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Category: Artist Talk

Christianity in Korea: A Panel Discussion

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2010 12 09 Atlanta iconOn December 10, 2010, The Korea Society hosted a panel discussion at the First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta on the missionary experience in Korea. James T. Laney, former US ambassador to South Korea, led the panel, which included Donald Clark, professor of history at Trinity University, who gave an overview of the history of Christianity in Korea; William Brown, a son and grandson of Christan missionaries to Korea and China, who shared accounts written by missionaries in his family; and the Reverend George Wirth, senior pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta, who suggested that American Christians have much to learn from Korean Presbyterians about church growth, management, and missionary work. The program was part of The Korea Society’s Korea Days regional outreach program in Atlanta, Georgia.

 

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Korean Masked Dance-Drama: Enchanted Fertility Rite and Social Satire

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maskofnightJoin us as Theresa Ki-ja Kim, professor emeritus of theater arts at SUNY Stony Brook, discusses how Korea’s unique tradition of masked dance-dramas masterfully blended fertility rite, social satire, and popular entertainment. Held in conjunction with the exhibition, Masks of Night: Faces from Traditional Korean Dance-Dramas, Kim’s gallery talk will introduce the masked dance-drama, a form of performance that included songs, dances, and dialogues that aimed to satirize the local nobility (yangban) and promote fertility. Her talk will also examine how masked dance-dramas performed at the Korean royal court and throughout the countryside evolved from ancient shamanic rituals into a form of popular theater that helped release the pent-up social frustration generated by the rigid Confucian norms of the Chosŏn kingdom (1392-1910).

 

Gallery Talk with
Theresa Ki-ja Kim
Professor Emeritus, Department of Theatre Arts, SUNY Stony Brook, New York

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Theresa Ki-ja Kim is a professor emeritus of theatre arts at SUNY Stony Brook and a Fulbright Scholar of the shamanic origins of theater. Kim’s collection of Korean theatrical masks, on display at Masks of Night: Faces from Traditional Korean Dance-Dramas, is a result of her personal associations with the masked dancers and shamans during years of researching, teaching, producing, and publishing in the fields of traditional Asian theater and shamanism. She holds a Ph.D. in performance studies from New York University.

The Religious Revolution in Modern Korean History

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2009 05 05 ReligiousRevolutionIcon

On May 5, 2009, Don Baker, Associate Professor in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia, spoke about the history of Christianity and religion in Korea with Fred Carriere, The Korea Society’s Executive Vice President. The interview is in support of ‘Missionary Photography in Korea: Encountering the West through Christianity,’ an exhibition previously on display at The Korea Society Gallery.

The arrival of the first Western missionaries in Korea in the late 19th century was a pivotal moment in the history of Christianity in Korea and the history of Korea as a whole. The missionaries established new religious identities and stoked early culture clashes. They also documented their mission and the society around them with early cameras. Missionary Photography in Korea: Encountering the West Through Christianity—the largest ever show of Korean missionary photographs in the U.S.—features rare images taken by missionaries in Korea between 1890 and 1940.

Taken by both Protestant and Catholic missionaries, the photographs—on display along with unique supplementary objects such as an original photo album and New Year’s calendars—offer a singular perspective on life in Korea during times of profound change. They illustrate the forging of contemporary institutions and values in the crucible of encounters with American Christian missionaries by Koreans.

The impact of early Western contact on Koreans is evident in the telltale signs of new cultural norms and new religious identities, and clues that these new ways were conflicting with long-held traditions. Less directly evident, but equally important, the images also allow the viewer to surmise how Koreans in turn had a formative impact on the missionaries, which led to intertwined personal histories that became a foundation for subsequent relations between Korea and the United States.

Drawn from four private collections and six academic archives, the images have been digitally restored and printed in a manner that retains, as far as possible, the archival quality of the images.

Purchase the 184-page hardcover exhibition catalog here.

TradINNOVAtion: New Trends in Contemporary Korean Architecture

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2009 04 14 tradinnovation icon

Korea’s dizzying economic and urban growth over the past 50 years has seen the country exchange its traditional architectural landscape for Westernized office towers and apartment blocks. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, a few Korean architects are embracing buildings visibly rooted in history and synthesizing traditional forms and the demands of modern life. Architect Doojin Hwang will explain the theory, design and methodology behind the “creative restoration” changing the face of Korea’s cities.

TradINNOVAtion: New Trends in Contemporary Korean Architecture

Gallery Talk with

Doojin Hwang
Principal, Doojin Hwang Architects

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Pojagi: Cloth, Color and Beyond

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Join us for a panel discussion on the art and history of Korean wrapping cloths, or pojagi, with Lee Talbot, assistant curator of The Textile Museum; Chunghie Lee, fiber artist; and Seta K. Wehbé, assistant collection manager of the Antonio Ratti Textile Center at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Linking pojagi aesthetics to both traditional American quilts and contemporary abstract painting, the panelists will discuss the enduring appeal of pojagi and what they reveal about the lives and times of their creators.

This lecture is organized in conjunction with Unwrapping the Secrets of Korean Textiles: An Exhibition of Pojagi , which runs through April 24, 2009 at The Korea Society Gallery. You may also be interested in the workshop sessions, Making a Pojagi, beginning February 24.

 

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

 

Gallery Talk

with

Lee Talbot
Assistant Curator of Eastern Hemisphere Collections at The Textile Museum

Seta K. Wehbé
Assistant Collection Manager of the Antonio Ratti Textile Center at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Chunghie Lee
Artist

 

Encountering North Korea Through Its Art

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2008 12 04 EncounteringNKThroughArt icon
Image
Gallery Talk

with

 
Jane Portal
Matsutaro Shoriki Chair of the Art of Asia, Oceania and Africa, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

We might think that we know about North Korea – it has been so much in the news recently, presenting a nuclear threat to the region. But in fact we know very little about the country. In the 19th century, the undivided country was called the hermit kingdom. Since 1953, the South has become accessible and widely known, while the North has remained a hermit, with very few tourists being allowed to travel there to find out what it is really like. Perhaps one form of evidence which would help us understand the north better is through its art. Jane Portal was very privileged to be able to travel to Pyongyang in 2001 and 2002 as a result of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the UK and the DPRK. At that time she started to collect a variety of contemporary works for the British Museum.

This lecture is in conjunction with the gallery exhibit North Korean Images at Utopia’s Edge, on view at The Korea Society Gallery through December 12, 2008.

Above print:
Happiness (1990), Hwang Chol-Ho
Linoleum Print (Ed. 1 of 5)
25 (H)” x 21¾ (W)”

A young boy gives his father, a miner, his report card from school.

Our Toys, Our Selves: Robot Taekwon V and South Korean Identity

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2008 02 07 Korean Toys iconOn February 7, 2008, Aaron Han Joon Magnan-Park, an assistant professor in the Department of Film, Television and Theatre at the University of Notre Dame, delivered at lecture at The Korea Society entitled “Our Toys, Our Selves: Robot Taekwon V and South Korean Identity.” The lecture was in support of “Toy Stories: Souvenirs from Korean Childhood,” an exhibition of toys from 1970s and 1980s Korea, showing at The Korea Society gallery, and available for travel around the United States in 2008.

Exhibiting Korea

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2007 05 24 ExhibitingKorea icon

A New, Monthly Series of Gallery Talk Programs

May 24 – November 16, 2007

Exhibiting Korea, a new monthly series of presentations on the fine arts, film, fashion and photograph of the Korean Peninsula, is debuting in April 2007. Series programs will address contemporary trends in cultural expression in Korea, and take audiences back to important movements they might have overlooked. These gallery talks, given by top experts, critics and artists, will put the colors and shapes of modern Korea on display — and explain the cultural and historical contexts behind them. Please join us.

Date Time Title Speaker
5/24 6:30PM The Forgotten Legacy of the Minjung Art Movement in South Korea Soyang Park
6/7 6:30PM The Modern Boy and Modern Girl in Colonial Korea: 1910-45 Yeon-Shim Chung
7/12 6:30PM Film Screening of A Petal and Q&A with Actress Lee Young-Lan Lee Young-Lan
8/9 6:30PM Film Screening: Im Kwon Tae’s Festival
10/25 6:30PM Dressed to Kill: Women’s Fashion and Body Politics in North Korea Suk-Young Kim
11/16 6:30PM The Kyopo Project Cindy Hwang

The Meaning of Dragons in Korean Folklore

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2005 02 02 MeaningofDragons icon

To mark the opening of an exhibition of Korean dragon paintings, author and folklore specialist Heinz Insu Fenkl, director of the Interstitial Studies Institute at SUNY New Paltz, lectured on dragon symbolism in both the East and West. Due to its association with serpents in the Old Testament, he explained, the dragon was considered a creature of evil in the West. In the folklore of the East, however, the dragon was viewed as auspicious and usually was depicted as a magical creature of unsurpassed power and vitality.

Fenkl went on to elucidate the subtle but important differences between Korean dragon iconography and the more widely known Chinese dragon imagery. Dragon mythology originated in ancient China, Fenkl noted. The legendary founder of Chinese civilization, Fu Hsi, was said to be half-man, half-dragon. After the folklore disseminated to the Korean Peninsula, however, local artists and storytellers made their own adaptations. Compared with their Chinese counterparts, Korean storytellers placed more emphasis on the spiritual powers of dragons. In fact, dragons play a role in many of the most important Korean myths and fables even though they generally are assigned to peripheral roles where their actions reflect the virtues of the main characters. Fenkl described one important figure, the Dragon King, who was said to live in a palace beneath the sea and was generous and welcoming to a fault. Dragons are still omnipresent in modern day Korea: on billboards and logos and in brand names and commercials. Unfortunately, while Koreans recognize them, these days knowledge of the folklore behind these cultural icons is fading. “This is all the more reason,” Fenkl concluded, “to take the time to really study the paintings hanging in the gallery.”

Gallery Talk

with

Heinz Insu Fenkl
Director, Interstitial Studies Institute, SUNY New Paltz

Wednesday, February 2, 2005

  

Dragon 1 (Detail-E)s

Picture from the exhibition,
Songs of Flying Dragons. (February 2-April 15, 2005)

Artist Unknown
Dragon Amidst Clouds
Ink on paper, 19th C
33 (H) X 58 (W) inches
Collection of Lea Sneider

A dragon’s body is usually partially hidden since human beings are not supposed to view its entire body. In this depiction clouds are used to hide the dragon; in other cases, waves provide cover.

 

 

 

 

A State of Mind: Life in North Korea

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 2005 01 25 StateofMind icon

This program featured the screening of a documentary by award-winning producers Dan Gordon and John Battsek, which premiered on the PBS program, Wide Angle, on September 11, 2003. The documentary provides a rare, and surprising, glimpse into the individual and family life underneath the monolithic veneer of North Korean society. A Q&A session with Charles Armstrong, associate professor, Department of History, Columbia University, and Wide Angle Executive Producer Stephen Segaller followed the screening. Ambassador Donald P. Gregg served as the moderator for the program.

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

A State of Mind: Life in North Korea

with

Charles Armstrong
Associate Professor, Department of History, Columbia University,

Stephen Segaller
Executive Producer, Wide Angle

Moderated by

Donald P. Gregg
Ambassador