Playing with Rauschenberg: Re-reading Rebus (라우센버그와 게임하기-<리버스> 다시읽기)
-
- The Journal of Art Theory & Practice
- /
- no.2
- /
- pp.27-48
- /
- 2004
Robert Rauschenberg's artistic career has often been regarded as having reached its culmination when the artist won the first prize at the 1964 Venice Biennale. With this victory, Rauschenberg triumphantly entered the pantheon of all-American artists and firmly secured his position in the history of American art. On the other hand, despite the artist's ongoing new experiments in his art, the seemingly precocious ripeness in his career has led the critical discourses on Rauschenberg's art to the artist's early works, most of which were done in the mid-1950s and the 1960s. The crux of Rauschenberg criticism lies not only in focusing on the artist's 50's and 60's works, but also in its large dismissal of the significance of the imagery that the artist employed in his works. As art historians Roger Cranshaw and Adrian Lewis point out, the critical discourse of Rauschenberg either focuses on the formalist concerns on the picture plane, or relies on the "culturalist" interpretation of Rauschenberg's imagery which emphasizes the artist's "Americanness." Recently, a group of art historians centered around October has applied Charles Sanders Peirce's semiotics as art historical methodology and illuminated the indexical aspects of Rauschenberg's work. The semantic inquiry into Rauschenberg's imagery has also been launched by some art historians who seek the clues in the artist's personal context. The first half of this essay will examine the previous criticism on Rauschenberg's art and the other half will discuss the artist's 1955 work Rebus, which I think intersects various critical concerns of Rauschenberg's work, and yet defies the closure of discourses in one direction. The categories of signs in the semiotics of Charles Sanders Peirce and the discourse of Jean-Francois Lyotard will be used in discussing the meanings of Rebus, not to search for the semantic readings of the work, hut to make an analogy in terms of the paradoxical structures of both the work and the theory. The definitions of rebus is as follows: Rebus 1. a representation or words or syllables by pictures of object or by symbols whose names resemble the intended words or syllables in sound; also: a riddle made up wholly or in part of such pictures or symbols. 2. a badge that suggests the name of the person to whom it belongs. Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged. Since its creation in 1955, Robert Rauschenberg's Rebus has been one of the most intriguing works in the artist's oeuvre. This monumental 'combine' painting(
This study focuses on two specific history of Korean literature in Chinese: the outline of The History of Joseon Literature (2010) by Li Yan and The History of Joseon Literature (1988, 2008) by Wei Xu-sheng; it was conducted to compare narrative viewpoints to the history of South and North Korean literature and therefore identify distinguishable characteristics. As a result, the following was concluded. First, The History of Korean Literature by Cho Dong-il and The History of Korean Literature in North Korea (15 volumes) include thorough discussions on division of historical eras, concept of genres as well as individual literary works and applied such discussions on writing literary history. However, Wei Xu-sheng and Li Yan's The History of Korean Literature did not illuminate theoretical discussion of South and North Korea. Li Yan's outline of The History of Joseon Literature was published in 2010 and the first edition of Wei Xu-sheng's The History of Joseon Literature was published in 1986 and later was published as revised editions in 2000 and 2008. Regarding published dates, it is a matter of course to reference Cho Dong-il's The History of Korean Literature, published in the 1980s, or The History of Korean Literature in North Korea (15 volumes), published in the 1990s; nevertheless, neither Wei Xu-sheng nor Li Yan used those texts in their works. Their works were heavily influenced by the narrative tradition of the history of national literature and therefore, entailed unsophisticated discussion on the division of historical eras or the concept of genres. Second, those two texts also emphasized external factors such as politics, society, economy and culture and explicitly mention these factors in historical overview of each chapter. Such an approach is commonly used in narratives of literary history under socialist regimes, including The History of Korean Literature in North Korea (15 volumes). Accordingly, evaluations based on 'political standards' - stress of people, nationality, practicality and so forth - in main texts are particularly accentuated, akin to narratives of literary history under socialist regimes. Finally, since those two Korean literature history works are written by Chinese scholars, they focus on correlation between Chinese literature history and Korean literature history. However, several genre-related terminologies such as Xiaopin (a kind of essay), Yuefu (a kind of popular song/poem), Yuyan (fable), Shuochang (telling of popular stories with the interspersal songs), Shizhuan (biography or/and memoirs in history) were adopted directly from Chinese literature. In analyzing Korean literature using terminologies introduced from Chinese literature, differences between original and alternative definitions were not examined in detail. While some terminologies and concepts were adopted directly without further consideration as to state of the two nations, it is also interesting to note that dichotomy, mainly used in Korean literature history, was used to discuss the genre of Cheonki (romance tale), relevant to Suyichon and Keumosinhua, rather than follow traditions of Chinese literature history.
1. The 'Kao Zheng Pai(考證派) comes from the 'Zhe Zhong Pai' and is a school that is influenced by the confucianism of the Qing dynasty. In Japan Inoue Kinga(井上金娥), Yoshida Koton(吉田篁墩) became central members, and the rise of the methodology of historical research(考證學) influenced the members of the 'Zhe Zhong Pai', and the trend of historical research changed from confucianism to medicine, making a school of medicine based on the study of texts and proving that the classics were right. 2. Based on the function of 'Nei Qu Li '(內驅力) the 'Kao Zheng Pai', in the spirit of 'use confucianism as the base', researched letters, meanings and historical origins. Because they were influenced by the methodology of historical research(考證學) of the Qing era, they valued the evidential research of classic texts, and there was even one branch that did only historical research, the 'Rue Xue Kao Zheng Pai'(儒學考證派). Also, the 'Yi Xue Kao Zheng Pai'(醫學考證派) appeared by the influence of Yoshida Kouton and Kariya Ekisai(狩谷掖齋). 3. In the 'Kao Zheng Pai(考證派)'s theories and views the 'Yi Xue Kao Zheng Pai' did not look at medical scriptures like the "Huang Di Nei Jing"("黃帝內經") and did not do research on 'medical' related areas like acupuncture, the meridian and medicinal herbs. Since they were doctors that used medicine, they naturally were based on 'formulas'(方劑) and since their thoughts were based on the historical ideologies, they valued the "Shang Han Ja Bing Lun" which was revered as the 'ancestor of all formulas'(衆方之祖). 4. The lives of the important doctors of the 'Kao Zheng Pai' Meguro Dotaku(目黑道琢) Yamada Seichin(山田正珍), Yamada Kyoko(山田業廣), Mori Ritsi(森立之) Kitamura Naohara(喜多村直寬) are as follows. 1) Meguro Dotaku(目黑道琢 1739
1.The 'Kao Zheng Pai'(考證派) comes from the 'Zhe Zhong Pai(折衷派)' and is a school that is influenced by the confucianism of the Qing dynasty. In Japan Inoue Kinga(井上金峨), Yoshida Koton(古田篁墩