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| "Jumping into 'The Adoration of the Kings ― Jan Gossaert'" (2018) by Bae Chan-hyo / Courtesy of SNUMoA |
By Park Han-sol
Aesthetic forms and themes from outside Korea have been influencing and mixing with Korean art for centuries. As Korea underwent colonial occupation, modernization and development from the late 19th to late 20th centuries, views of "Western art" have run the gamut from uncritical embrace and acceptance, to resistance and reversion to nativist forms.
To this day, the complex relationship between Western and Korean contemporary art continues to oscillate between acceptance, negotiation and resistance.
Against this backdrop, an exhibition titled "The Chronicle of Lost Time" at the Seoul National University Museum of Art (SNUMoA) looks into the works of 15 artists who reinterpret the status given to "Western art" in Korea.
"Throughout the history of the development of Korean modern art, the processes of accepting, translating and challenging Western art have all co-existed," SNUMoA curator Lee Joo-yeon told The Korea Times. "Based on such a relationship, the exhibition introduces works that refer to the aesthetic values of the so-called West, but at the same time transform or reinterpret them through new artistic forms."
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| "Terms of Beauty VI" (2009) by Debbie Han / Courtesy of SNUMoA |
Artists Debbie Han and Bahc Yi-so question the near universally elevated status of so-called Western cultural values in Korea.
Han's "Terms of Beauty VI" is a white porcelain bust series of Venus, the goddess who has been a classical symbol of beauty since Greek and Roman antiquity. However, the artist chose to apply features like prominent noses, droopy eyelids and big mouths ― which go against standards of beauty as idealized as "Western" ― to her Venus busts, thereby challenging the aesthetics conventions set by the original.
Bahc's "Exotic-Minority-Oriental" combines stereotypical words that describe phenomena or figures deviating from the so-called Western perspective, thereby remaining "elusive." By incorporating three magazine photos that are commonly associated with these words, the combination explores the ongoing making of the "West's" others, as well as the continued hierarchies between the "West" and its "non-Western" forms.
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| "Exotic-Minority-Oriental" (1990) by Bahc Yi-so / Courtesy of MMCA |
Some artists go beyond questioning such hierarchies and attempt to subvert them altogether.
Photographer Bae Chan-hyo chose to insert himself in classical European paintings while wearing traditional women's clothing and makeup in his "Jumping into…" series. As a result, he becomes the Virgin Mary in "La Madonna della Rondine ― Carlo Crivelli" and Greek goddess Athena in "The Judgement of Paris ― Joachim Wtewael."
The artist experienced an identity crisis while studying abroad in the United Kingdom, objectified and targeted as an Asian man. By making himself physically visible in well-known classical and Renaissance European paintings, Bae exposes underlying social prejudices and makes an effort to fight back against narratives that have excluded him.
Lee Wan reveals the colonial histories that live on in European art museums. His "Treasure" consists of a series of artifacts currently on display in Germany's Museum of Asian Art, replicated through 3D scanning and printing technologies. The cultural artifacts in question were taken out of their Asian home countries as a result of European imperialistic endeavors and lootings in the past, and his attempt to reclaim them, albeit virtually, brings forth this dark, unequal history.
He further challenges the views held by some that his artistic project is in fact an act of theft, through his fake documentary titled "News," played next to the artifacts on display, where the irony is highlighted by the news ticker which reads "foreign artist digitally embezzles cultural assets."
"The Chronicle of Lost Time" runs through June 20 at the SNUMoA.
