International Conference at the Leeum Museum of Art (Seoul) and Harvard University (Cambridge)
In recent years, a growing number of scholars have begun to examine Korean artifacts from all historical eras through the critical lens of gender to understand an array of previously neglected issues. This two-day international conference aims to encourage this relatively nascent movement in the field of Korean art history by convening scholars engaged in these new discursive frameworks whose research is providing a fuller picture of cultural production in Korea. The speakers include many early career scholars based in Korea as well as those working in the United States to promote intellectual exchange across disciplines and geographical and intergenerational borders. Presentations will cover a wide range of themes arising from Joseon-period paintings, textiles, and embroideries to the modern metaphysical abstractions of Seundja Rhee (1918-2009) and the contemporary portrait practice of Yun Suknam (b. 1939).
The conference has been conceived in partnership with the Leeum Museum of Art and in anticipation of a special international loan exhibition Women and Buddhism in East Asian Art (working title) to be held at the Hoam Museum of Art from March-June 2024. This will be the first major exhibition to focus exclusively on the role and depiction of women in the Buddhist art of Korea, China, and Japan, providing an urgent corrective to the male-centered narrative that has dominated the discourse. Diverse artifacts including Buddhist paintings, sculptures, sutra transcriptions, embroidery, and metal crafts will be used to examine the importance of women as patrons and producers of Buddhist art of the pre-modern period. In exploring the history of how women navigated discriminatory Buddhist institutions and society at large, the exhibition will illuminate the important socio-cultural implications of religious art as well as contemporary issues that will resonate with audiences today.
Date:
Fri – Sat, Sep 22 to Sep 23, 2023 9:30am – 5:40pm
Location:
Day 1: Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea
Day 2: Tsai Auditorium (S010), CGIS South Building, 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Sponsors:
The Art History Association of Korea (AHAK); Department of History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University; Harvard-Yenching Institute; Korea Institute, Harvard University; Leeum Museum of Art
Organizers:
Sun-ah Choi, Professor, Myongji University; Seunghye Lee, Curator at Leeum Museum of Art; Youn-mi Kim, Associate Professor in Asian Art at Ewha Womans University; Melissa McCormick, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Japanese Art and Culture at Harvard University
Shakyamuni Triad (조선전기 석가삼존도, 朝鮮前期 釋迦三尊圖)
Joseon dynasty (1392–1910); dated 1565.
Hanging scroll; color and gold on silk; 60.5 × 32 cm.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mary Griggs Burke Collection, Gift of the Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation, 2015; Accession Number: 2015.300.298.
This painting’s dedicatory inscription in gold documents its commission by Queen Dowager Munjeong (d. 1565) making it an integral part of the history of women and Buddhism in Korea. It was one of the four hundred such paintings that Queen Munjeong commissioned, “to pray for the health of her son, King Myeongjong (r. 1546–67), and to celebrate the birth of the crown prince and the restoration of Hoeam Temple, a major Seon Buddhist (Chinese: Chan; Japanese: Zen) monastery located near the capital and an influential royal temple of the early Joseon.” – Metropolitan Museum of Art