Hyungmin Chung, Professor of Art History, Director of the Museum of Art, Seoul National University
Youngna Kim, Professor of Art History, Seoul National University
| DATE: | Friday, September 12, 2008 |
|---|---|
| TIME: | 3:00 PM to 4:30 PM |
| PLACE: | IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton Street, 6th Floor |
| FORMAT: | Colloquium |
| SPONSORS: | Center for Korean Studies |
Hyung-Min Chung: “Being Artist-Woman at the Threshold of Modern-Age Korea”
The first half of the 20th century was a time when so-called “modern” social ideology and visual culture were imported to Korea. Subsequently, new perspectives towards history and contemporaneity were formulated and new visual forms were practiced. The ideology of “new woman” (sin yeoseong) was one of the products of this modernistic change in Korean society. Some woman artists were receptive to the new ideology, which adjusted according to historic necessity of society at large, and in due course a dichotomy was created between the social concept of sin yeoseong and what women conceived of and lived by. Other woman artists were more concerned with new forms. In this lecture, the development of sin yeoseong during the first half of the 20th century will be outlined, and the works of woman-artists will be discussed in the context modern historicity.
Youngna Kim: “Contemporary Korean Women Artists since 1960”
During the 1960s, as in many fields, it was challenging for women artists to succeed in the male-dominated art world in Korea. However, as several colleges of fine arts at universities began producing graduates, the number of women artists increased. The period after the 1960s was also significant because the Korean art world was then becoming more aware of international art trends in the United States and Europe. A serious investment in abstract art was no longer restricted to a select few as during the colonial period; there was great enthusiasm for Abstract Expressionism and L’Art Informel flourishing in the United States and Europe at the time.
In the 1980s, with the surge of Minjung Art (Art of the Masses), Western modernism was criticized and Minjung artists aimed at creating art forms which could be easily understood by the people. Notable women artists of the Minjung group painted women laborers, satirized dominant culture and mocked capitalists. It was only around 1990 that Korean art moved away from ideological issues and collective activities to freely expressing individual perspectives. As this new decade began producing an increasing number of nuclear families, parents were focused on educating all their children regardless of gender. As a result, women began actively entering society as professionals in every possible field imaginable. The emphasis shifted away from paintings to photography, video and installation art, plus the advent of feminism and feminist art practices gained prominence. Furthermore, as contemporary Asian art receives increasing international acclaim, Korean women artists are also being invited more and more to take part in international exhibitions and well-known museums.
Hyung-Min Chung is Professor of Art History and Director of the Museum of Art at Seoul National University. Youngna Kim is Professor of Art History at Seoul National University.
This event is offered in conjunction with "Places at the Table: Asian Women Artists and Gender Dynamics," a full-day conference at the Berkeley Art Museum on Saturday, September 13.
