Artist Chang-Jin Lee presents her artwork, Comfort Women Wanted, on the forgotten history of WWII-era Japanese military sex slaves, or “comfort women” as they were euphemistically known. Since 2007, Chang-Jin Lee has traveled to 7 different countries throughout Asia to interview Korean, Chinese, Taiwanese, Indonesian, Filipino, and Dutch “comfort women” survivors, as well as a former Japanese soldier, producing a video based on her interviews and creating a public art project. The public exhibition, on view around Manhattan through October 6, uses billboards, phone booth posters, prints, audio and multi-channel video installations to bring to light the memory of these 200,000 young “comfort women.”
Chang-Jin Lee, continuing to raise awareness of sexual violence against women during wartime, will discuss her research and art before screening her powerful video, Comfort Women Wanted.
Famed scholar Robert D. Mowry introduces the development of Korean Buddhist art from its formative phase in the late Three Kingdoms (57BC–668AD) and Unified Silla (668–935) periods through its maturation in the Goryeo dynasty (918–1392), emphasizing architecture and sculpture in the earlier periods and paintings and illuminated sutras in the later periods. In tracing the development of Korean Buddhist art, this lecture explores relationships with China and will identify those characteristics that are uniquely Korean.
In commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the Korean War armistice, award-winning photographer Mark Edward Harris has published North Korea and South Korea, books that capture the two drastically different realities of the divided peninsula.
In celebration of Asia Week New York, acclaimed curator Jane Portal will speak at The Korea Society to introduce the newly renovated Korean Gallery at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston which includes ceramics, metalwork, and paintings from the Bronze Age to the 20th century.
Dr. David R. McCann, Korea Foundation Professor of Korean Literature at Harvard University, reveals the unique correlation between 20th century Korean photographs and modern Korean poetry through examples from Traces of Life: Seen Through Korean Eyes 1945-1992, the current exhibition at The Korea Society Gallery.
Christopher Phillips, Curator of International Center of Photography, speaks about the explosive development of Korean photography in the late twentieth century. This talk is presented in conjunction with the current exhibition, Traces of Life: Seen Through Korean Eyes 1945-1992.
