• The Journal of Art Theory & Practice
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• no.3
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• pp.9-34
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• 2005

Contemporary Korean art in the 1960s and the 1970s reflects the social and political contexts in Korea from the 5 16 revolution through the Yoo Shin period. This paper investigates whether art has been free from power or not. It examines the power embedded in contemporary Korean art in the 1960s and the 1970s. This paper examines the historical moments of the Korean Art Exhibition, focusing on the complications between the abstract and figurative artworks of the 1960s. One of the significant art exhibitions since the 8 15 liberation of Korea, the Korean Art Exhibition witnessed conflict among Korean artists who wanted to have power in the art world of Korea. Institutional contradiction based on factionalism and conservatism prevailed in the Korean Art Exhibition was attacked by the avant-garde young artists in the 1960s. With the contact of Abstract Expressionism, young artists' generation participated in the The Wall Exhibition. This exhibition challenged and established moral principles and visualized individual expression and creation similar to the Informal movement in the West. In the world of the traditional painting of Korea, the Mook Lim Exhibition of 1960, organized by young artists of traditional painting, advocated the modernization of Soo Mook paintings. Additionally, abstract sculptures in metal engraving were the new trends in the Korean Art Exhibition. In the 1970s, the economic development and establishment of a dictatorial government made the society stiffen. Abstract expression died out and monochrome painting was the most influential in the 1970s. After the exhibition of Five Korean Artists, Five White Colors in the Tokyo Central Art Museum in 1976, monochrome paintings were formally discussed in Korea. 'Flatness' 'physicality of material' 'action' 'post-image' 'post-subjectivity' and 'oriental spirituality' were the critical terms in mentioning the monochrome paintings of the 1970s. 'Korean beauty' was discussed, focusing on the beauty of white which was addressed by not only Yanagi Muneyoshi but also the policy of national rehabilitation under the Yoo Shin government. At this time, the monochrome paintings of the 1970s in Korea, addressing art for art's sake, cutting of communication with the masses, and elitism, came to be authorized.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.185-190
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• 2019

Historically, the representation of the colonial period has responded closely to the policies and political conditions of the time. The Korean blockbuster , which links the genealogy of Manchuria Western, adopts a safe nationalism frame, upgrading the genre's narrative typology to colorful action and spectacle, including the Japanese army, the Liberation Army, the good and evil, and the confusion of identity. On the other hand, , which deals with the friendship of the poet and the warrior, treats the mental and internal struggles implied by the power of poetry, without resorting to familiar nationalism and heroism. is a thorough genre of rules. If the visual and sensual pleasures of imaginative resilience beyond the bounds of the law are provided within the Rules, inevitably seeks resistance within the colonial empire's legal system. Political, diplomatic, and economic conflicts between Japan and Korea, which have been continuing until recently, reaffirm the framework of nationalism on the screen.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.22 no.8
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• pp.681-691
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to construct a digital archive system by analyzing the collections of the Korean Christian Museum at S University, which has a large number of materials related to Korean Christianity published in the modern period from the time of Korea's enlightenment until liberation. In order to construct a digital archive system, indexes and metadata for the collection are complied according to the pre-defined format. After digitizing the selected collection, a database is built using metadata information, and the actual system is divided into a web standard-based management system and a user service system. Also a content-based search system is constructed, which provides the matching value of retrieval results in units of one character and an automatic search term completion function to enhance user convenience. Therefore, collections in the museum, which are difficult to access the original text, are digitized and provided so that they can be easily used, laying the foundation for the long-term development of humanities contents for improving the accessibility and availability of collections for both researchers and the public.

• The Journal of Art Theory & Practice
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• no.14
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• pp.125-158
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• 2012

After liberation from Japanese colonial rule in 1945, there was the three-year period of United States Army Military Government in Korea. In 1948, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and Republic of Korea were established in the north and south of the Korean Peninsula. The Republic of Korea is now a modern state set in the southern part of the Korean. We usually refer to Koreans as people who belong to the Republic of Korea. Can we say that is true exactly? Why make of this an obsolete question? The period from 1945 when Korea was emancipated from Japanese colonial rule to 1948 when the Republic of Korea was established has not been a focus of modern Korean history. This three years remains empty in Korean history and makes the concept of 'Korean' we usually consider ambiguous, and prompts careful attention to the silence of 'some Koreans' forced to live against their will in the blurred boundaries between nation and people. This dissertation regards 'Koreans' who came to live in the border of nations, especially 'Korean-Japanese third generation women artists'who are marginalized both Japan and Korea. It questions the category of 'Korean women's art' that has so far been considered, based on the concept of territory, and presents a new perspective for viewing 'Korean women's art'. Almost no study on Korean-Japanese women's art has been conducted, based on research on Korean diaspora, and no systematic historical records exist. Even data-collection is limited due to the political situation of South and North in confrontation. Representation of the Mother Country on the Artworks by First and Second-Generation Korean-Japanese(Zainich) Women Artists after Liberation since 1945 was published in 2011 is the only dissertation in which Korean-Japanese women artists, and early artistic activities. That research is based on press releases and interviews obtained through Japan. This thesis concentrates on the world of Korean-Japanese third generation women artists such as Kim Jung-sook, Kim Ae-soon, and Han Sung-nam, permanent residents in Japan who still have Korean nationality. The three Korean-Japanese third generation women artists whose art world is reviewed in this thesis would like to reveal their voices as minorities in Japan and Korea, resisting power and the universal concepts of nation, people and identity. Questioning the general notions of 'Korean women' and 'Korean women's art'considered within the Korean Peninsula, they explore their identity as Korean women outside the Korean territory from a post-territorial perspective and have a new understanding of the minority's diversity and difference through their eyes as marginal women living outside the mainstream of Korean and Japanese society. This is associated with recent post-colonial critical viewpoints reconsidering myths of universalism and transcendental aesthetic measures. In the 1980s and 1990s art museums and galleries in New York tried a critical shift in aesthetic discourse on contemporary art history, analyzed how power relationships among such elements as gender, sexuality, race, nationalism. Ghost of Ethnicity: Rethinking Art Discourses of the 1940s and 1980s by Lisa Bloom is an obvious presentation about the post-colonial discourse. Lisa Bloom rethinks the diversity of race, ethnicity, sexuality, and gender each artist and critic has, she began a new discussion on artists who were anti-establishment artists alienated by mainstream society. As migration rapidly increased through globalism lead by the United States the aspects of diaspora experience emerges as critical issues in interpreting contemporary culture. As a new concept of art with hybrid cultural backgrounds exists, each artist's cultural identity and specificity should be viewed and interpreted in a sociopolitical context. A criticism started considering the distinct characteristics of each individual's historical experience and cultural identity, and paying attention to experience of the third world artist, especially women artists, confronting the power of modernist discourses from a perspective of the white male subject. Considering recent international contemporary art, the Korean-Japanese third generation women artists who clarify their cultural identity as minority living in the border between Korea and Japan may present a new direction for contemporary Korean art. Their art world derives from their diaspora experience on colonial trauma historically. Their works made us to see that it is also associated with postcolonial critical perspective in the recent contemporary art stream. And it reminds us of rethinking the diversity of the minority living outside mainstream society. Thus, this should be considered as one of the features in the context of Korean women's art.

• Korean Journal of Heritage: History & Science
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• v.56 no.1
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• pp.226-256
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• 2023

Gyeongju has been the capital of Silla Kingdom for about 1,000 years, and many cultural heritages of the Silla period, such as the Wolseong Palace Site, Daereungwon Ancient Tomb Complex and Donggung Palace and Wolji Pond, are located in the city. Due to these characteristics, the process of heritagization has been carried out in Gyeongju from the Japanese colonial era to after liberation. Heritagization means selecting things from the past due to the needs of the present and making them heritages. In the case of South Korea, national government-led heritagization was achieved during the Japanese colonial period, and after liberation because of the restoration of national culture and the construction of a national identity. Gyeongju is a representative example. On the other hand, Gyeongju's heritagization process was carried out with little consideration of the local community, and thus the local community and Gyeongju's heritage have been distancing. In 2002, Gyeongju's heritage sites were nominated as World Heritage Sites. With the nomination, the perception of the role of local communities in heritage has been changed, and institutional mechanisms to promote the participation of local communities have been continuously reorganized. However, Gyeongju's heritagization process, which was thoroughly conducted through the central government and expert groups, was the reason why Gyeongju residents actually thought Gyeongju's heritage and the locality of Gyeongju were formed through the central government and expert groups. This has been the result of Gyeongju residents' passive participation in heritagization or heritage management to date. This study analyzed the heritagization process of Gyeongju through literature research and conducted an interview survey of residents who have lived in Gyeongju for a long time to understand the impact of the institutional heritagization process on residents and the relationship with heritage. Based on the analysis results, it was suggested that local residents and communities could take the initiative in managing the heritage of Gyeongju.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.31
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• pp.261-293
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• 2005

This article aims at investigating the origin of 'gookmin', which is currently working as the dominant discourse and leading identity in the South Korean society. Like 'nation', 'people' or/and 'citizen', the term of 'gookmin' is a very much particular and historical outcome of the colonial modernity. Nevertheless, however, there have been not so much serious socio-linguistic, cultural-political studies about its root. It is theoretically as well as practically quite important to trace back the birth of 'gookmin', which is working as an ideological, epistemological frame in/between subject and reality. In this regard, this article will consider the late Japanese colonial period as a key period of the birth of 'gookmin'. It will then critically scrutinize how the total mobilization system by adopted the colonial government has formed the discourse and subjectivity of 'gookmin' based on various physical apparatuses. By revealing that a totalistic nation/state of Japanese colonialism is behind 'gookmin', which wanted to mobilize every individuals into a so-called article of empire, this article tries to show the fascist and propaganda nature of 'gookmin' continuing even after the liberation. As a historical-materialist work of deconstruction the dominant discourse of 'gookmin', this study will basically take a cultural studies approach.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.33
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• pp.171-192
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• 2013

The article is a research about the Belle Epoque era and Dadaism in the modern culture as a whole and separate. The years from 1890s to 1914, is known as the Belle Epoque era, in which the European continent including France had developed the climax of the modern culture after the Renaissance. At the same time, it was the period where the postmodern developments were being spread, leading to the present days. Moreover, the main ideologies in art that led to the cultural advancement of the time were impressionism, cubism, art nouveau, evolutionized painting category, symbolism and futurism. It was a literature category that was maintained to present Dadaism and surrealism. Dadaism began since the magazine, Bulletin Dada was published, originating in 1916 by Tristan Tzara of Zurich, Switzerland during the WWI. The extreme motto that the Dadaists supported was a contradiction, as they had to dissolve from their own art movements and expression techniques. However, until Andre Breton introduced 'Manifeste du Surrealisme' in 1924, the "Dada group" had a tremendous influence in France as an epicenter and rejected the modern cause and art that continued during the time, thus attempting its dissolution. First, they rejected the ideology, ethics and customs of rationalism from the previous system and demonstrate an anarchical and anti-bourgeoisie characteristic. They also reject the French lucid thoughts and the artistic techniques. They strongly emphasized on their motto "The idea is created from the mouth", while reframing from the philosophical ideology and at the same time, attempting to express the psychical unconsciousness. Second, the most important catchphrase that the Dadaists supported was the theory of negation. The question "Why do you write?" connotes the negative consciousness about the artistic value and the stereotyped method of the preexisting writing and drawing. Third, the Dadaists bring forward a radical query about all of the former esthetic and morals, and reveal an admirable resistance spirit. They emphasized on the slogan "Dada, means nothing" and insist on 'the anti-literal Dada, anti-artistic Dada, anti-musical Dada'. The Dadaist movement manifested their resistant spirit and the new artistic spirit through the publication of , , and most importantly through the magazine . Fourth, the Dadaists embodied the volume, density, and quality into an image through the auto-technical, cubistic writings and drawings. They ignored the fixed form of arrangements, verses, and rhymes of a poetic diction. The Dadaists utilized an unfamiliar and inversed expression method of applying the combination of the size of print, or capital letters and lowercase letters, even combining printed and handwritten writings. As presented, the auto-technical and cubistic characteristic of expressing the auto-psychical ideology into writing is called as the radical aesthetic and moral and can be considered as the most essential cause of the Dadaists' avant-garde features. As a conclusion, Dadaism demonstrated dual characteristics of consuming the nutritive elements of the modern culture through the most powerful resistance and liberation of the artistic movement of the Belle Epoque era, where at the same time, it deconstructed the modern art. By revolting against the former grounds and expression techniques, and dominating the era with the new artistic spirit, their resistant actions were artistic movements that symbolized the dissolution of the modern times. Moreover, the Dada's expressionism and resistance of saying "There's nothing" can be evaluated as postmodernity's initiative of outweighing the modern history and opening the door for new period of nowadays.

• Journal of Korean Theatre Studies Association
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• no.48
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• pp.51-84
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• 2012

In Korea, historical plays took an epoch-making turn from the previous historical plays in terms of approaches to topic and material and methods of rewriting history in the 1990s. Historical plays became dehistoricized with individual, everyday life, and faction emerging as major codes of historical plays according to mistrust in history and grand narrative as the original and disappearance of trust in the growth and totality of history. A new trend became dominant of presenting fictionality prominent instead of reproduction of history and freely playing with history outside the context. While modern historical plays were subject to the content of history, post-modern historical plays sought after new history writing to tell a new story on history within a framework of fiction. Focusing on some of the trends in post-modern historical plays since the 1990s, which include play with history, daily life-style history writing, and reproduction patterns of colonial modernity, this study examined the goals, representations, and text strategies of new history writing in three historical plays, Generation After Generation(2000) by Park Geunhyung, The Mercenaries(2000) by Park Sujin, and Chosun Detective Hong Yunshik(2007) by Sung Giwoong. In Generation After Generation, the author adopts a plot of starting with the present and tracing back to the past, breaking down the myth of racially homogeneous nation. At the same time, he discloses that the colonial history is not just by the oppressive force of Japan but also by the voluntary cooperation of Korean people. That is, we are also accountable for the colonial history of the nation. The Mercenaries contrasts the independence movement during the colonial period against the modern history developed after Liberation, thus highlighting the still continuing coloniality, namely post-colonial present. The past is presented as the "phantom of history" making its appearance according to the request of the present hoping for salvation. The author politicizes history and grants political wishes to history by summoning the history by personal memories such as fictional diaries and letters with Messiah-like images opposed to the present of collapse and catastrophe. In Chosun Detective Hong Yunshik, the author makes an attempt at the microscopic reproduction of daily life by approaching the 1930s as the modern period when capitalist daily life started to take root. The lists of signs comprising daily life in colonial Gyeongseong are divided between civilization and savagery and between modern and premodern. With the progress of narrative, however, they become mixed together and reversed in the representation system in which the latter overwhelms the former.

• Korean Journal of Heritage: History & Science
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.100-115
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• 2023

The modernization of najeonchil, or mother-of-pearl lacquerware, began in the latter era of the Joseon period and started to set in during the phase of industrial development after the Korean War. Especially, the rise and fall of najeonchil during the first half of the 1900s fluctuated more compared to other types of craft. This paper focuses on the production, supply and demand activities of the works by Min Jong-tae, who was born in 1915, began his career in 1929 and devoted 70 years of his life creating najeonchil craft and furniture. As an apprentice under Jeon Sung-gyu, who revived the craft of najeonchil, Min Jong-tae was not only an artisan who ranked alongside Kim Bongryong, Song Juan, Shim Bugil, Kim Taehee, but also a businessman. In particular, Min led the boom of modern najeonchilgi during the 1970s-80s in Seoul, which was the most important market at that time. However, studies about Min Jong-tae are almost non-existence, despite his accomplishments. This study first describes how Min Jong-tae began the craft of najeonchil and early days of his career around the liberation period, then retraced his efforts in building a supply and demand system in the 1950s-60s. Moreover, this paper covers not only his creations of large-scale najeonchil furniture in the advent of an era of 'wardrobe culture' in the 1970s-80s, but also his exported pieces to Japan, including incense boxes and tea containers. In conclusion, this research derives the historical significance of Min Jong-tae's role as an artisan of najeonchil- designated as Seoul Intangible Cultural Heritage No. 14 in the field of craft.

• The Journal of Art Theory & Practice
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• no.4
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• pp.57-76
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• 2006

From the late 1920s to the 1930s, Korea's fine art community focused on traditional viewpoints as their main topic. The traditional viewpoints were discussed mainly by Korean students studying in Japan, especially oil painters. Such discussions on tradition can be divided into two separate halves, namely the pre- and post-Sino-Japanese War (1937) periods. Before the war, the modernists among Korea's fine art community tried to gain a fuller understanding of contemporary Western modern art, namely, expressionism, futurism, surrealism, and so forth, on the basis of Orientalism, and borrow from these schools' in order to create their own works. Furthermore, proponents of Joseon's avant-garde fine arts and artists of the pro-fine art school triggered debate on the traditional viewpoints. After the Sino-Japanese War, these artists continued to embrace Western modern art on the basis of Orientalism. However, since Western modern fine art was regressing into Oriental fine art during this period, Korean artists did not need to research Western modern fine art, but sought to study Joseon's classics and create Joseon's own avant- garde fine art in a movement led by the Munjang group. This research reviews the traditional view espoused by the Munjang group, which represented the avant-garde fine art movement of the post-war period. Advocating Joseon's own current of avant-garde fine art through the Munjang literary magazine, Gil Jin - seop, Kim Yong-jun and others accepted the Japanese fine art community's methodology for the restoration of classicism, but refused Orientalism as an ideology, and attempted to renew their perception of Joseon tradition. The advocation of the restoration of classicism by Gil Jin-seop and Kim Yong-jun appears to be similar to that of the Yasuda Yojuro-style restoration of classicism. However, Gil Jin-seop and Kim Yong-jun did not seek their sources of classicism from the Three-Kingdoms and Unified Silla periods, which Japan had promoted as a symbol of unity among the Joseon people; instead they sought classicism from the Joseon fine art which the Japanese had criticized as a hotbed of decadence. It was the Joseon period that the Munjang group chose as classicism when Japan was upholding Fascism as a contemporary extremism, and when Hangeul (Korean writing system) was banned from schools. The group highly evaluated literature written in the style of women, especially women's writings on the royal court, as represented by Hanjungnok (A Story of Sorrowful Days). In the area of fine art, the group renewed the evaluation of not only literary paintings, but also of the authentic landscape paintings refused by, and the values of the Chusa school criticized as decadent by, the colonial bureaucratic artists, there by making great progress in promoting the traditional viewpoint. Kim Yong-jun embraced a painting philosophy based on the painting techniques of Sasaeng (sketching), because he paid keen attention to the tradition of literary paintings, authentic landscape paintings and genre paintings. The literary painting theory of the 20th century, which was highly developed, could naturally shed both the colonial historical viewpoint which regarded Joseon fine art as heteronomical, and the traditional viewpoint which regarded Joseon fine art as decadent. As such, the Munjang group was able to embrace the Joseon period as the source of classicism amid the prevalent colonial historical viewpoint, presumably as it had accumulated first-hand experience in appreciating curios of paintings and calligraphic works, instead of taking a logical approach. Kim Yong-jun, in his fine art theory, defined artistic forms as the expression of mind, and noted that such an artistic mind could be attained by the appreciation of nature and life. This is because, for the Munjang group, the experience of appreciating nature and life begins with the appreciation of curios of paintings and calligraphic works. Furthermore, for the members of the Munjang group, who were purists who valued artistic style, the concept of individuality presumably was an engine that protected them from falling into the then totalitarian world view represented by the Nishita philosophy. Such a 20th century literary painting theory espoused by the Munjang group concurred with the contemporary traditional viewpoint spearheaded by Oh Se-chang in the 1910s. This theory had a great influence on South and North Korea's fine art theories and circles through the Fine Art College of Seoul National University and Pyongyang Fine Art School in the wake of Korea's liberation. In this sense, the significance of the theory should be re-evaluated.