realism of their works, but Ms. Rho continued to develop her own style focused on portraying the realities of the disenfranchised. All her works from the 80â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s are concerned with the daily lives and joys of those at the fringes of society.
â&#x20AC;&#x153;Does an objective, universal happiness exist for all of us? Is it possible to have a community in which all members can achieve happiness in the same ways? What are the obstacles to building such a community?â&#x20AC;? (from the Oct. 1980 Reality and Utterance inaugural exhibition catalog)
From this perspective and attitude Rho researched and portrayed the daily lives of laborers, the poor, and the marginalized, treating her subjects with respect, warmth, and empathy. She also believed in the importance of linking the joys of life with social issues.
Interpreting Works Drawn with an "Essayist's Pen"
Rho Wonhee is the most accessible of the people's artists from the 1980's, as she has the gift of expressing weighty and complex subjects in ways that viewers can immediately grasp.
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Most works of people's art from this period focused on actual social incidents, but Rho Wonhee took a different tack, choosing to examine from a broadly maternal perspective the daily lives of people caught in the middle of social upheaval.
Take, for instance, <Family 3> (1986). This work depicts a family of three -- a baby in between its mother and father -- deep in blissful sleep, yet viewers feel anxious in the knowledge that this peaceful scene could be disrupted at any moment.
Using such sublime techniques, her works connect the joys of daily life with more ominous social realities. The simplicity of her works has made some critics to judge her works as â&#x20AC;&#x153;lacking dynamism or power,â&#x20AC;? yet I would counter by saying that on the contrary, her work exhibits deliberate restraint to better express the themes of maternal love and feminine delicacy.
Some claim that her works are inherently feminist, but to label them as such is limiting. Her works transcend feminist agendas and are not intended to inflame passions or incite violence. Rather, the feminine delicacy with which she has lovingly created her works imbues them with a sublime serenity.
<Photo> Group Photo - 130.3 x 162.1cm, oil on canvas, 1980
<Photo>
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Family 3 - 53 x 65.2cm, oil on canvas, 1986
At the same time, however, Rhoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s works are filled with a sense of emptiness separate from the social incidents in the background of her works. The sense of futility present in her paintings is more powerful than the ennui experienced by viewers in their humdrum, repetitive lives, and this very futility is more shocking and powerful than any deliberate attempt at portraying dynamism. Her works possess great depth and breadth because of this. The aesthetic forms in her works are simultaneously grounded in both realism and fantasy, an effect she achieves by placing distance between both realms by leaving deep and broad gaps - temporal, spatial, and artistic -- in her paintings. It is within such depth and breadth that she is able to portray the alienation felt in the daily lives of laborers and those at society's fringes.
Her inimitable style is like flowing water and enables her to consider heavy subjects with facility. That's why I have chosen to describe her style as that of an "essayist," because her works are unhurried and organically expressive as if flowing from a pen. Her style brings to mind a stream flowing downhill that forms a pond around obstacles before finding a downward path once more. Although her medium is the brush and canvas, her works are reminiscent of Oriental ink paintings with their abundant empty spaces, giving her work a sense of flowing effortlessness. This allows her works to be â&#x20AC;&#x153;read,â&#x20AC;? as opposed to interpreted, by viewers.
Realism: Toward the Sea of Femininity and Maternity
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Dong-eui University, where Rho Wonhee teaches, was the site of the controversial May 3rd incident in 1989, but it was also the site of previous protests against abuses of the military regime. Rho Wonhee participated in the 1986 "Professors' Statement of Conscience" as well as in a hunger strike in 1987. 22 Although Rho is a professor, social activist, and artist, she is also a public intellectual with a conscience who has never hesitated to confront corruption and power. She is an unblemished scholar and people's artist who discounts capitalist imperatives in favor of seeing the world from a critical realist's perspective.
According to Rho, there was a time when she felt confused about the legacy of her work. The conclusion she drew from this period of self-reflection was that she would live her life without greed. For Ms. Rho, people's art is her ocean, her home, and the starting point of her career.
Over the past 30 years of Rho Wonhee's career, she has demonstrated a consistent aesthetic, but beginning in 2000, her works began incorporating harsher modes of expression. More recently, she has begun to incorporate subjects from traditional Korean shaman songs into her realist works while maintaining her signature aesthetic restraint, conciseness, and detachment. She transcended the momentary South Korean feminist fad in the 1990's and has been able to portray the everyday lives of her forgotten subjects with delicacy and sensitivity. Her understated style is more effective at conveying feminine strength than any deliberate attempt.
The imaginative power that can be found in South Korean realism today is due in no small part to Ms. Rho's contributions to the genre, namely her use of the feminine and maternal perspective. By following Ms. Rho's lead, South Korean realism has been able to move beyond its roots in the 80's and 90's, deepening and broadening like the sea, and has the potential to serve as a model for realism in Asia as a whole. 23
About Rho Wonheeâ&#x20AC;Śâ&#x20AC;Ś
Rho Wonhee was born in Daegu in 1948, and received both her B.A. and M.A. in Fine Arts from Seoul National University. She has held 13 exhibitions of her personal work in Seoul, Busan, and Daegu, and was an active member of the Reality and Utterance art collective from 1980 to 1990. She has taken part in such exhibitions as "Fifteen years of People's Art" (National Gallery of Modern Art, 1994), "The Spirit of May" (Gwangju Biennale, 1995), and the Busan Biennale (2012) in addition to numerous other art shows. She is currently a professor at Dong-eui University and is active as a member of the Gamigol Artist Collective.
Hong Sung-min Fireworks and human forests in ink
The first few months of 1980 became known as the “Seoul Spring.” Just a few months earlier, on Oct. 26, 1979, dictator Park Chung-hee was assassinated by his intelligence chief; and on Dec. 12th of the same year, Lt. General Chun Doo-hwan seized power in a military coup. With the start of the new year, however, the people had high hopes that a free democratic government would come to power. 24 Around this time Hong Sung-min was a university freshman and he experienced the events of May 1980 in Gwangju firsthand. He was an active participant in the leading organizations of the 1980’s people's art movement, namely the Freedom Artists Collective Gwangju (FACG) and the Gwangju Visual Arts Research Association (GVARA) and helped create countless hanging banners, streamers, flags, posters, and other visual media for the student democracy movement. While attending university, Hong Sung-min studied under the Korean ink painting master “Asan” or Jo Bang Won, from whom Hong learned traditional Korean art (including ink painting) and philosophy.
While struggling through the turmoil of the 80's, Hong diligently crafted a unique style that took elements from diverse forms of traditional aesthetics and incorporated them into socially relevant ink paintings. His experiences in the student democracy movement inspired him to create the serial works <Bamboo> and <Asia's Forest>, the latter of which is his portrayal of a candlelight vigil. Although his works grew out of the angst and tumult of a social movement, their value transcends ideology and are valuable cultural treasures representing the spirit of Gwangju and democratic struggles in Asia.
New Horizons for Korean Ink Paintings through the Turmoil of May
As a university freshman in 1980, Hong Sung-min organized underground art troupes under the wing of the Democratic Students Association, and was active in a traditional Korean mask dance club that was known as a gathering place for ideologically-aware students. Hong was the creator of the first hanging banner that can be classified as people's art: <The People's Struggle> (Tomal Art Collective, 1983). This work first began as a hanging banner used during protests, but was later used as a stage background at a variety of civilian demonstrations, and was even used as the stage backdrop for poet Ko Un's â&#x20AC;&#x153;May in Gwangjuâ&#x20AC;? lecture tour upon his release from prison in 1982. This banner went missing in 1985 when police stormed the Gwangju Cultural Festival, but it was restored in time for the exhibition, "Fifteen Years of People's Art" which was held in 1994 at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Seoul.
One of the most significant works of people's art from the Gwangju Resistance were <Spear> and <Rubbish> from 1986. With the launch of the Gwangju Visual Arts Research Association (GVARA), Hong collaborated with other artists in creating group works including the hanging banner, <History of the People's Liberation Movement>, which was sent to Pyongyang in 1989 for a cultural festival. Throughout the 80's, Hong Sung-min stood at the forefront of the people's art movement and was involved in all its major developments.
He was instrumental in organizing underground artist collectives such as folk art clubs and the Tomal Art Collective, and formed alliances with similar organizations at other art schools throughout South Korea.
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While creating countless banners, streamers, flags, and posters for the people's art and democracy movements, he learned to sublimate the dynamism of social movements into traditional Korean ink paintings and experimented with adding various aesthetic forms as well as historical and ideological consciousness to his works. Although he was schooled in traditional art forms, he also embraced the tumult of the times while honing his craft, culminating in the serial work, <Bamboo>, which Hong completed in the early 90's. This series later evolved into <Asia's Forest>.
<Photo> Asia's Forest 02 (one of 13 pcs) - 74 x 218cm, ink on paper, 2006 ~ 2012
Discussion of Asian Sensibility and Spirit in "Asia's Forest"
In the 90's, Hong Sung-min began to create a distinct aesthetic world by melding elements from traditional Korean ink paintings with new aesthetic forms. The immediacy and historical significance of the events he had experienced as a youth were now fully part of his artistic being and flowed from his brush into his ink paintings. In the <Bamboo> series, Hong alternates between using heavy and light inks to create a sense of space among the bamboos in the forest while expressing the four phases of life (birth, old age, sickness, death) and four human emotions (joy, anger, sorrow, happiness), Through bold strokes of his masterful brush, the ink comes alive with strained breaths as if alive and squirming. The vertical columns of ink set off by the intermittent strokes representing bamboo leaves create a tense dialectic
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brimming with energy that could explode at any moment, a tension that keeps viewers breathless.
Traditional Korean ink paintings reflected the inner world of Korean painters, and the same holds true for Hong Sung-min although he is the product of a different era and environment. His works reflect his love of man while metaphorically portraying contemporary reality through humor that penetrates to the essence of modern civilization.
Hong doesn't shrink from subjects such as violence and war carried out in the name of greed and the state, nor does he omit the death and destruction that follow in their wake. Although his works share some similarities with traditional Korean ink paintings from the southern provinces which commonly feature fields and landscapes, Hong's work is poignant and compelling in a totally different fashion. Hong's â&#x20AC;&#x153;eternal forest,â&#x20AC;? depicted in many of his works, is tense with energy and bears the scars of society while embracing the events of history--a flowing river wound up like a taut bowstring.
<Photo> The Well of Asia - ink on paper with bricks and other materials, 2008
<The Well of Asia> raised eyebrows as an ink painting installation art piece. Bricks are arranged to evoke the remains of a circular well from which several lengths of semitransparent Korean hanji paper painted with ink bamboos seem to rise while illuminated from behind. This installation does a good job of conveying the charm and aesthetics of traditional
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Oriental ink painting, which Hong has succeeded in transforming into a new aesthetic of peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s art with unlimited potential through his experimentation with melding traditional art forms and artistic innovations.
The title, <Asia's Forest>, hints at the forest as a gathering of Asia's common history which has been broken and fragmented by the scourge of imperialism. Hong is able to transcend the limitations of time and space by reinterpreting Asia's spirit and history through the fusion of ink painting and elements of formative art to express the hope and despair experienced by Asia and its people.
In the accumulated ink strokes of <Asia's Forest>, one â&#x20AC;&#x153;feels the sensibilities and spirit of Asia and sees the vicissitudes of Asia's modern history between darkness and light. By fusing disparate elements, I aim to create a work offering hope and promise for a new era.â&#x20AC;?
The bamboos in <Asia's Forest> represent the people of Asia who have managed to survive the many ups and downs of the modern era while maintaining their dignity.
Hong has demonstrated the artistic will to disseminate the spirit of May 1980 Gwangju throughout Asia. With an ink painting aesthetic inspired by the spirit of May, Hong has linked the themes of nature, humanity, history, and society in his works.
Fireworks of Ink Blossoming amidst a Forest of People
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From a perspective grounded in the humanities, Hong has approached and analyzed diverse events from Korea's modern history such as the street rally culture which spread throughout South Korea in 2002. He incorporated this social phenomenon into his work by aesthetically interpreting street rallies using diverse materials and styles of expression.
The street protests in 2002 included candlelight vigils protesting the US military's accidental killing of two middle school girls, Mi-sun and Hyo-soon, who were run over by a US armored vehicle as well as the frenzied Korea-Japan World Cup festivities in Seoul's Gwanghwamun and City Hall districts and Gwangju's May 18th Square located by Geumnam-ro. In 2008, people again took to the streets and held candlelight vigils over fears of mad cow disease in American beef imports. Tenaciously experimenting with new forms, Hong has attempted to convey the zeitgeist of street protest culture in his new works.
The composition created by layered bamboo trees is actually quite apt for portraying tightlypacked crowds on the street. The elongated stalks of bamboo evoke masses of people standing on the streets while holding myriad candles. Although each individual is distinct, they meld into one another to create a consistent whole. The process of scattering and gathering is repeated countless times in Hong's works, reflecting the reality of our modern lives. The culture of the public commons is portrayed through the dialectic between order and chaos, light and dark, and the tension between movement and immobility.
In this way Hong Sung-min is able to redefine and portray society through a prism of art and the humanities using his unlimited language of aesthetic form.
<Photo>
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Asia's Forest III - 77 x 138cm, ink and color on paper, 2008
The simple order of ink brush strokes expresses traditional figurative beauty as well as Hong's realist historical consciousness. While respecting the tradition of ink painting, Hong is not content to be constrained by its traditional forms, and has created a new tradition in the pursuit of modern aesthetics and realism. I look forward to his future works and discourse which will no doubt challenge our preconceived notions and shake us out of our complacency.
It is the author's humble opinion that artist Hong Sung-min is a Korean cultural treasure and a true son of Gwangju who embodies the spirit of May.
About Hong Sung-minâ&#x20AC;Śâ&#x20AC;Ś
Hong Sung-min was born in 1961 in Shinan, Jeonnam Province and is a graduate of Jeonnam University. He has won numerous awards and been invited to hold exhibitions in Gwangju, Seoul, and other cities (he held an exhibition at the Gwangju Museum of Art in 2008). Hong has held six private exhibitions including "Fifteen Years of People's Art" (National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, 1994), special exhibition "Art and Human Rights" at the Gwangju Biennale (Gwangju Museum of Art, 2000), "From Gwangju's Memories to Peace in East Asia" (Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, 2005), "May Exhibit on the 30th Anniversary of the Gwangju Democratic Movement" (Busan Democratic Struggle Memorial Building, 2010), "Southern School Ink Paintings and the Future" (Gwangju Museum of Art, 2011) and numerous group exhibitions. He was active in the Tomal Art Collective and Gwangju Visual Arts Research Association (GVARA).
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Oh Yun The Free Soul who Opened New Horizons for People's Art 31
It has already been more than 26 years since the passing of Oh Yun (1946-1986). During the past 30 years, however, he has continued to exert an influence on people's art in South Korea despite only living until the age of 40 with a career spanning just 16 years. Oh was a milestone in South Korean art who exhibited creative genius in socially critical works created during a time of political repression in a country lacking any tradition of participatory art.
Woodblock Prints and the Influence of Poet Kim Ji-ha
When Oh Yun was a sophomore in high school, his older sister Oh Sook-hee (1939 ~ ; BFA from SNU) was accepted to Seoul National University's School of Fine Arts. There, she came to know progressive poet Kim Ji-ha, whom she introduced to her younger brother.
<Photo> Landscape study - 38 x 35cm, woodblock print on paper, 1981
Oh Yun was ideologically influenced by Kim Ji-ha, through whom he learned many new facets of traditional Korean culture in addition to being introduced to the works of Mexican muralist Diego Rivera (1886~1957), which exerted a formative influence on the development
of Oh Yun's aesthetic style. Such was the level of Kim's influence on Oh that their relationship could be likened to that of master and apprentice.
After graduating from Seoul National University, Oh gradually became more interested in woodcuts as an artistic medium. As Oh studied sculpture in university, he became skilled in the use of knife, chisel, and other tools which were also used in woodworking, and to which he was well-suited. Oh's interest in woodcuts was piqued when he was exposed to the woodcut style espoused by Chinese writer Lu Xun (1881~1936), whose woodcut movement saw a revival in mid-to-late 70's China. The wide availability and rapidity of dissemination of woodcuts
appealed to Oh, who felt that traditional Korean woodcuts were the best way to
express Korean aesthetics. Because woodcuts could be easily distributed and quickly made, Oh believed they would be an effective medium for communicating with and enlightening the people while also representing an art form in and of itself.
Oh Yun's tool of choice was the chiseling knife instead of the painter's brush for creating durable, as opposed to disposable, works. Oh also preferred art meant for open spaces rather than closed galleries. His works were simple yet strikingly powerful, carved from wood with a craftsman's dedication. While whittling and carving away wood, Oh explored the injustice and hurt spawned during South Korea's transformation from an agricultural into an industrial society in the 70's and 80's, often revealing the people's anger in his woodcuts. He published a collection of these works in a single volume, [Song of the Chisel], in 1985.
The Dawn of People's Art
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The South Korean art world of the 1970's uncritically accepted Western aesthetics and forms which it slavishly tried to imitate, but there was growing resistance from local artists against such mindless copying. Up to this time, the production and consumption of contemporary South Korean art had mostly been confined to art galleries and lacked popular appeal. Younger artists criticized "art for art's sake" for its social irrelevance and insulation from the lives of Koreans and their history.
Beginning in the late 1970's, socially and historically-conscious young artists led by Oh Yun took it upon themselves to forge ahead with socially-relevant works, leading to the creation of the artist collective "Reality and Utterance" in 1979.
Oh Yun's conception of “the people” was simply those existing at the fringes of society. He intentionally avoided ideological interpretations of the word framed in terms of who controlled the means of production and did not view “the people” as a force for historical change. Perhaps that is why he disliked the moniker, "people's artist."
Oh Yun was mainly concerned with discovering and artistically portraying human dignity in the lives of the people and their individual struggles, and his portrayal of their anger, sadness, and defiance were simply byproducts of the peoples’ loss of dignity and humanity.
Art and ideology follow a consistent line of reasoning in Oh's works, and it appears that he used art as an ideological tool to edify the people. Woodcuts were eminently suited for this task as they could be easily mass-produced and rapidly crafted.
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Oh Yun was clearly more of a realist than an idealist, yet he still dreamed of restoring traditional Korean sensibilities to a place of honor in society. Critic Yoo Hong Jun has the following to say about Oh Yun's aesthetic world: "Oh developed strong opinions on both ideological and spiritual matters influenced by poet Kim Ji-ha's philosophy of life affirmation and the Cheondo-gyo concept of rebirth of the world through enlightenment. A strictly ideological analysis of Oh Yun's work doesn't tell the whole story, however.â&#x20AC;?
<Photo> Tale of Eight Petals - 35.5 x 37.5 cm, woodblock print on paper, 1983
<Photo> Korean Unification: The People's Earnest Wish - 349 x 138cm, oil on canvas, 1985
Let's look more closely at <Korean Unification: The People's Earnest Wish>. The overall layout and rhythm of the work evoke the works of Joseon-era painter Kim Hong Do (17451806). The dancing tiger and bear represent characters from the beloved Korean legend of Dangun while peoples' faces are drawn with various expressions of joy and laughter as they move to the music. In the Korean unification envisioned by Oh Yun, the North and South join together in joyful festivities.
After Oh Yunâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Passing
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In 1996, on the tenth anniversary of Oh Yun's death, the Hakgojae Gallery held its "10th Annual Woodcut Exhibit," which marked the beginning of renewed interest in Oh's works, and this interest continues to grow. In 2006, on the 20th anniversary of Oh Yun's passing, the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Seoul held an exhibit titled, "Oh Yun: Daylight Monster Party." Oh's family, friends, and admirers are currently raising funds to establish a museum in Seoul to house his works.
Although the sale price of a work of art is not a measure of its artistic value, works from Oh's last traveling exhibition in Busan sold for 60,000 won (roughly $55) per woodcut circa 1986. Twenty-four years after Oh's death, however, his color woodcuts, drawings, and oil paintings are changing hands at astronomical multiples of 1986 prices.
When a few of his works occasionally make their way to auction, they are instantly snapped up. Unlike in the past, specimens of people's art are now welcomed in the art market and are subject to the laws of supply and demand. If Oh Yun could see the prices at which his works are being sold, he would undoubtedly be shocked.
Although he only lived for 40 years, he was a free soul possessing an incisive social consciousness while respecting art as being more than just an ideological tool. Oh overcame the limitations of the 1980's to create an original style as well as new aesthetic genre while living his life freely and enjoying it to the fullest.
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About Oh Yun...
Oh Yun was born in 1946 in the city of Busan and attended Seoul National University where he studied sculpture and graduated with a B.F.A. He was one of the founders and steering committee members of the People's Art Association in 1985 and he participated in the inaugural exhibition for the Reality and Utterance artist collective in 1980. He held his first private exhibition in 1986 (Gallery Min, May 1986) and his first traveling exhibition in Busan (Kongkan Gallery, June 1986), passing away soon thereafter. Two posthumous exhibitions of his work have been held, one in 1996 on the 10th anniversary of his death (Hakgojae Gallery), and another in 2006 on the 20th anniversary of his passing: 'Oh Yun: Daylight Monster Party" (National Museum of Contemporary Art).
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