Opening Remarks

Youn-mi Kim

Art History Association of Korea, Ewha Womans University

Bio:

Youn-mi Kim is Associate Professor of Asian Art History at Ewha Womans University. Prior to joining the Ewha faculty, she worked as Assistant Professor at Yale University (2012-16) and Assistant Professor at the Ohio State University (2011-12). She earned her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2010. She is the editor of New Perspectives on Early Korean Art: From Silla to Koryo (Korea Institute, Harvard University Press, 2013); and a co-editor of Pokchang, the special issue of Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 28 (2019) and the Dhāraṇī and Mantra in Ritual, Art, and Text, a special issue of the International Journal of Buddhist Thought and Culture 30, no. 2 (2020). A grantee of The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Research Fellowships in Buddhist Studies 2018, she is currently completing her book manuscripts, entitled Architecture of Virtuality: Pagodas of the Liao Empire (907-1125).

Gender Politics and Sumptuary Laws in 18th Century Korean Textile Art

Sooa Im McCormick

Cleveland Museum of Art

Abstract:

Since ancient times, sumptuary laws have been deployed as effective political devices across the globe. In fact, they were often applied to fashion and textile arts. The royal edict issued in the 8th year of King Heungdeok’s reign (834) is considered one of Korea’s oldest sumptuary laws. This ancient case confirms that sumptuary laws served as tools to expand and strengthen the Korean ruling class’s power by allowing or prohibiting certain types of luxurious goods’ production and consumption.

This paper seeks to examine the characteristics of sumptuary laws enacted in the late Joseon period, their relationship with contemporary political, economic, and environmental factors, and their impacts on the language of 18th-century fashion and textile arts. It first discusses the distinctive aspects of King Yeongjo’s and Jeongjo’s rulership and their impact on 18th-century sumptuary laws, and then explores whether their implementation of sumptuary laws was related to severe economic and environmental issues of 18th-century Korea. Finally, it discusses how and why those sumptuary laws came to amplify an extremely binary distinction between men and women in late 18th-century Korea and fed the society’s discriminatory attitude towards women who played a pivotal agency in fashion industry. The paper will conclude with a few observations about the sumptuary laws’ discriminatory legacy in shaping the “paradox” of the visual and material constitutes of late Joseon fashion and textile art.

Bio:

Sooa Im McCormick is Korea Foundation Curator of Korean Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art. She joined the CMA in 2015. McCormick holds a PhD from the University of Kansas and Master’s degree from the Rutgers University. Her curatorial projects include Gold Needles: Korean Embroidery Arts (2020), Chaekgeori: Pleasure of Possessions in Korean Painted Screens (2017) and Arts of Festivity (2016). She is currently working on 3 exhibition projects: Hiking Into the Seven Jeweled Mountain (Digital Immersive Exhibition, 2024), Persistence and Subversion in Korean Couture (2024), and Ten Kings of Hell and the Beyond from Medieval Korea (2026). While pursuing her curatorial career, McCormick remains active as a researcher who investigates the intersection between ecology, politics, and economy in early modern East Asian art. Her peer-review publications include “The Politics of Frugality: Environmental Crisis and Eighteenth-Century Korean Visual Culture,” Forces of Nature: New Perspectives on Korean Environments (Cornell University Press, 2023).

Rethinking Korean Modern Art and Embroidery from Gender Perspectives

Hyesung Park

National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea

Abstract:

As a form of needlework, embroidery (jasu 刺繡) has been practiced primarily by women within a long history of patriarchy, and thus, its standing is not gender-neutral. This gendered nature of embroidery solidified further during Korea’s modern period. At the turn of the twentieth century, the production and usage of embroidery in Korea were no longer contained within the private realm; with the establishment of public schools, embroidery became a core subject in women’s education, categorized under technical skills (giye 技藝) and handicrafts (suye 手藝). The modernization of embroidery, then, was marked by a shift in its practice from the private to the public sphere, rather than changes in iconography, technique, or materials. During the Japanese colonial rule of Korea (1910-1945), most Korean women who studied abroad in Japan in pursuit of an artistic education enrolled in the embroidery department at the Women’s School of Fine Arts (now Joshibi University of Art and Design). The goal of these women was not to develop into professional artists, but to achieve other ends, including finding marriage partners, following the exemplar of a “good wife, wise mother” (hyeonmo yangcheo), or securing a position as a teacher or vocational expert. At the time, being a “woman” and an “artist” were considered at odds.

As embroidery entered into the public domain, however, it started to appear in exhibitions, where it was treated as an object of aesthetic appreciation and came to be regarded as a form of arts and crafts (misul gongye), rather than a technical skill (giye). In Korea during this time, art (misul) was seen neither as a pastime of the literati nor the job of a craftsman, but as an expression of modern-minded individuals; thus, creativity and originality were demanded in embroidery as much as in painting, even though traditionally, embroiderers had relied on archetypal designs and set patterns. This emphasis on unique character and innovation, in accordance with Western modernist art movements, became the universal standard by which to assess fine art, causing Korean painters and critics, most of whom were men, to overlook the distinct qualities, meticulous techniques, color combinations, and cooperative potential of embroidery. This situation continued after the liberation of Korea in 1945, as women embroidery artists strove to hone their imaginative abilities and fit the criteria of “pure” or high art, divorcing themselves from traditional embroidery. Some of these women even commissioned painters to create rough sketches for their designs, and interestingly, the painters they collaborated with were predominantly male.

Bio:

Hyesung Park is a curator and researcher at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. She has curated several exhibitions, including Moon Shin: Towards the Universe; Deoksugung Project 2021: Garden of Imagination; The Arrival of New Women; Pen Varlen 1916-1990; Kim Byung Ki: the Dispense of the Sensible; and Giorgio Morandi: the Dialogue with Morandi. Previously, she served as a curator and researcher at the Seoul National University Museum of Art and taught at Seoul National University, Gachon University, Hannam University, and Sungshin Women’s University. She earned her PhD from Seoul National University with a dissertation on Korean modern art and surrealism.

Cultural Encounter: Embroideries, Chinese Antiquities, and Royal Court Women in Late Chosŏn Korea

Ja Won Lee

California State University, East Bay

Abstract:

This paper examines the Korean embroideries with Chinese antiquities in relation to the role of the royal court women and practice of collecting Chinese antiquities during the late Chosŏn dynasty. During the reign of Emperor Kojong (r. 1863–1907) in particular, Korean artists responded to complex political, social, and cultural dynamics by reinterpreting Chinese visual culture and integrating it into their artistic practice. At the center of this unique artistic development were the female members of the royal court who favored embroidered screens of Ancient Ritual Bronzes that emphasized their privileged understanding of Chinese culture and by extension their cultural sophistication and authoritative role in Chosŏn society.

Bio:

Ja Won Lee is Assistant Professor of Art History and Visual Studies at California State University, East Bay. She specializes in Korean art and visual culture, with an emphasis on art collecting and cross-cultural exchange between Asia and Euro-America. Her research and teaching interests include antiquarianism, intellectual culture, the role of female artists and patrons, and transcultural movements of modern Asia. Professor Lee received her B.F.A. and M.A. from Seoul National University and her Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles. Prior to joining Cal State East Bay, she taught at Columbia University, UCLA, and the University of Hong Kong. She was also a Mary Griggs Burke Postdoctoral Fellow at Columbia University (2018-2019) and a Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2016-2017).

Representation of Gender in Paintings of Books and Things in the Folk Art

Byungmo Chung

Formerly Gyeongju University

Abstract:

Minhwa chaekgeori (paintings of books and things in folk art) are Joseon-period still-life paintings depicting books and various objects. Chaekgeori paintings reflect the thoughts, daily life, and even the social consciousness of the time through the portrayal of things. While the external appearance conforms to the conventions of still-life painting, a closer look reveals depictions of how people lived. The painted objects are not merely material items but traces of social life. Understanding chaekgeori is to know how people lived and thought in Joseon society.

This paper explores minhwa chaekgeori from the perspective of gender and aims to reveal a new facet of these paintings yet to be explored from conventional art historical perspectives. The gender lens allows us to delve into the intricacies of Joseon life and culture beyond the ideologies of Confucianism. These paintings contain aspects of women’s lives often inaccessible in written records, making them valuable historical sources. The paper examines how minhwa chaekgeori configured gender relations and what values were associated with men and women in that context.

The Confucian ideologies of “male dominance (namjon yeobi 男尊女卑)” and “gender segregation in marriage (bubu yubyeol 夫婦有別)” did not significantly impact daily life of the common people, at least in the later years of the Joseon dynasty. Minwha Chaekgeori often depicted women’s study rooms, increasingly represented feminine objects and even featured erotic atmosphere. Indeed, how people live seem similar across time, regardless of prevailing ideologies. Despite the dominant Confucian ideology, this painting depicts a more relaxed and humanistic portrayal of life.

Bio:

Byungmo Chung is an art historian with expertise in Korean folk paintings (minhwa) and genre paintings. He previously held the position of professor at Gyeongju University and served as the President of the Korean Folk Painting Society, the Chairman of the Korean Folk Painting Center, and a committee member of the Cultural Heritage Committee. At present, he is the Principal of the Korean Folk Painting School. He has authored many monographs, including Han’guk ŭi p’ungsok’wa [Folk Paintings of Korea] (2000), Minhwa, kajang taejungjŏgin kŭrigo Han’gukchŏgin [Folk Paintings: Most Popular and Korean] (2012), Kim Hongdo, saeroum [Kim Hong-do: Freshness], and Misul ŭn arŭmdaun saengmyŏngch’eda [Art is a Beautiful Creature] (2001). He co-edited Chaesaekhwa, Polychrome Painting of Korea, Chaekgeori, and co-editor of The Power and Pleasure of Possessions in Korean Painted Screens (2017). Between 2016-2017, he curated a traveling exhibition in the United States focused on chaekgeori (paintings of books and objects) from the Chosŏn Dynasty. This exhibition was featured at venues like the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Spencer Museum of Art, and the Charles B. Wang Center. From 2021-2023, he directed another exhibition spotlighting contemporary Korean folk painting artists and their chaekgeori paintings, which was hosted at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, Austria, the Korean Cultural Center in France, and the Nantes Korean Spring Festival.

Discussion

Eleanor Soo-ha Hyun

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Bio:

Eleanor Soo-ah Hyun is the Associate Curator for Korean Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. She joined The Met in September 2019. From 2015 to 2019, she worked at the British Museum as the first Curator for the Korean Collections. Her research focuses on late imperial Joseon Korean and Qing Chinese art. At The Met, she curated Shell and Resin: Korean Morther-of-Pearl and Lacquer, Jegi: Korean Ritual Objects and the upcoming Lineages: Korean Art at The Met in celebration of the 25th-anniverary of the Arts of Korea Gallery.

Seundja Rhee: The Aesthetic Journey from Earth to Cosmos

Sunglim Kim

Dartmouth College

Abstract:

The first Korean woman abstract painter and expatriate artist in France, Seundja Rhee (1918–2009), had an artistic life of six decades, producing over 4,300 works including 1,200 oil paintings, 720 woodblock prints, 2,000 drawings, 250 ceramics, and numerous tapestries and mosaics. She was also an archiver who recorded all her works and named nine distinctive stylistic periods: Figurative (1954–1956), Abstract (1957–1960), Woman and Earth (1961–1968), Superimposition (1969–1971), City (1972–1974), Yin and Yang (1975–1976), Nature (1977–1979), Road to the Antipodes (1980–1994), and Cosmos (1995–2008). Holding 85 solo exhibitions and participating in over 300 group exhibitions, Rhee constantly interacted with, was inspired by, and influenced numerous world artists. Through her collaborative work with French writer and poet Michel Butor, she pursued the amalgamation of visual art and literature. This presentation groups Rhee’s oeuvre into four broader phases and examines her artistic development and its significance through her life story.

Bio:

Sunglim Kim is an associate Professor of Korean art history at Dartmouth College. She is currently a visiting professor at Seoul National University. Her research interests include the rise of consumer culture in the late Joseon dynasty, the role of professionals (jungin) in the production, distribution, and collection of art in 19th century Korea, and women, gender, and art in Korea. She has authored the book Flowering Plums and Curio Cabinets: The Culture of Objects in Late Chosŏn Korean Art (University of Washington Press, 2018) and edited the book Park Dae Sung: Ink Reimagined (University of Washington Press, 2022). She wrote numerous articles and book chapters, including, “Still Life in Motion: The Origins and Development of Chaekgeori Painting” (2021), “Chun Kyung-ja and the Scandal of Beautiful Woman” (2021),“The Personal is Political: The Life and Death and Life of Na Hye-Sŏk” (2017), “Defining a Woman: The Painting of Sin Saimdang” (2016).

Obsession with “Subjectivity”: The Signification Process of the “Naked” Male Body in Korean Modern and Contemporary Art

Yi Soon Kim

Hongik University

Abstract:

This research began with a simple question: why are there so few male nudes in modern Korean sculpture? Modern Korean sculpture predominantly consists of realistic figurative works, and while nude figures are a recurring theme, male nudes are relatively scarce. This phenomenon is unique to Korea among the three East Asian nations, and the situation is similar in painting. For instance, Lee Jong-woo’s Nude (1926) exists, but Lee produced this painting in a private salon in Paris with a Caucasian male model. There is also feminist Na Hyeseok’s painting of a rear view of a naked man, interestingly titled Nabu (裸婦, 1928), signifying “bare woman.” This stems from the assumption among early scholars of modern Korean art that all nudes are female, and even today, the artwork is still known as Nabu.

Female nudes were popular motifs in modern painting and sculpture, but why not male nudes? In Korea, the nude as a subject of artistic representation only began in the early 20th century. Since there were no art schools in Korea, young artists studied abroad in Japan, where they learned to sculpt and paint nude figures. These works were eventually introduced to the public as forms of “fine art.” However, such claims of “fine art” were disconnected from social realities in Korea. Images of unclothed women were frequently consumed as “spectacles” through mass media and advertisements and were sometimes considered “obscene” and subject to censorship. The naked male body, on the contrary, was not available to such public gazes. The fact that most early painters and sculptors were men also hindered the objectification of the male body.

Images of the naked male body began to appear in Korean art in the late 1940s, especially in collective sculptures of the 1950s and 1960s. Most of these sculptures consisted of men with muscular, sturdy bodies in dynamic positions but were not entirely nude. These images represented Korean men as the heroes of liberation and leaders who overcame national crises like the Korean War and drove industrialization. The differences in social attitudes towards naked bodies of men and women were even more striking in performance art. Performers started to undress and appear publicly in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but female performances were hardly recognized by art critics and often sensationalized in popular magazines as obscene entertainment rather than serious art. A change in attitudes occurred in the late 1980s. This paper focuses on the relative absence of naked male bodies in Korean art, which had been subjects of representation in Western countries, as well as Japan and China, and examines this phenomenon in relation to persistent Confucian values and gender discrimination in modern Korean society.

Bio:

Yisoon Kim is a former professor at Hongik University. She specializes in modern and contemporary Korean art and has conducted research on stone artifacts from the royal tombs of the premodern era. She is the author of the monographs: Hyŏndae chogak ŭi saeroun chip’yŏng [New Horizons of Modern Sculpture] (2005), Han’guk ŭi kŭnhyŏndae misul [Modern and Contemporary Art of Korea (2007), Taehan cheguk hwangjerŭng [Emperor’s Tomb of the Empire of Korea] (2010), and Chosŏn wangshil wŏn ŭi sŏngmul [Stone Artifacts from the Royal Tombs of the Chosŏn Dynasty] (2016). She co- authored Kŭndae wa mannan misul kwa toshi [Art and the City with Modernity] (2008), Sidae ŭi nun: Han’guk kŭnhyŏndae misul chakkaron [Eyes of the Ages: Aesthetic Theory on Korean Modern and Contemporary Artists] (2011) and contributed chapters in Images of Familial Intimacy in Eastern and Western Art (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2014), Korean Art From 1953: Collision Innovation Interaction (London: Phaidon, 2020), Korean Art 1900-2020 (Seoul: MMCA, 2021).

Friendship of Yun Suknam and the Expansion of Feminist Artists Network

Hyeonjoo Kim

Chugye University for the Arts

Abstract:

Centering on the life and work of Korean artist Yun Suknam [Yun Seoknam] (b. 1939), this paper adopts a feminist perspective to examine the concept of friendship (ujeong) in the artist’s personal and professional practice, as well as its contribution to the expansion of a feminist artists network. Friendship, despite being a universally significant value that enrichens one’s life, has long been considered the exclusive domain of men. From ancient ideas such as the Confucian principle of trust between friends (bung u yu sin 朋友有信) in East Asia and the philosophy of philia in Greece, up until the eighteenth century, friendship theory had been built upon masculine thought models to reflect a consciousness that friendships belonged in the public and intellectual sphere. Discourse on male friendships has thus accumulated in multiple arenas such as philosophy, politics, society, culture and arts, leaving a lasting influence on later generations.

Although female friendships have also had a long history, they did not receive social recognition until the 1600s in Western Europe, and the male-dominated narrative of friendship began to shift only in the twentieth century. Since the 1970s, within Western feminist groups, the concept of female friendship evolved into new notions like “sisterhood” and “feminist solidarity.” Artists who participated in the South Korean women’s culture and arts movement (yeoseong munhwa yesul undong) in the 1990s, including Yun Suknam, embraced these feminist concepts of friendship, seeking to incorporate them into their lives and represent them in their art.

To explore the impact of such ideas on Yun Suknam, this paper analyzes three types of works produced as a result of the artist’s interactions with other women artists: collaborative works, works in which Yun features as the subject, and portraits of friends drawn by Yun. Despite the absence of an artistic tradition focused on female friendship, Yun and her feminist artists network produced numerous artworks that attest to their bond, including a 1981 photographic portrait of Yun taken by her colleague Park Youngsook [Park Yeongsuk] (b. 1941), collaborative works between Yun and Park, Park and Jung Jungyeop [Jeong Jeongyeop] (b. 1962)’s portrayals of Yun, and Yun’s 2019 solo exhibition, “Portraitures of My Friends,” just to name a few. This paper describes the friendships that appear in Yun’s life and work through terms such as intimacy (chinmilseong), unspoken emotional connection (jeongseojeok gyogam) and support (jiji), economic care (gyeongjejeok dolbom), healing (chiyu), respect (jongyeong), gratitude (gamsa), and commitment (heonsin). Ultimately, this paper argues that the case of Yun embodies friendship among women, feminist friendship, and friendship in the contemporary moment.

Bio:

Hyeonjoo Kim is Professor at the Chugye University for the Arts. Her research interests include the 20th-century art of Korea and feminist arts. She translated The Dream of the Audience: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (Constance M. Lewallen, 2001) and is the main author of the Book Pink Room, Blue Face – YUN Suknam’s Art World (2008). She published many articles, including “Feminist Art of 1980s in Korea: 《Let’s Break Open the Floodgate: Encounters of Women’s Liberation Poems and Paintings》”(2008), “The Position of Women’s Art in the History of Korean Contemporary Art”(2013), “Solidarity and Art Practice as the Social Engagement by the ‘Feminist Artists Group IPGIM’”(2016), “Historiography of Feminist Studies in Korean Contemporary Art History”(2020).

Discussion

Jiyeon Kim

Peabody Essex Museum

Bio:

Jiyeon Kim earned her doctorate of Korean art history from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research topics include social status and artistic identity, gardens as social space, and collecting history of Asian art in Boston area museums. Her most recent research is on the transitional characteristics of art objects made in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Jiyeon has taught Korean and Asian art courses in many universities in Korea and the U.S. and she actively participates in the cultural life of the Korean community in the greater Boston area and across New England. Jiyeon is presently working at the Peabody Essex Museum as Curator of Korean Art, facilitating the development of the museum’s new Korean gallery, set to open in 2025.