The Forgotten Legacy of the Minjung Art Movement in South Korea

Details

Category: Gallery

Exhibiting Korea
A New, Monthly Series of Gallery Talk Programs at The Korea Society

with

Soyang Park
Post-Doctoral Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University

Thursday, May 24, 2007

The 1980s were a turbulent period in South Korean politics, with society rebelling against the military government and demanding democratic reform. But the pro-democracy movement wasn't limited to politics. South Korea in the 1980s also saw the rise of the minjung (grassroots) movement in the arts.

Throughout the decade, and into the early ‘90s, leading minjung artists worked around the theme of han (a uniquely Korean sense of lingering grievance) to create pieces which critically examined deep, often unpleasant, cultural realities and echoed the calls for political change.

At a powerful gallery talk, Soyang Park, a post-doctoral fellow at the Center for the Arts in Society at Carnegie Mellon University, will explore the minjung movement and the accomplishments of its leading artists, such as Lim Ok Sang and Oh Yoon, as they materialized the ghosts of contemporary Korean society.

About the Presenter

Soyang Park received her doctoral degree in Art History (visual) in 2004, from Goldsmiths College at the University of London. Park is currently teaching at Carnegie Mellon University as a post-doctoral fellow in the Center for the Arts in Society. Her scholarly work has been published in the Journal for Cultural Research, Third Text and Korean Art. She will join the faculty at the Ontario College of Arts and Design in Toronto as an assistant professor in July 2007.

Photo: Oh Yoon, Wonguido, 1984. Woodblock print

Registration Fee:
Single-Program Ticket: $5 (members) / $10 (non-members)
Series Pass (for all seven monthly gallery talks): $20 (members) / $50 (non-members)
buy tickets online or use the fax registration form (pdf)

Exhibiting Korea
A New, Monthly Series of Gallery Talk Programs at The Korea Society