Korean Border-Crossing Artists in the New York Artworld

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2006 Korean Border-Crossing Artists in the New York Artworld: An Examination of the Artistic, Personal and Social Identities of Do-Ho Suh, Kimsooja, and Ik-Joong Kang Esther Eunsil Kho

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THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF VISUAL ARTS, THEATRE AND DANCE

KOREAN BORDER-CROSSING ARTISTS

IN THE NEW YORK ARTWORLD: AN EXAMINATION OF

THE ARTISTIC, PERSONAL AND SOCIAL IDENTITIES OF

DO-HO SUH, KIMSOOJA, AND IK-JOONG KANG

ESTHER EUNSIL KHO

A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Art Education in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2006

The members of the Committee approve the Dissertation of Esther Eunsil Kho defended on February 15, 2006.

______Tom Anderson Professor Directing Dissertation

______Susan Wood Outside Committee Member

______Pat Villeneuve Committee Member

______Susan Lee Committee Member

Approved:

______Marcia L. Rosal, Chair, Department of Art Education

______Sally McRorie, Dean, School of Visual Arts and Dance

The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members.

To my beloved parents, Dr. Heungsik Kho and Dr. Hanna Kim Kho,

and

To Dr. Tom Anderson, My mentor

With gratitude

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my respect and deepest thanks to Dr. Tom Anderson, my major professor, for his wise instructions and caring support. His teaching gave me the pleasure of studying art as one of the greatest moments. I am also thankful to my committee members Dr. Susan Wood, Dr. Pat Villeneuve, and Dr. Susan Lee, for their warm encouragement and insights. I also would like to thank Dr. Youngsun Jin at Korea University, Dr. Benjamin Binstock, Dr. Gordon Pradl, and professor Zoya Kocur at New York University. Each has supported me with heart and helped me through many difficulties during my studies. I will not forget the first exciting moment when Dr. Binstock gave me the intellectual pleasure of learning art, when he taught Deconstruction with lots of passion in his last teaching at NYU in 2002. I would like to thank the subjects of this study, the artists Do-Ho Suh, Kimsooja, and Ik-Joong Kang, without whose gifted talents, extraordinary sensitivities, masterpieces, and professional achievements this research project could not have been conceived. Their work inspired me and I am grateful to each of them. Many thanks are offered to my family as well. I dedicate this work to my father and mother, who always pray for me with endless love, support, and belief in me, to my sister Julia Kho, my brother-in-law Dr. Sookeun Lee, and my brother Joseph Koh. Their caring and prayers have helped me to undertake this journey. I also thank Rev. Dortch, Janice and Marty, Peggy and Ping, and Tadako and Tommy in the International Group of the First Baptist Church, Tallahassee who care of me as their daughter. In addition, I appreciate Jayme’s wise and patient help in such a short time. Very warm thanks go to all my friends in the Department of Art Education, Florida State University, and all over the United States and other countries. I am grateful to our Lord, Jesus Christ, for being with me throughout the study and my life. I am His work of art and my journey is a love letter full of tears to Him.

Esther Eunsil Kho

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures ...... x Abstract ...... xii

1. INTRODUCTION ...... 1

Statement of Problem...... 1 Background of the Problem ...... 1 Personal Motivation and Point of View...... 2 Recent Issues of Identity in Korean Art...... 3 Contemporary Art ...... 5 Art Criticism ...... 6 Research Questions and Objectives...... 8 Rationale for the Study ...... 9 Significance of the Study...... 11 Scope and Limitations...... 12 Definition of Terms...... 13 Assumptions ...... 15 Summary ...... 16

2. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ...... 17

Introduction ...... 17 I. Art Criticism...... 17 Art Criticism and the Role of Critic...... 17 Types of Art Criticism ...... 18 Mimetic Art Criticism...... 18 Formalist Art Criticism...... 18 Contextualist Art Criticism...... 19 Art Historical Criticism...... 19 Ideological (Socio-Political) Criticism ...... 20 Expressionists and Psychoanalytical Criticism...... 21 Cross-Cultural Criticism ...... 21 The Role of Experience and Judgement in Art Criticism...... 23 Art Criticism and the Tradition of Art History and Aesthetics...... 24 Art Criticism in Art Education...... 27 II. Identity Construction...... 31 Self Identity...... 31 National and Cultural Identity ...... 33 Border – Crossing Identity...... 34 III. Identity Construction in/through Art ...... 36 The Nature of the Art World...... 36

The Binary System of Art and Culture in the Western Art World 36 The Capitalistic Political Art World ...... 39 The Mega International Art Exhibitions...... 40 Transnational and Multicultural Issues...... 42 Marginalized Groups in the New York Art World ...... 42 Border-Crossing Artists ...... 43 Korean Border-Crossing Artists in the U.S...... 49 IV. Transcultural and Multicultural Art Education...... 51 The Multicultural Nature of U.S. Society...... 51 Diaspora and Transnationalism...... 53 Multiculturalism: The Diversity Advantage ...... 54 Multicultural Art Education...... 55 The Role of Educational Art Criticism ...... 57 A Cross-Cultural Approach to Art Education...... 58 Summary ...... 62

3. METHODOLOGY ...... 63

Introduction ...... 63 Theoretical Foundations...... 64 Research Design...... 66 Research Methods...... 68 Data Collection ...... 69 Participants...... 69 Do-Ho Suh ...... 69 Kimsooja...... 70 Ik-Joong Kang...... 70 Art Works Selected...... 71 The Critic as Instrument...... 72 Becoming Sensitive to Works of Art...... 73 Sensitivity ...... 74 Anderson’s Method of Cross-Cultural Critical Analysis...... 75 Reaction...... 75 Description...... 76 Obvious Thematic, Formal and Technical Qualities . 76 Formal Analysis of Relationships of Design ...... 76 Formal Characterization of Appearance ...... 76 Contextual Examinations:Biographical & Cultural Context 77 Interpretation...... 77 Evaluation ...... 78 Personal Experience...... 78 Aesthetic Judgment...... 78 Contextual Judgment ...... 78 Final Judgment and Evaluation...... 79 Contextual Examination: Document Collection ...... 79 Contextual Examination: Interviews...... 79

Data Analysis...... 81 Examining Identities ...... 83 Artistic Identity ...... 83 Personal Identity ...... 83 Social Identity ...... 83 Summary ...... 83

4. CRITICAL ANALYSES AND DISCUSSION...... 85

Introduction ...... 85 Making Contact...... 85 Do-Ho Suh ...... 85 Kimsooja...... 86 Ik-Joong Kang...... 87 Critiques of Selected Works by the Artists...... 88 I. Do-Ho Suh: Paratrooper I ...... 89 Reaction ...... 89 Description: Physical Qualities and Formal Analysis ...... 90 Contextual Examinations...... 93 Interpretation...... 99 Do-Ho Suh: Paratrooper II ...... 102 Reaction ...... 103 Description: Physical Qualities and Formal Analysis ...... 104 Contextual Examinations...... 105 Interpretation...... 113 Combined Final Interpretation/ Evaluation of Paratrooper I & II...... 117 Artistic Identity ...... 117 Personal Identity ...... 118 Social Identity ...... 120 Final Holistic Evaluation ...... 121 II. Kimsooja: Cities on the Move-2727 Kilometers Bottari Truck...... 122 Reaction ...... 123 Description: Physical Qualities and Formal Analysis ...... 124 Contextual Examinations...... 126 Bottari (wrapped bundles of bedcover)...... 127 Family life in Korea...... 130 2727 Kilometers Bottari Truck ...... 131 Interpretation...... 132 Kimsooja: A Needle Woman ...... 134 Reaction and Description: Physical Qualities and Formal Analysis .... 134 Shibuya, Tokyo...... 135 Shanghai, China ...... 137 Delhi, India ...... 138 New York, USA...... 140 Mexico City, Mexico...... 141 Cairo, Egypt ...... 143

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Niageria, Lagos...... 144 London, England...... 145 Collective Descriptions of Kimsooja’s A Needle Woman ...... 146 Contextual Examinations...... 147 Interpretation...... 153 Combined Final Interpretation/ Evaluation of Cities on the Move-2727 Kilometers Bottari Truck & A Needle Woman 155 Artistic Identity ...... 156 Personal Identity ...... 158 Social Identity ...... 159 Final Holistic Evaluation ...... 159 III.Ik-Joong Kang: 8490 Days of Memory...... 160 Reaction ...... 161 Description: Physical Qualities and Formal Analysis ...... 162 Contextual Examinations...... 162 Interpretation...... 166 Ik-Joong Kang: Amazed World...... 167 Reaction ...... 168 Description: Physical Qualities and Formal Analysis ...... 169 Contextual Examinations...... 170 Interpretation...... 175 Combined Final Interpretation/ Evaluation of 8490 Days of Memory & Amazed World ...... 177 Artistic Identity ...... 178 Personal Identity ...... 180 Social Identity ...... 181 Final Holistic Evaluation ...... 182

5. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY ...... 184

Final Evaluation...... 184 Results and Conclusions ...... 185 Summary ...... 197 The Implications for Art Criticism and Art Education ...... 198 Recommendations for Further Research...... 201

APPENDICES ...... 203

A Human Subject Committee Approval Letter ...... 203 B Consent Form...... 203 C Interview Protocol...... 209 D Interview Transcript...... 211 Do-Ho Suh ...... 211 Kimsooja...... 221 Ik-Joong Kang...... 227

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REFERENCES ...... 234

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...... 252

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Clifford, J. (1993). Art and Culture System ...... 38

Figure 2: Guillermo Kuitca. (1992). Untitled ...... 44

Figure 3: Alfredo Jaar. (1996). Embrace...... 45

Figure 4: Alfredo Jaar. (1987). A Logo for America...... 46

Figure 5: Sung Ho Choi. (1988-1992). American Dream ...... 46

Figure 6: Coco Fusco & Guillermo Gomez-Peña. (1992).Undiscovered Amerindians. 48

Figure 7: Gordon. (1964). Ethnic Identity of an American...... 52

Figure 8. Participants Demographic Data ...... 71

Figure 9: Do-Ho Suh (2003-2004). ParatrooperI ...... 89

Figure 10: Do-Ho Suh (2003-2004). ParatrooperI. (Detail)...... 90

Figure 11: Do-Ho Suh (2003-2004). ParatrooperI. (Detail)...... 91

Figure 12: Do-Ho Suh. (1996). High School Uni-Form...... 94

Figure 13: Do-Ho Suh (2003-2004). Paratrooper I. (Detail)...... 99

Figure 14: Do-Ho Suh. (2005). Paratrooper II ...... 102

Figure 15: Do-Ho Suh. (2005). Paratrooper II. (Detail)...... 103

Figure 16: Do-Ho Suh (2003). Karma...... 105

Figure 17: Do-Ho Suh. (2005). Paratrooper II (Detail)...... 115

Figure 18: Kimsooja. (1997). Cities on the Move-2727 Kilometers Bottari Truck 122

Figure 19: Kimsooja. (1997). Cities on the Move-2727 Kilometers Bottari Truck 123

Figure 20: Kimsooja. (1997). Cities on the Move-2727 Kilometers Bottari Truck 124

Figure 21: Kimsooja (1998). Bottari ...... 127

Figure 22: Kimsooja. (1999-2001). A Needle Woman...... 134

Figure 23: Kimsooja. (1999). A Needle Woman/ Shibuya, Tokyo ...... 135

Figure 24: Kimsooja. (1999). A Needle Woman/ Shanghai, China ...... 137

Figure 25: Kimsooja. (2001). A Needle Woman/ Delhi, India...... 138

Figure 26: Kimsooja. (2000). A Needle Woman/ New York, USA ...... 140

Figure 27: Kimsooja. (2000). A Needle Woman/ Mexico City...... 141

Figure 28: Kimsooja (2001). A Needle Woman/ Cairo, Egypt ...... 143

Figure 29: Kimsooja (2001). A Needle Woman/ Lagos, Nigeria ...... 144

Figure 30: Kimsooja. (2001). A Needle Woman/ London, England ...... 145

Figure 31: Kimsooja. (2001). A Beggar Woman / Mexico City. Mexico ...... 151

Figure 32: Kimsooja. (2001), A Homeless Woman/ Cairo, Egypt ...... 152

Figure 33: Ik-Joong Kang. (1996). 8490 Days of Memory...... 160

Figure 34: Ik-Joong Kang. (1999). 100,000 Dreams...... 164

Figure 35: Ik-Joong Kang. (2001-2002). Amazed World ...... 167

Figure 36: Ik-Joong Kang. (2001-2002). Amazed World...... 168

Figure 37: Ik-Joong Kang. (2005). Happy World...... 174

ABSTRACT

This study explored how three contemporary Korean "border-crossing" artists who live and work in New York City have conceptualized and constructed their artistic, personal, and social identities through their artwork. Do-Ho Suh, Kimsooja, and Ik-Joong Kang were studied using Anderson's (1993; 1995; 1997; Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005) cross-cultural method of contextual art criticism, incorporating document analysis and one-on-one interviews. The primary research question was, How do artists, originally from South Korea but now living in New York City, define themselves and their art in relation to their artistic, personal, and social identities? In addition, questions were explored concerning the impact of the dominant Western art community and the international art community in New York City on the creation of art and identity among these border-crossing artists. Do-Ho Suh’s Paratrooper series was found to illuminate the interdependence of personal identity with national, cultural, and social identity and explore issues of individuality and group consciousness, displacement and transience, and social pressure. Kimsooja’s Cities on the Move- 2727 Kilometers Bottari Truck and the A Needle Woman series was seen as depicting memories and experiences from her own family life and Korean culture in interaction with multicultural communities and human life. Finally, Ik-Joong Kang’s 8490 Days of Memory was found to represent the intersection of Korean national history and diplomacy with his own childhood memories, and his Amazed World to portray the essential unity underlying the global multicultural context. Each of the six selected artworks was found to be both a self-portrait and group portrait, signifying the human condition in contemporary society. Further, the artworks depict themes from Eastern philosophy and Western existentialism that simultaneously reflect the artists' original Korean culture, American multicultural ideology, and the personal challenge of "border- crossing" in the international art world. The results of this study can inform educational art criticism and instruction for audiences and art students in Korea, the U.S., and internationally, facilitating a sympathetic dialogue that promotes mutual understanding.

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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Statement of the Problem

This study critically analyzed three contemporary artists, born in Korea and now living and working in the United States. In the course of the analysis, I examined the artists' internationally displayed work in its authentic context in order to learn more about the ways in which each artist developed his or her personal and artistic identity as a "border-crossing" artist. I sought to understand how these artists have expressed their life experiences-- those of their childhoods in Korea and adult lives in the United States – through their artworks, especially with regard to the dimension of identity. In particular, my goal was to determine how the artists negotiated their personal and artistic identities through their artwork within the context of the dominant Western art community in general, and in the international art community of New York City in particular. In order to achieve this objective, I critically examined two artworks from each of the three artists using T. Anderson's (1993; 1995) contextual, cross-cultural approach to art criticism. In addition, as part of this examination I looked into the artists’ lives, reviewed writings about them, examined the selected works in person where possible, and met with each for a series of one-on-one interviews.

Background of the Problem

As T. Anderson (personal conversation, 2005) has noted, the most fully endowed and informed criticism comes about when the critic is deeply contextually embedded in the culture and subject matter of that criticism. As a Korean national who has lived within the international culture of New York, I believe that my experience has informed this study of the work of internationally-renowned, contemporary artists who were born in Korea and live in New York

City. In this section, I describe my personal motivation for conducting this study, and provide a preliminary background on Korean art, contemporary art, and art criticism.

Personal Motivation and Point of View

This research is combines personal, artistic, and social perceptions of art and life. My personal motivation in undertaking this study was to gain a better understanding of contemporary artists who were born in Korea but who work internationally and live in the United States. I was attracted to these Korean border-crossing artists because I myself was born in Korea but now live in the United States. Like these artists, I too lived in New York City, which is widely considered the heart of the international art world. On July 17, 2001, I came to North America for the first time. When I arrived, I lived in the center of New York, in Manhattan. There, my interaction with people of all nationalities and ethnicities made me more open minded and more aware of my self and my artistic identity. Following my arrival, I saw much disaster, agony, and triumph in the Unites States. I experienced September 11th, with its accompanying memorial ceremonies and photos of lost family members. I saw the many homeless in New York City, the war in Iraq, the anti-war demonstrations, and re-election of President Bush. I observed various conflicts between the Koreas and the United States in the form of left-wing, anti-American, and anti-Bush demonstrations in South Korea and constant tensions between North Korea and the United States over nuclear threats. I experienced national and international news from an American perspective, and expanded my narrow monocentric ideas to gain a perspective wider than my original, exclusively Korean view. Even as an artist and educated person, I had never been very aware of world events before I left my own country and family. I had never studied the cultures of the Americas, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, or any cultures other than that of North and South Korea. In experiencing direct contact with other cultures and people, I became newly aware of my own national identity. My experiences in the United States, along with my expanded artistic awareness and sense of self, have had a great impact on my own art, as well as on my interpretations and appreciation of others’ artworks. As a result, I have recently produced artworks more related to current social issues and problems, for example, collecting and transferring images from the New York Times to my canvas on a daily basis.

I share the same background in fine arts and painting as the artists. My own experiences as an artist living in a foreign country, then, have enabled me to better interpret and respond to the world and society in which I find myself. I now believe art is obligated to reflect the social and political conditions in which we live, and I have become interested in learning more about how artwork can reflect social and cultural issues, as well as the political conditions of our daily lives and identities. In addition, as I have come to better understand the English language and Western and American cultures, I have become increasingly interested in art criticism as a means to better understanding my own and others’ artistic, personal, and social identities. I also now understand that empathetic understanding among human beings is vital to the creation of global citizenship within our societies and among individuals (Banks, 2004; T. Anderson, 1995; Garber, 1995). The two art critics who have influenced my thinking in this regard are Benjamin Binstock (2001, 2004) and Tom Anderson (1983, 1991, 1993, 1995, 1997, 2002; Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005). As an emerging scholar, I seek to explore not only the identities of contemporary artists who were born in Korea and now live in the United States, but also my own identity as an art critic, an artist, and person. This is why this study and findings are significant. As an art educator, I attempt to look at border-crossers. Perhaps this personal motivation has deepened my critical analysis of the artworks under study, creating a wholistic view of art, culture, and society. It is my hope that my own experience has informed my understanding of the relationship between the artists’ cultures and their art as seen through the lens of my own interpretations. Further, the critical analysis I conducted for this study may shed some light on the impact of the multicultural nature of the United States, specifically on the international New York art world. My hope is that these insights may contribute to creating a bond between people of different cultures and nations.

Recent Issues of Identity in Korean Art

Today, Korean contemporary art is presented through large international exhibitions and auctions. However, Korea is the only nation still to endure a split identity between two distinct geographical and political entities (Jin, 1997; Lee, 1995b). From a historical perspective, the United States can be seen to have had a significant impact on this split Korean identity. American religious, educational, and military ideals have greatly influenced South Korea, and

accordingly, South Korean art (Breen, 1999; Clark, 2000; Portal, 2000). To a lesser extent, this influence is also true of non-European or Western other countries. In searching for the expression of national and cultural identity in art, numerous art critics and scholars have explored the impact on contemporary Korean artists of Western/American and Japanese involvement in South Korea. Korean Gwangju Biennale curator and art critic Young- Woo Lee (1995a) studied the history of South Korean modern, postmodern, and contemporary art, and concluded that Korean art has been influenced significantly by Western art and culture. Jin (1997) studied Art Informel, focusing on particular formal aesthetic concerns in South Korean paintings, like the drip technique, violent gestures, rough brushwork, strong color, abstract style, and the ink of various tones. Jin's analysis suggests that South Korean Informel artwork was a reaction to the dominant style of French Impressionism introduced by the Japanese in the early 19th century. Chung (2000) similarly explored the influence of American and European modern art in South Korea, and found that the Korean artists he studied wanted to preserve the cultural legacy of Korean art and not imitate European and American abstract Expressionism. In recent years, a new generation of South Korean contemporary artists has begun to react against Western and American influences. These artists seek to discover their own artistic identities independent from the Japanese colonial culture and the dominant influences of the West. In her 2004 dissertation, Choi-Caruso analyzed the work of two such contemporary artists: a Korean woman artist in Seoul and a Korean-American woman artist in Los Angeles. Choi-Caruso (2004) found that even though these two artists live in different countries, they share similar perceptions, using art as a means of self-empowerment that enables them to resist and overcome racial, patriarchal, and gender-oriented intolerance. Roe (1995) used the lens of South Korean national identity to examine a number of Korean art exhibitions in the U.S., such as Korea: the Impact of War in Photographs (1951), Masterpieces of Korean Art (1957), 5000 Years of Korean Art (1979), Min Joong Art: A New Cultural Movement in Korea (1988), and Across the Pacific: Contemporary Korean and Korean American Art (1993). In seeking to reveal the constructed nature of national identity, Roe found that these art exhibitions affected the perceptions of their audiences, creating different notions of Korean culture. Nevertheless, defining the Korean cultural identity is troublesome. Clark (2000) has suggested that a unified Korean cultural identity would be essential to the successful reunification of the nations of South

Korea and North Korea. After fifty years of colonial rule and the subsequent political splitting of the nation, Koreans are still searching for such an identity (Breen, 1999; Clark, 2000; Kim, 2004). In this study I hope to incorporate aspects of national, cultural, personal, and social identity in my examination of the work of three Korean-born artists in the context of their border-crossing lives. My approach appears to be unique, given my review of the literature, in that I directly engaged the work of border-crossing artists through an established critical process of reaction, description, interpretation, and evaluation (T. Anderson, 1997). Many previous studies have sought to analyze art only in terms of its historical social context, a process that often reflects a colonial mind-set. Terms such as those used by sociologists Edward Said (1979) ("the Orient"), Homi Bhabha (1994) ("Third World" and "minorities"), and Greenblatt (1991) (“a given culture”), in referring to non-dominant societies and cultures, are no longer appropriate because, as Trinh Minh-ha (1986) has stated, “There is a Third World in every First World and vice-versa” (p. 8). Postcolonial twentieth-century scholarship in cultural studies would suggest the need for an updated, socially engaged artistic critique. One goal of this study is to contribute to scholarship that improves the level of dialogue in art criticism by attending to such postcolonial and multicultural concerns. In Chapter 5, I explore how related themes present in the work of twentieth-century Korean artists might be used to inform art criticism and education in South Korea.

Contemporary Art

Danto (1997) has said that modern philosophy began with Descartes, who talked about the notion of consciousness: “I think therefore I am.” According to Danto, “The world is defined by thought; the world and we are literally made in one another’s image” (p. 6). Danto's assertions about the nature of reality inform the premises of my study. In this postmodern period artists make connections between art and life as well as artists and audiences. Artwork is made for the sake of life, that is, to shed light on the human condition (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005; Milbrandt, 1998). While modernism viewed art as formalist, aesthetic, without necessary function, and with the creative individual at its center for the sake of art (Greenberg, 1961), postmodernism emphasizes the interaction of language, culture, and society (Milbrandt, 1998). Artists in the modern period believed in making art. Thus, art in the modern period emphasized an artist’s own creativity and ownership. Contemporary art mixes modernism and

postmodernism as artists attempt to establish a close and intimate connection between their lives and the lives of audience members. In the contemporary art world, artists, critics, art historians, and art communities examine the relationship between art and society in terms of sociology, psychology, and philosophy. In general, contemporary art has an immediate relevancy to the larger political and social world, and contemporary artists seek to make connections between art and life, and among artists and audiences; this is art for the sake of life (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005). My intention for this study is to join in this exploration. If art is supposed to mirror the world of the artist, and if each artist lives in his or her own world and culture, then the artist’s life and identity are integral to his or her artwork. In addition to the traditional issues of beauty, authenticity, and reality, the world of contemporary art is replete with discussions about power, freedom, and life (Danto, 1997; Lippard, 1990). From a postmodern, social reconstructivist perspective, any given meaning in contemporary art exists only within a socially constructed web of other meanings (Danto, 1997; T. Anderson, 1995). Meanings are constructed in a group context through dialogue, so the interpretations of different audiences are informed by their own contexts and struggles (Danto, 1997). Further, contemporary studies of art combine the idea of the individual artist’s creativity with the more recent notion of philosophical and artistic community (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005). Art and culture reflect the intersection of personal experience, history, intent, and social context (R. Anderson, 2004; Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005). A major goal of this study is to explore these influences. Contemporary artists who were born in South Korea but who work and live in the multicultural society of the United States must negotiate the dynamics of their evolving culture and simultaneously engage in a global community that is inevitably affected by economics and politics. Their experiences are worthy of study not only for their own sake but because they can inform the practice of cross-cultural art criticism and art education.

Art Criticism

The tradition of educational art criticism began with Dewey (1934), and continues through Eisner (1998) to T. Anderson (1993; 1995; 1997; Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005). According to Dewey (1934), “The aim of criticism is the re-education of the perception of the work of art” (p.324). As Eisner (1998) explained, “The primary function of the critic is educational” (p. 86). In a related vein, Anderson & Milbrandt (2005) stated that art criticism is

not for its own sake but for the sake of what art can tell us about life – our own and others. Educational art criticism has been at the forefront of theoretical and practical concerns in art education due to the emergence of discipline-based art education (DBAE) (Murray, 1999). DBAE, which includes studio art, art history, art criticism, and aesthetics, began in 1984 (Efland, 1990), and has expanded a traditional focus on studio activities to a more content-based approach to art education. T. Anderson (1993; 1997) defined art criticism as talking or writing about art. The drive to understand the meaning and significance of artworks emerges from art’s reflection of human values and the innate desire of human beings to understand their own existence (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005). Accordingly, art is best understood as a cultural artifact (R. Anderson, 2004; T. Anderson, 2000). In the words of Anderson and Milbrandt (2005), “Artworks reflect a collective soul, sensibility, and culture, because an artist is part of his or her place and time” (p. 100). When we look at art and expressive visual artifacts, it helps us to understand more about who we are, where we are, what we believe, and what we feel (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005). In this sense, art works have both an intellectual and an emotional dimension (Dewey, 1934; T. Anderson, 1997). Art criticism, then, might be thought of as the examination of artwork to discover what the artists can tell us about being human. T. Anderson (1983; 1997) has developed and promoted a model of educational art criticism in which the critic evaluates the observed artwork not only for its own sake, but for its potential contribution to educational theory and practice. Such art criticism is aimed at educating the public so as to engender in individuals a deeper understanding of the purposes and procedures of art (Sparshott, 1992). Ideally, educational art criticism promotes a sympathetic and open-minded inquiry into artwork within the realm of aesthetic intellectual discourse. Art critics engaged in academia can teach art criticism methods to art students and museum audiences as a means of promoting global intellectual citizenship through the cross- cultural appreciation of art (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005). The tools of art criticism can help audience members to merge their personal knowledge and experience with an understanding of the art and cultures of others. Thus, educational art criticism can enhance both the audience's aesthetic experience and sense of moral responsibility about other cultures and societies. This approach to the experience of artworks can move the audience toward self-realization and tolerance of others, prerequisites for a richer and more fulfilling life (T. Anderson, 1995). In this

way, the study of educational art criticism is beneficial for art professionals as well as general audiences.

Research Questions and Objectives

This study critically examined the artworks of three Korean-born contemporary artists currently living and working in the United States: Do-Ho Suh, Kim Sooja, and Ik-Joong Kang. The aim of the study was to understand how their life experiences in Korea and in the United States are expressed in their artworks, and how their "border-crossing" (Bhabha, 1994) experiences have influenced the development of their personal and artistic identities. Hence, the driving question for this study was: How do artists, originally from South Korea but now living in New York City, define themselves and their art in relation to their artistic, personal, and social identities? The supporting research questions are: 1) What are the characteristic, substantive, stylistic, and expressivistic natures of the selected artworks’ by the three artists under study? 2) What do the artists themselves say about their art and their lives in relation to the construction and understanding of their identities? 3) What do the artworks mean and/or do, as determined by a systematic critique developed in an authentic social context? 4) What conclusions can be drawn about the artists and their work, and their construction of identity through art as members of the Korean diaspora, members of the art world, and/or of the human race? I addressed these research questions by: a) looking at the series of artworks by the three internationally renowned contemporary artists under study, focusing on the meaning of their artwork in a cultural context; b) conducting a preliminary critical analysis of the chosen artworks, c) conducting interviews with each artist; d) reviewing relevant documents; e) critically analyzing two works from each artist using Anderson's critical process of reaction, description (physical qualities, formal analysis, characterialization, and contextual examination), interpretation, and evaluation; f) including interview transcripts and other critics’ reviews in the

contextual examination; and g) interpreting data to reach conclusions and h) articulating implications for educating audiences about art criticism using Anderson's model.

Rationale for the Study

The rationale for this study was based on the notion that cross-cultural art criticism is significant not just for its role in the art world, but for its potential contribution to mutual understanding in this shrinking, increasingly multicultural world (T. Anderson, 2002; R. Anderson, 2004). Art provides a means of ingress for cultivating such mutual understanding between people of different cultures. As a strategic model, cross-cultural art criticism can promote effective communication between artists and audiences, enabling the latter to deal with diverse cultures and interpretations. Effective art criticism should be a cultural activity, a communication with the audience, an empathetic dialogue (T. Anderson, 1995; Garber, 1995). Further, this dialogue should be promoted in the capitalized art world and market (Feldman, 1967). The existing power structure of the West has a long colonial history of marginalization or flat-out indifference to art that emerges from non-Western cultures (Bhabha, 1994; Banks, 2004). A realization of the West’s troubled and troubling colonial past should prompt some reinterpretation of old knowledge within the art world, as well as further study (Kim, Machida, & Mizota, 2003). T. Anderson (1995) has noted that a cross-cultural approach to art criticism can enable students and other audiences to learn about artworks as cultural artifacts embedded in cultural texts. Such a cross-cultural approach requires that artworks be examined in relation to their functions, to other works, and to belief systems. A cross-cultural approach to art criticism helps audiences to recognize the similarities between people outside their own culture and themselves, in this way helping them to be more fully aware of their personal and social identity and more prepared to play a significant role as global citizens. Sincere contextual, cross-cultural criticism helps students see the human meaning in artworks, to view them not as alien curiosities, but as valid expressions of the human spirit. In short, cross-cultural art criticism not only provides access to other cultures, but also sheds light on possibly unexamined cultural assumptions we have about ourselves by examining the way

others do things. In this way, the act of cross-cultural criticism itself is a wonderful means for "teaching tolerance” to students (T. Anderson, 1995, p. 207). Cross-cultural study can change a student's way of thinking and valuing, extending learning about the histories, languages, stories, images, politics, spiritualities, and life experiences of people from other cultures. A cross-cultural art curriculum can prevent students from exclusively having and using the lenses of European and American mainstream cultures when encountering artworks, enabling them to move beyond those values that have traditionally exoticized different people and cultures, categorizing them as “others” or "different" (Garber, 1995). This study exemplifies such a cross-cultural approach, helping to shed light on the global art world through research conducted in its supposed center, New York City (Dunning, 1998), where different ethnicities, cultures, and nationalities live side-by-side. Garber (1995) has argued that the study of cultures other than our own should be approached through the formation of a "border consciousness" (p. 223). Garber’s work suggests the importance of being aware of two sets of reference codes and teaching about cultures other than our own. Garber has encouraged students to learn about the art, history, literature, narrative stories, popular and folk images, political ideas, everyday lives, spirituality, and even the language of the cultures from which an artwork emerges. She has stressed the significance of understanding the variety and subtleties within a culture, and the importance of immersing onself within it in the process of experiencing a work of art. Students in multicultural North America can develop new ways of thinking and valuing through such interactions with other cultures. As Garber has noted, We might view our relationship with another culture as a friendship. When we are friends with another person, we don’t become that person, but we value the way they do things, what they say, what they like and value. They influence us and the friendship changes us...This meeting is not authoritative, not commandeering, and not preempting. It is the listening, open kind of caring. (p. 229- 230) Notions of border-crossing, periphery, and hybrid culture have begun to enter the discourse in art criticism, and have informed this study. When approaching an artwork that is temporally distant or conceptually different from that to which one is accustomed, such new ideas can broaden one's experience and analysis. Studying other cultures allows students to realize that there are many worldviews based on diverse schemes of reality. Artworks, then,

must be presented and examined in the context of their own cultural meanings and significance, and in relation to the viewer's own culture.

Significance of the Study

In the past, art and society did not adequately encourage empathetic and moral communication (Bhabha, 1994; Said, 1979). Marginalized individuals all over the world have struggled and still struggle to survive in an environment of capitalism, colonization, war, and mutual distrust. Marginalized art communities and art institutions have long faced disrespect (M. Berger, 1990; Wilson, 1988; Pindell, 1989; Berger, 1990). For reasons such as these, women artists, indigenous artists, and others whose work has been culturally marginalized have been far less represented in the European Western cannon (Kim, Machida & Mizota, 2003). Nevertheless, the many radical changes in social structures that have characterized the twentieth century have been felt in the art world. Over the course of one hundred years, the world has become rapidly globalized (Banks, 2004; Bhabha, 1994), such that more diversity and heterogeneity than ever can be seen in national and local settings. People travel, live in other countries, and communicate in languages other than their native tongues. This study reflected these changes, seeking to increase our understanding of how it is to live in two or more cultures and cross daily between one’s home and adapted cultures. Global artists exhibit their work internationally and their audiences are often neither locals nor familiar to the artists themselves. Such changes call on the contemporary art world to open dialogues that can promote understanding of art and people in the context of multiculturalism. Audiences should be exposed to more diverse cultures and beliefs, thereby enhancing tolerance, equality, and empathy between human beings. Art can change society for the better by preventing the hierarchical oppression of individuals, thus allowing true freedom and creativity (R. Anderson, 2004; Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005). This study is significant in that it extends scholarly discourse on the use of cross-cultural art criticism as a particular approach to art. In addition, by analyzing the work of "border-crossing" artists, the study deepens our understanding of the multicultural experience of artists and provides insights about identity negotiation that are useful for the practices of art criticism and art education.

Scope and Limitations

The scope of this study extends to an examination of the work of three Korean-born artists their cultural contexts. Do-Ho Suh, Kim Sooja, and Ik-Joong Kang were born in South Korea but work and live in New York City, the place that is commonly acknowleged as the most influential international center of visual art in the world today (Guilbaut, 1983; Dunning, 1998). I chose to study artists who live and work in New York for two reasons – because of New York City's acknowledged place as a worldwide center of art and because of its transnational character. This study primarily concerns what it means to be a transnational border-crossing artist, and the extent to which such artists define their identity through the creation and display of art in a multicultural transnational setting. The inquiry was guided by the use of a qualitative method of art criticism developed by T. Anderson (1997), and employed the technique of triangulation to enhance the validity of the results. Because Anderson's method is contextually based and socially grounded, it requires the acquisition of information from sources other than the artworks themselves. As a result, interviews and document analysis were used to collect data on such aspects of the artists' experiences as motives, contextual influences, and so on. In addition, written critiques, videos, and other sources were used to expand the context for the analysis. The artworks by Kimsooja that were analyzed for this study are videos. My analysis concerned the entire videos, but in order for the reader to observe her work, only selected frames are presented as evidence. The contextual examination of various sources of data enabled me to pinpoint issues related to artistic, personal, and social identity, as well as to draw conclusions regarding strategies for educational artistic criticism. Necessarily, my own subjective judgements were integral to this examination, and constituted some limitation on my findings (Dewey, 1934; T. Anderson, 1997; Denzin & Lincoln, 2000). At the same time, some level of subjectivity can be considered a given in any critical analysis. As Dewey (1934) stated, Every critic, like every artist, has a bias, a predilection that is bound up with the very existence of individuality. It is his task to convert it into an organ of sensitive perception and of intelligent insight, and to do so without surrendering the instinctive preference from which are derived direction and sincerity (p. 324).

As an art critic and scholar, I accept any intellectual biases I may hold, recognizing that with this acceptance comes a means of understanding and acknowledging their impact on my work.

Definition of Terms

Eastern/ Western Culture. When I use the terms Eastern and Western culture, I am aware of their constructed nature in the context of the power structure in a postcolonial world. In talking about Orientalism Said (1978) stated that the Orient was almost a European invention, and had been since antiquity a place of romance, exotic beings, haunting memories and landscapes, remarkable experiences. In Latin American Art, O’Gorman (1961) wrote that America was “not discovered but invented” (p. 47) and Greenblatt (1991) furthered that idea by arguing that America was shaped by European desire for possession. Greenblatt asserted that Europe has shaped America in its likeness because of the desire for possession of the people, culture, and resources. Greenblatt then asked these questions, “What does the phrase ‘a given culture’ mean? Who ‘gives’ it? What is the origin of the boundaries that enable us to speak of ‘within’ and ‘without’?” (p. 121) Greenblatt asserted that the exhibits of the others are not complete apprehension, but may “assimilate exotic representations to their own culture” (p. 122). Thus, the East (Asian) or Orient, and America were not discovered or enlightened, but invented by Euro- centric representations which involved capitalism.

Anderson’s Method of Art Criticism. T. Anderson’s (1997) model for art criticism contains four processes that are best understood in terms of the questions asked by the critic in the course of responding to an artwork. These processes are: reaction (What is this?), description (What does it look like; What is it for? What is its authentic context?), interpretation (What is this work all about?; What does it mean?), and evaluation (What is it worth?).

Identity. Identity is a highly personal conception but one that is also subject to an authoritative synthesis (Heidegger, 1969; Zachary, 2003). Identities are invoked or imputed by interaction within a relationship as a whole (Bhabha, 1995; Henderson, 2002). Undoubtedly, one's identity is affected by one's larger environment. Bhabha (1995) found that identity is “not self given to consciousness, but a coming to consciousness of the self through the realm of symbolic otherness

in terms of language, the social system, and the unconscious as “double consciousness” (p. 26). Identity can also be considered the identification of another in relation to the self; it determines expectations in structuring relationships, and negotiating power (Henderson, 2002).

Diaspora and Diasporic Art. The term diaspora originates in Jewish history, but now, in this deterritorialized world of peripheries, the term refers to any ethnic or religious minority dispersed physically from their original homeland, regardless of cause, and regardless of whether physical, cultural, or emotional links still exist between the community and the home country (Safran, 2004). Diaspora is inevitable with the rising of transnationalism and globalization, but at the same time, it is closely related to the representations of identity and culture in international politics (Kokot, Tölölyan, & Alfonso, 2004; Safran, 2004). Diasporic art refers to the artwork of dispersed artists and, in general, both strongly expresses a sentiment toward homeland and family and reflects the artist's experiences in the newly inhabited land and culture.

Border-Crossing Artists. Border-crossing artists are similar to diasporic artists. The term refers to the legal migration of artists from one country to another country across national borders, and also to the crossing of social and psychological borders (Gomez-Peña, 1986; Garber, 1995). Such migration is not limited to two countries or two cultures, but can be a comprehensive intersection of multiple entities and realities in a globalized society. Border-crossing artists are signficant because they become “cultural workers [ambassadors]” and “universal intellectuals,” due to their experience of two or more cultures together (Giroux, 1995). Border-crossing artists and intellectuals may shed light on issues of identity construction and cultural knowledge as new forms of the contemporary human condition. Korean-born artists who live and work in America are immigrant artists and may be considered border-crossing artists. They are not the same as Korean-American artists (Park, 1997, 2000). A Korean-American person naturally incorporates American cultural norms into his or her daily life as a result of having been born and raised in the United States. As diasporic and border-crossing persons, Korean-born immigrants tend to change the homogeneous concepts of race, culture, and language that worked in Korean society to a more multicultural set of ideas.

Transnationalism. The deeply transnational character of New York City was a factor in choosing Korean-born artists who live and work in this locale. The realities of transnationalism,

diaspora, and border crossing highlight the notion of differences between cultures, personal identities, and others. Transnational communities are those where the identities of individuals are not based primarily on attachment to a specific territory. As such, they present powerful challenges to traditional ideas of nation-state belonging (Banks, 2004). The nature of transnational communities potentially affects all the circumstances of modern cross-border mobility. Such communities can influence the growth of temporary, cyclical, and recurring migrations, encourage cheap and easy travel, and support newly available communication and informational technologies.

Multiculturalism. Multiculturalism refers to the public acceptance of immigrant and minority groups who are distinguishable from the majority population with regard to language, culture, and social behavior and who often have their own associations and social infrastructure (Banks, 2004; Newfield & Gordon, 1996). The ethos of multiculturalism goes against the myth of the homogeneous and monocultural nation-state, implying that members of minority groups should have equal rights in political and economic domains, and recognizing the inevitable cultural diversity of a transnational society. In this way, multiculturalism contributes to the building of cultural democracy and cultural pluralism, which acknowledges that no group lives in isolation, but instead, influences and is influenced by other groups. In the United States, multiculturalism necessitates the reassertion of democractic principles (Banks, 2004; Newfield & Gordon, 1996). Support for multiculturalism helps to further understanding of racial, ethnic, gender, class, and sexual identity, emphasizing that identity is neither fixed nor defined inherently for every member of any group. In this way, multiculturalism is largely a statement about identity (Banks, 2004; Newfield & Gordon, 1996).

Assumptions

At least two main assumptions underlie this study. The first is that the artists under study, Do-Ho Suh, Kim Sooja, and Ik-Joong Kang, define themselves and their art in relation to their national, cultural, ethnic, and personal identities. These artists are taken to symbolize a significant border-crossing movement in our multicultural and global society. The second assumption implicit to this study is that the artists under study – and many audiences – have

faced and continue to face a variety of cultural experiences and social systems. These two assumptions were central to the critical analysis of these artists' work and the interviews that were conducted with these artists as a means of examining how they have negotiated their identities within the dominant European-Western art communities, with a focus on the international art community of New York City.

Summary

The central question around which this study was formed was, How do three Korean, border-crossing artists living in New York City use their work to conceptualize and construct their respective artistic identities? Secondarily, the study was designed to explore the influence of the dominant Western art communities in general, and the international art community of New York City in particular, on the negotiation of these identities. Overall, the study constitutes a contextual, cross-cultural examination of the works of these three artists of the Korean diaspora who live and work in New York City. T. Anderson's method of art criticism was used for this contextual examination, and included: 1) a considered first response or reaction to given artworks 2) a critical examination of the artworks themselves, and 3) a contextual examination of the context of the work using the results of document analysis and interviews with the artists. The results of this study have implications for the practice and instruction of educational art criticism in art education as well as for art critics and audiences.

CHAPTER 2

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Introduction

This chapter reviews literature on art criticism, identity construction, identity construction in/through art, and transcultural and multicultural education. Various approaches to art criticism are discussed, as well as the role of the art critic and art criticism in art education. The notion of identity construction is examined in relation to self, national and cultural, and border-crossing identities. Further, the construction of identity in/through art is discussed, with particular attention to the nature of the art world, its systems and characteristics, and the multicultural nature of the New York art world and its artists. Finally, the chapter includes a discussion of the literature on transcultural and multicultural art education, and its relationship to the multicultural nature of U.S. society, the notion of diaspora, and transnationalism.

I. Art Criticism

Art Criticism and the Role of Critic

Art criticism involves talking or writing about art (T. Anderson, 1991, 1993, 1997; Feldman, 1967; Barrett, 1988, 2003). Art critics look for value and meaning in the human condition through examining, writing, and talking about art (T. Anderson 1997; Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005). Dewey (1934) said that artistic criticism functions as judgment that is determined by “the quality of first-hand perception” (p. 298). Such judgment seeks to evoke a clearer consciousness of a work's rich background using disciplined insight to discover how the parts of an artwork are related the whole. Therefore, judgment contains both emotional and intellectual components (Dewey, 1934; T. Anderson, 1988; 1991; 1993). Art criticism helps make sense of a given artwork using evidence and logic from the artwork and its context (Greenberg, 1961; T. Anderson, 1997). Critics examine the nature of a work of art as a mode and

expression of human experience (Dewey, 1934; Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005). Therefore, the critic should be sensitive to the connections between life and meanings in artforms. Ultimately, participating in artistic criticism through reading and writing is necessary to develop strong critical insight (Wolff & Geahigan, 1997) and to encourage a deep empathetic dialogue about our shared human condition (T. Anderson, 1995). Sparshott (1992) has said, “If you could teach people to be critics, you could teach them to be human” (p. 335).

Types of Art Criticism

At least three basic types of art criticism can be identified (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005): mimetic, formalist, and contextualist. Contextualist art criticism can be further subdivided into art historical, ideological (socio-political), expressionist and psychoanalytical, and cross-cultural criticism. Of course, these various types of criticism are never categorically pure, but distinguishing types according to their focus helps to illuminate different aspects of works of art (Wolff & Geahigan, 1997).

Mimetic Art Criticism

Mimesis was a significant aesthetic theory in European-Western culture (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005; R. Anderson, 2004). The aim of mimesis is objective accuracy in artistic representations of reality through such methods as correct relationships between form and color. Mimetic art criticism, then, involves concious and unconcious judgements about the extent to which an artist can imitate the real world. Many artists work in a realistic or naturalistic mode, and a great many master artists adhered to mimetic conventions. Nevertheless, mimesis is often criticized as a mere skill or simple craftsmanship.

Formalist Art Criticism

Formalist art criticism sprung from modern art in the mid-nineteenth century. Critics Clive Bell, Monroe Beardsley, Robin Collingwood, Roger Fry, and Clement Greenberg all used a formalist approach to art criticism (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005; Wolff & Geahigan, 1997). Formalist art criticism takes a rational approach to art that disregards themes, illusions, and references to the outside world, focusing instead on pure form and on the compositional qualities

within a work. Formalists emphasize the form of a work and excellence in the expression of form by examining how objects look, what materials are used, and what skills and techniques the artist has demonstrated. Their principle approach might be characterized as art for art’s sake (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005). Feldman (1967) introduced the formalist model of art criticism for art education with a system that leads the critic through the stages of description, analysis, interpretation, and judgment (Prater, 2002; Barrett, 1988).

Contextualist Art Criticism

Contextualist art criticism encompasses at least four approaches to the interpretation and discipline of art: art-historical, ideological, psychoanalytical, and cultural criticism (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005). Contextualists stress the factors or forces responsible for a work’s particular shapes or special meanings, such as the impacts of the environment. Contextualists think of art as social communication that requires the understanding of a shared code within a specific cultural matrix (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005). One contextualist stance, pragmatist aesthetic theory, argues that no universal forms or meanings exist outside of the specific societies and cultures in which they are embedded.

Art Historical Criticism. Art historians like Stephen Addiss and Mary Erickson (1993) pioneered art historical criticism in education (Wolff & Geahigan, 1997). Art criticism by art historians is concerned with studying works of art as they exist or evolve within the tradition of art history. Art history concerns fall into five major categories: 1) attribution, 2) style, 3) iconography, 4) provenance and 5) function (Addiss & Erickson, 1993). Attribution refers to questions about where, when, why, and by whom an artwork was made. Style involves the distinguishing characteristics of a work of art that identify it as typical of an individual artist, culture, school, movement, or time period, with the recognition that artworks may be characteristic of particular personal, national, and/or period styles. Iconography concerns the study of subject matter, especially the symbolic meanings of people, places, events, and other visual representations in an artwork, as well as the conventions attached to those images. Art historical criticism might ask if symbols are present in an artwork, and what they mean. Questions about provenance refer to the history of the ownership of an artwork from the time of

its creation to the present, and those about function concern the original purpose of an artwork, including why it was created and how was it used. According to Anderson and Milbrandt (2005), “Art history is not written in stone” (p. 122). Like art making, art history is constructed and meanings change. Art historians and art critics investigate not only the great artworks of older cultures but also of contemporary society, in each case finding in the artists’ expressions information about cultures as well as human meanings and experiences. For Anderson and Milbrandt, art history and artistic inquiry overlap with and utilize aesthetics and art criticism. Art history is a tool to help historical art critics understand contemporary artworks and investigate the cultures of the world and their histories. Dewey (1934) asserted, “Historic judgment is not aesthetic judgment”(p. 317). As a pragmatist, Dewey was concerned that the categories employed for historical inquiry would be inconsistent with the criteria used for art criticism, making for a “confusion of values” (p. 317). Dewey was concerned with the frequent fallacy that the artist always deals with materials that already have established status, moral, philosophic, and historical values, "as if [the artwork] were a reediting of values already current in other fields of experience” (p. 318). The most valuable work, according to Dewey (1937), is that which emerges from and reflects the circumstances and context of its making. In this inquiry, I approached the artworks under study from this perspective.

Ideological (Socio-Political) Criticism. Wolff and Geahigan (1997) have noted that, in general, all criticism is ideological since it favors certain ideas and values. The most prevalent ideological criticism, however, is twentieth-century Marxist criticism. Political or sociopolitical in nature, ideological criticism principally concerns social relations based on class, race, and gender. Ideological criticism may reflect the viewpoint of a national government, such as that which existed in the former Soviet Union or Maoist China, or it may reflect various social and political interests within a democratic society, such as feminist, multiculturalist, sexual, or religious interests. The fundamental premise of the ideological approach is that artworks cannot be politically neutral. Because ideological critics believe that even nonrepresentational artwork reflects social attitudes, they would argue that works of art have the capacity to affect the beliefs of people. In this regard, ideological or sociopolitical criticism is dissimilar from formalist art criticism (Wolff & Geahigan, 1997).

Expressionist and Psychoanalytical Criticism. Expressionist criticism finds excellence in the degree of a work’s emotional power, usually through exaggeration of form and color and the animated, dynamic treatment of forms (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005; Feldman, 1967). Expressionist theories tend to focus on the psychological and the realm of inner experience, much like psychoanalytical criticism. Classic psychoanalytical critics include Freud and Lacan (Wolff & Geahigan, 1997). This critical approach looks at the unconscious psychological motives of artists and the hidden symbolic import of their artworks. Dewey (1937) described psychoanalytic criticism as the process of explaining or interpreting works of art on the basis of factors that are incidentally inside them. Dewey cautioned, however, that psychoanalytical criticism may be more relevant to the artist’s biography and life history than to the artwork itself. Interpretation may result in an overworked imagination that stretches theory too far, treating the artwork as a secondary source that simply comes about as the result of inner processes. Ultimately, the artwork itself should be the evidence that determines the credibility of an interpretation.

Cross-Cultural Criticism. Cross-cultural criticism is a form of contextualist criticism that is particularly significant for the global and multicultural era in which we live (R. Anderson, 2004; T. Anderson, 1995; Garber, 1995; hooks, 1998). R. Anderson (2004) has observed that artworks can inspire an emotional reaction and cultivate significant cultural understandings. With globalization, cultural items often move from one place to another and artwork is perceived or interpreted in in places and by cultures that may differ significantly from those of the original artwork. Artworks, then, are reinterpreted and modified in light of the destination culture. According to hooks (1998), nomadism is characteristic of the postmodern era, such that human experience increasingly originates across class, culture, race, sex, and nationality. Fixed identities and boundaries lose their meaning, as everything is in flux. hooks (1998) has argued that critics should think critically about their personal identities in relation to their political circumstances. Cross-cultural art criticism, with its "border-crossing awareness," is relevant to hooks' ideas, because it can help people to have a deeper understanding of the influences of their own and others' cultures and world-views (Alperson, 2002). T. Anderson (1995) has provided an educational model for cross-cultural art criticism from the perspective of anthropology. His assumption is that different minds and different hearts

create different meanings from the same physical perception; therefore, multiple types of meaning exist, varying from group to group and culture to culture. Artists in a culture and a society express themselves in certain ways due, at least in part, to the particular value structures of that culture. The forms, functions, social position, context, history, technical means, level of skill, and beauty or appeal of artworks all reflect meaning. T. Anderson has argued that, from an anthropological perspective, “Art is a socially functional product and should be understood not only for what it is, but for, more fundamentally, what it does in a social context” (p. 200). In addition, “Modes of existence and expression can be judged for quality based on whether they make sense in their own context” (p. 202). According to Anderson, Western formalist art criticism based on a Eurocentric value system cannot be applied to peripheral cultural and functional non-Western artworks. Cross-cultural art critics, then, look for the artist's culture of origin through the artworks. Garber (1995) has noted that in multicultural North America, cross-cultural art criticism and curricula help individuals to understand the varieties and subtleties of the cross-cultural experience: To understand that there is no single ideal, no one model of being a U.S. American, no single model of the cultural U.S. is a first step in meeting another culture. With the first border let down, a second step is to begin to embrace not only the symbols of a culture, but its traditions and values. We reach out to a culture other than our own, and we assimilate it – over time. (p. 229) Artworks emerge from the life experiences of the artist, but one must recognize the possibility that great art expresses and entrenches a shared worldview of the human condition and intercultural respect (T. Anderson, 1995; Garber, 1995). The cross-cultural art criticism employed in this study is based on the belief that “no one culture can provide all the important insights on what it means to be human” (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005, p. 122). In this study, Korean border-crossing artists were examined for the insights they could provide related to how they see themselves and the cultures they engage. The process by which these insights were examined is consistent with postmodern (Clifford, 1988; 1993) and pragmatist (Dewey, 1934) philosophy and multicultural and cross-cultural art education (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005; R. Anderson, 2004) in its use of deconstructing, reframing, and recontextualizing as strategies for understanding.

The Role of Experience and Judgment in Art Criticism

Art criticism is itself judgment (T. Anderson, 1995; Dewey, 1934) since it requires both sense and reason. For both art critics and students, approaching art criticism as experience requires affective immersion, knowledge of multiple traditions and practices, sensitivity, and moral engagement (T. Anderson, 1995; Dewey, 1934). In considering the role of art criticism in art education, I have outlined logical relationships between these practices. Art critics can interpret artworks in light of what they say about the meaning of life, based on the artists’ masterful execution of technical processes (Dewey, 1934). Rosenberg (1975) has stated that the art critic collaborates with the artist in developing the resource of human sensibility among audiences. Art critics make connections, embracing both the artist’s experience, and the perceived meanings and values exhibited by the work. An art critic’s basic function is to extend the artist’s activity into the realm of meaningful discourse (Dewey, 1934). Therefore, criticism itself becomes another form of art in itself. Art critics unify analysis and discrimination to make judgment (Dewey, 1934), distinguishing particular significant forms in the artwork with respect to their weight and function, and seeking to find unity in the objective form of the artwork and its context. Barnet (1997) has stated that writing about art is an attempt to help someone else perceive the work as the critic sees it. Dewey (1934) called the activity of art criticism "experience." Art criticism theory includes analysis, and the evidence of this analysis should be found in the art form itself (Dewey, 1934). The use of logic and analytical skills are essential to art criticism, because judgment requires a clear consciousness and the discovery of the whole synthesized picture in the connections. As Dewey asserted, “Analytic judgment is a test of the mind of the critic” (p. 310). Thus, learning about art criticism enhances students' ability to practice sensitivity and critical reasoning. An art critic looks at an artwork deeply, contemplates his or her personal experience, and then logically explains his experience and judgement to an audience. The criteria used in art criticism results from the endeavor to discover the work of art as an experience. According to Dewey (1934), “Stating what a work of art is as an experience may render particular experiences of particular works of art more pertinent to the object experienced, more aware of its own content and intent” (p. 309). Further, in order to achieve a rich and full experience of art, “affection” (Dewey, 1934, p. 310), or warm interest, should be

involved. An informed interest signifies acquaintance with the tradition of a particular art, therefore, acquaintance through practice becomes much more significant than just knowledge, because interest is derived from personal intimacy with the objects and spurs further inquiry. Panofsky (1955) distinguished art history from aesthetics, criticism, connoisseurship, and appreciation; he defined the connoisseur as “a laconic art historian” (p. 20) and the art historian as “a loquacious connoisseur” (p. 20). Barnet (1997) stated that the connoisseur’s specialty is a particular sensitivity to artistic traits and that the art historian possesses the knowledge of the connoisseur. Thus, while the art critic is concerned not with verifiable facts but with value judgments, the art historian explains how and why a genre of art in history came into being.

Art Criticism and the Tradition of Art History and Aesthetics

For the purposes of this study, it is useful to connect art history and aesthetics to the philosophy of art criticism. In the 1890s, Austrian art historian Alois Riegl (1858-1905) founded formal art analysis with the assumption that humans perceive art as a configuration of forms and colors apart from representational subject matter (Olin, 1992). Later, Riegl’s art history theory continued with the mid-twentieth-century formalist criticism of Clement Greenberg. Olin (1992) has explained how Riegl’s theory applied to abstract art: “Abstract art itself, its system, was born as an attempt to find meaning in empty form: not in the empty forms of art, but in the empty forms of the world of experience” (p. xix). Riegl believed that the role of art is to validate experience. He not only looked for the artistic forms in artworks, but also the wider cultural contexts and theoretical synthesis of ideas from such disciplines as economics, philosophy, and psychology. Riegl's theory of style has fascinated theorists of art historiography like Panofsky, Wind, Pächt, and Gombrich, expressionist art critics and theorists like Worringer and Bahr, and structuralist theorists from the 1960s and 1970s (Nodelman, 1970; Olin, 1992). As Clive Bell (1913), a humanist and a modernist, noted, “the personal experience of a peculiar emotion” (p. 8) is provoked by works of art. Bell (1913) found that the feature most characteristic of a work of art is its power to provoke aesthetic emotion, and that the expression of emotion is what likely gives an artwork that power. The critic’s primary purpose, then, is to find the “significant form” (p. 62) that evokes the particular emotions. The significance and value of a work of art depend on what the viewers and art critics bring to it. The art critic’s role

in this process is crucial. According to Bell, “A good work of visual art carries a person who is capable of appreciating it as a means to the emotions of life and reading into it the ideas of life” (p. 32). Therefore, art has a great deal to do both with life and with emotion. Bell goes on to insist, “The appreciating of art is certainly a means to ecstasy, and the creating probably the expression of an ecstatic state of mind. Art is a necessity to and a product of the spiritual life” (p. 76). As Bell said, “All art is moral” (p. 29). Like religion, art is fundamentally an expression of the individual’s sense of the emotional significance of the universe. Anderson and Milbrandt (2005) have stated that talking about images that express strong emotions or moral concerns provides the opportunity to develop meaningful ideas, reflective thinking, and moral reasoning. In order to approach art critically, Bell (1913) suggested that an artistic sensibility and a turn for clear thinking are prerequisites. In addition, Bell argued that art criticism should make an audience or reader feel something. To feel a work of art, one must see it, thus, art critics must enable an audience or reader to see and experience the work through their illustrative criticism. In this way, the art critic transforms aesthetic theory into aesthetic experience. All systems of aesthetics must be based on personal experience, that is, they must be subjective. As a classically modern non-contextualist, however, Bell argued that an art critic should be able to recognize significant form without any context. Conversely, Dewey (1934) was a contextualist and pragmatist who described art as “the extension of the power of rites and ceremonies” (p. 271) to unite people, through a shared celebration (forms of artwork), to all incidents and scenes of life. According to Dewey, “Art also renders men aware of their union with one another in origin and destiny” (p. 271). In this sense, Dewey shares Bell's humanistic perspective, since both see the moral component in art (Bell, 1913; Dewey, 1934). When looking at the aesthetic object, a critic's aesthetic experience interacts with his or her own sensitivity and knowledge, both of which are grounded in past experiences. According to Eisner (1998), in order to see and catch and appreciate the meaning and values of emotional life through forms of artwork, one needs accurate cultural sensitivity. To have the sensitivity needed to catch the significant meanings, forms, and connections implicit in a work of art, one needs a consciousness of the human condition and compassion for one's own life as well as others. This sensitivity might be called moral value (Bell, 1913; Dewey, 1934). Art criticism is a matter of taste (Bell, 1913; Dewey, 1934; Reigl, 1903). Olin (1992) said that even the aesthetic judgment of the art historian involves preferences and tastes. Self-

awareness is the key to proficient practice in art history and art criticism. The judgements of art historians and art critics will neither be bound by commonly accepted judgements nor their own preferences if they clearly recognize and acknowledge the influence of their own tastes and traditional judgements on their interpretations. Dewey stated (1934) that experience occurs continuously, through the interaction of living creatures and their environments in the very process of living. In Dewey's words: “Under conditions of resistance and conflict, aspects and elements of the self and the world that are implicated in this interaction qualify experience with emotions and ideas so that conscious intent emerges" (p.35). Through practice with the relationship between pattern and structure, experience has meaning. Thus, experiences are intellectual or practical and aesthetic together. Reigl’s historicism decreed that each culture possesses its own values, such that a phenomenon is best judged within its own historical context (Olin, 1992). Reigl characterized style associated with nationality and period, as well as individual style, as forms of life. In Dutch paintings, Reigl saw a national feeling and national psychology of form, and through Rembrandt, he attempted to establish the relations between the self and history (Wolfflin, 1950). Thus, Riegl’s historical method has some utility for facilitating understanding of unfamiliar art or gaining an appreciation for the individual within his or her societal and national contexts. Binstock (2004) discussed Reigl’s (1903) Kunstwollen (the will of art), describing artworks not only in terms of the message they mean to convey, but also in terms of the cultural and historical content in the formal or visual elements. For Reigl, like Dewey, the value of artwork is dynamic, culturally constructed, and subjective, because a work of art may vary from subject to subject and moment to moment. Therefore, absolute art-value does not exist. Depending on how an audience defines itself, for example, their perceptions of the same artwork might be quite different from the original intended meaning (Binstock, 2004; Ostrow, 2001). The idea that meanings and values can change based on individual perceptions is consistent with Derrida (1976) and Benjamin (1920, 1955, 1998), who argued that the viewer's comprehension of an artwork is "ruined" when the original meanings of artworks, as contained in their original historical or cultural contexts, no longer exist (Binstock, 2001; Mieszkowski, 2004). According to Mieszkowski, “The experience of the authenticity of the work of art is as much a factor of how the presence of the work is framed or situated as it is an immediate experience of that presence; it is in essence a social experience” (p. 40). In the postmodern age, then, how one

presents becomes as significant or more significant than what one presents. Therefore, the art critic’s role is essential for drawing attention to the larger context for an artwork (Benjamin, 1920; 1955; Binstock, 2004; Reigl, 1903). As Derrida (1976) noted, absolute meaning exists in “nothing outside of the text” (p. 158), thus, while the meaning of the work of art should be found in the work itself, this meaning is expanded by the political and social discourse that occurs over time (Binstock, 2004; Derrida, 1976; Reigl, 1903).

Art Criticism in Art Education

Art educators have argued that art criticism is a learned skill (Hamblen, 1986; Garber, 1990; S-Y Lee, 1993; T. Anderson, 1993; Vernable, 1998). Contemporary critical writings are a valuable resource for developing students’ understanding of the traditional process of describing, analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating works of art (S-Y. Lee, 1993; Prater, 2002; Venable, 1998). This study utilized T. Anderson’s (1988; 1993; 1997) model of educational art criticism, which involves the processes of: 1) reaction; 2) description (physical quality, formal analysis, contextual examination, formal characterization); 3) interpretation; and 4) evaluation. Anderson's method gives students tools by which to examine meanings and values in art as a means of making decisions and judgments. Through this critical inquiry, students construct their ideas and solve the problems in the larger socially constructed world (Anderson, 1991; 1998). Art educators have asserted that art and art education can change students’ lives (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005; Barrett, 2003; Efland, 2002; Freedman, 2003; Gardner, 1999). Through an experience with significant artworks, people can change their beliefs and behavior, so art achieves a social goal: the positive evolution of society (Forster, 1983; 1985; Keester, 1998; 2003). Art educators and art critics generally agree that feelings and emotions guide interpretation (Bell, 1913; Dewey, 1934; Eisner, 1998; T. Anderson, 1997), along with reasoning and critical thinking. Anderson and Milbrandt (2005), Garber (1995), and Barrett (2003) all agree that when critics and students interpret a work of art, they construct a version of that work for themselves in their own minds. Building understanding and appreciation of artworks means internalizing, through learning, a work's meanings and values, allowing one to create judgments. In experiencing a work of art, the critic experiences its insights about the human experience through its particular view of the world.

The work of both Barrett (2003) and T. Anderson (1997; Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005) exemplify contemporary discourse on art criticism in relation to art education. In order to take a cross-cultural approach to art criticism, however, I part from Barrett’s view and follow T. Anderson’s. The three reasons for this decision lie in each position's approach to art criticism, attitudes toward the art world and art institutions, and views of cross-cultural art objects, as well as worldviews. Anderson and Milbrandt (2005) and Garber (1995) have asserted that art criticism, and specifically a cross-cultural approach to art criticism and art education, can enhance one's understanding of self and others. Barrett (2003), on the other hand, has stressed the personal rewards of undertaking art criticism for one’s own enjoyment and pleasure. Thus, while Anderson and Milbrandt have focused on understanding others’ lives and the human condition, Barrett has tended to see art criticism primarily as pluralistic aesthetic interpretations among “the community of interpreters” (p. xvii). According to Barrett (2003), “To appreciate a work of art is to apprehend it with enjoyment. A sympathetic understanding of a work of art will usually result in a positive appreciation of the object as a work of art and as a contribution to knowledge and experience” (p. 87). Thus, “We get a glimpse of the world through the artist. This is often satisfaction enough” (p. xvii). Barrett’s rationale for art criticism, then, is more for personal knowledge and experience; it has less to do with others than with oneself. His focus is on appreciating the object, the work of art itself, rather than appreciating the larger context for the artwork. In discussing art, Barrett (2003) has asserted, “We enjoy it for what it is in itself, not for what it might be used for or for its economic value” (p. 88). He poses that an aesthetic apprehension of a natural or purposely- made thing is an apprehension of the thing for its own intrinsic merit. Barrett's slant differs from Anderson’s pragmatist point of view, which emphasizes that art critics should try to discover what art is for, seeking to understand it in the cultural context of the time and the place in which the artist created the artwork. The question of utility is answered, then, by illuminating the meanings and values of a work of art in life. While T. Anderson would argue that contextualism and essentialism (the latter as represented here by Barrett) need not be in conflict, his approach suggests that artworks are best considered first as social constructions and cultural products (Alexander, 2003; R. Anderson, 2004; Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005; Becker, 1982; Dewey, 1934).

Further, while Barrett’s view of the art world and institutions is rooted in an institutional perspective, Anderson’s view is set in pragmatism. Barrett (2003) has emphasized the general trust that exists in the art community and world, suggesting that the individuals involved are, generally, people of goodwill whose desire it is to make and show work that they sincerely believe is of interest and import. It is a trust that artists and museum curators and gallery owners are not out to dupe us and that they do not take us to be fools who can be duped. People in the art world who bring us art are generally sincere about their endeavors, no matter how esoteric they are or might seem to be. They devote their lives to their enterprise and they believe it to be worthy. (p. 88) Barrett has argued that the decisions and judgments of the art world and institutions should not be doubted, suggesting that the tastes of the art community, as manifested in art institutions, is a professional endeavor. However, from Anderson’s pragmatist point of view, meanings and values can change according to environment and circumstances. Discourses about cross-cultural artworks and artists’ identities cannot be discussed, for example, without taking into account the history of post-colonialism and socio-political systems. If one is to gain an understanding of the meanings implicit in the art of contemporary people, old or foreign art should be appreciated in context and comparison with contemporary artists from those cultures. Because the purpose of art criticism in authentic cross-cultural art education is to let students develop empathetic understanding, appreciation, and respect for people in different cultures, such exposure is essential. Exoticizing and differentiating approaches to art criticism may in fact cause more exoticizing of people from the other cultures. A cross-cultural approach in an art classroom can help students see that people from different backgrounds and with different traditions are humans like themselves (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005). Non-Western and non-European art that is to be used in the American art classroom should be very carefully chosen and presented, with consideration of the students’ maturity and attitudes. Even Barrett (2003) has noted that an exclusive emphasis on Western art in art education means that, we lose the opportunity to gain knowledge and appreciation of a culture different from our own, and we remain ignorant of beliefs that are different from our own. Instead of

expanding through knowledge of others, we contract into what is familiar and comfortable. (p. 138) Barrett (2003) has suggested that a cross-cultural approach to art education should serve as a “tour guide” that ideally, "would allow, invite, and encourage us to try on the beliefs of the building’s original inhabitants so that we could experience a worldview other than our own” (p. 138). In this multicultural, multinational, multiethnic nation of the United States, the cross- cultural and multicultural discourses cannot be valued as just a tour guide, however. In this global world, we meet others with differences everywhere; we interact with them in intimate ways in our daily lives (T. Anderson, 1990; 2002). One underlying purpose of across-cultural approach to art criticism and education is now, as Anderson stated, to increase our ability to survive in this society and world. While Barrett’s (2003) primary reason for interpretation is “the enjoyment of reading interpretations by a variety of literate people about works of art” (p. 162), he also has encouraged "a curiosity about what the artist has shown in his work” (p. 163). In asserting that “art provides insights, information, and knowledge only if we interpret works of art” (p. 199), however, Barrett has failed to address a subtle problem. If interpretation requires curiosity and enjoyment, when someone is not interested in works of art from European or old or even foreign sources, the interpretation never takes place and the artworks never get appreciated or interpreted. Art criticism in art education takes place in a world where many groups and communities interact and overlap. In order to understand contemporary Korean border-crossing art in the international art world and specifically in the context of the multicultural United States, for example, it is vital to have exposure to a cross-cultural critical approach in art education as a necessary curriculum component. Because Barrett’s critical perspective does not fully include a cross-cultural or multicultural curriculum for art education, ancient or non-Western art may well be excluded from discussion. This exclusion may inadvertently reinforce the very dangerous idea that others who are different from us in terms of background, culture, history, language, race, ethnicity, and gender might be unworthy of appreciation. When Barrett (2003) discussed “old and foreign art” (p. 111), for example, he used European classical art and Indian architecture as examples. The Italian artists of the Renaissance, Giovanni Bellini and Titian, a seventeenth-century Dutch artist, Vermeer, and the Indian temple Dharna Vihara in Ranakpur are not the best examples of art

made “far away”— historically and geographically distant from the present day United States (Cahan & Kocur, 1994). Determining the nature and value of a work of art requires an extensive examination of context that includes the artist’s intentions, circumstances, themes, media, and so on. Participating in such an examination enables one to know the larger physical and social circumstances surrounding the creation of the work and what place the artwork has in the structure of social values, mores, and institutions. In short, if the purpose is to understand art for life’s sake, art critics should consider what art is for.

II. Identity Construction

Self Identity

A self can never be described without reference to other selves who surround it (Bhabha, 1994; 1995; Benson, 2001; C. Taylor, 1989; Henderson, 2002). One's sense of who one is is tied to where one is, since one's identity emerges from the family tree, social space, geography of social statuses and functions, intimate relations to loved ones, and moral and spiritual orientations that characterized one's upbringing. I speak, for example, from moral positions that emerge from my identity, which is defined by what I am committed to and responsible for. Therefore, one's self and modern identity can shape one's view of the moral predicaments of our time (Benson, 2001; Taylor, 1989). This moral awareness is related to self-responsibility as a social ideal and part of one’s identity. Personal identity is about what it is like to be uniquely me as I am for myself, while social identity is about what sort of person I am: my social class, position in the family, job, attitudes, relative level of self-esteem and so on (Benson, 2001). The way in which one identifies and locates self (Who, what am I?) is closely related to how one is identified and located in the larger community (Who, what, is she or he?). The members of a community reflect, sustain, and illuminate each other. Benson (2001) called this “empathy" (imaginatively understanding how the world is from the other person’s point of view) and “sympathy" (feeling what it is like to be the victim in those circumstances so that one would wish that they did not feel like that and, consequently, that we in our paler sympathetic way did not feel as we do either) (p. 152). Benson (2001) argued that an individual has “a universal empathic-sympathetic ability” (p. 152). The concept of others is a part of one's own identity in

that one cannot think of oneself except in relation to the other. This is why the other is inescapably a constituent part of "I" (Benson, 2001). To understand how people find their place in their worlds we must understand how they imagine it, and themselves as part of it. This requires that we understand the ideas that constitute narratives of self and group (Benson, 2001). Zachary (2003) found that in the past, as well as the modern age, nations or ethnic groups provided the main form of collective identification, and national and ethnic affiliation were the main sources of identity. Family often served as a model of the nation, and self- identification helped construct ethnic and national identities (Gilbert, 2000; Zachary, 2003). But this means of constructing identity is rapidly changing. With the global spread of technology, trade, mobility, and culture revolutionizing the construction of individual identity, nations and ethnic groups no longer impose a common identity on all their people. Now identity depends more on individual experience with other circumstances and people. Individuals no longer receive their identities; they take their identities and remake them according to their own perceptions. Identity arises out of intimate family and gender experiences, and work and play in religious communities (Zachary, 2003), but it also emerges from the diverse experiences of individuals who rely not only on their own kind but also on their knowledge of the wider world, their tastes and inclinations, and their belief in what works for them. Thus, as Zachary (2003) has noted, “Identity is highly personal” (p. 47). Similarly, Dewey (1966) stated that, “The self is not something ready-made but something in continuous formation through choice of action” (p. 351). Furthermore, such self-determination extends to global and local, social and personal, and self and others in individual relationships (Delanoi, 2004). The real issue is how well a person handles his or her various ties – how he or she juggles it all (C. Taylor, 1989). Therefore, people who were born in one nation such as Korea may have many different identities. Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler, and Tipton (1985) found that the meaning of one’s life for most Americans involves coming to dependon oneself, even though the family is central to most American's concerns with “habits of the heart” (p. 85). Bellah et al. (1985) stated that, “The individual must find and assert his or her true self because this self is the only source of genuine relationship to other people. Only by knowing and ultimately accepting one’s self can one enter into valid relationships with other people” (p. 98). In U.S. society, one is encouraged to

cut free from the past, to define one's own self, to choose thosegroups and traditions and communities with which one wishes to identify.

National and Cultural Identity

Nations are imagined historical and cultural communities (B. Anderson, 1997; Gellner, 1997; Kymlicka, 1995; Seelye & Wasilewski, 1996; Mortimer, 1999; Norman, 2004; Olivier, 1999; Stalin, 1994,). Hannerz (1996) insisted that nations as a community engage in a common intelligibility and develop a sense of we-ness. Delannoi (2004) wrote that the nation is a historical and cultural entity from generation to generation. Others have noted that a nation is formed on the basis of a common language, territory, homeland, economic life, cohesion and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture (A. Smith, 2001; Dieckoff, 2004b; Hannerz, 1996; Hutchinson & Smith, 1994; Kymlicka, 1995). Gellner (1997) found that through common shared characteristics between members, a nation becomes the subject of private faith, public worship, and national sentiment (Delannoi, 2004; Gellner, 1997; King, 2005). Thus, a nation may be seen as a culture (B. Anderson, 1997). Artist Gómez-Peña (1991) in interview defined three kinds of cultural identity: 1) that associated with government and specific political agendas; 2) the traditions and memories of specific groups within a society; 3) the hybrid and transitional hyphenated identities within a culture (Wei, Berger, Werneburg, & Baker, 1991). As a combination of common values and memories, culture encompasses the notion of an organic relationship between a population, a territory, a unit of political organization, and an organized package of meanings and meaningful forms (Hannerz, 1996; Hermet, 2004). Culture refers to learned, adapted symbolic behavior, based on a full-fledged language, associated with technical inventiveness, and a complex of skills that in turn depends on a capacity to organize exchange relationships between communities (Hermet, 2004; Worsley, 1999). Therefore, culture is the way of life of a particular population, whether a community, tribe, nation, religious group, or continent (Gellner, 1997; Hannerz, 1996; King, 2005). National identity is the intended and unintended product of intellectual, political, and cultural activity in a nation, constituted of the assumptions, myths, values, memories, language, law, institutions, ceremonies, ideologies, and images prevailing in an individual’s perceptions

and actions (Canclini, 1994, Hannerz, 1996; Norman, 2004). National identity may be represented in various ways, through cultural forms such as literature, visual arts, art exhibitions, film, visual images from television, music, and museum collections. Above all, art and visual culture remain at the center of national imaginary scenarios of dedication, communicating signs of regional identities and the nation as a whole. A large amount of actual modernist artistic production is made as an expression of national traditions and circulates only within its country of origin (Canclini, 1994). Perekh (1999) believed that national identity is a matter of moral and emotional identification with a particular community based on a shared loyalty to its constitutive principles and participation in its collective self-understanding. National identity creates a sense of common belonging, provides a basis for collective identification, fosters common loyalties, and gives the members of the community the confidence to live with and even delight in their disagreements and cultural differences. The sense of belonging to a nation depends on the recognition of other nations. These nations also contribute to the recognition of individuals by other individuals, within nations and by foreigners (Delannoi, 2004; Perekh, 1999).

Border-Crossing Identity

The population movements of immigrants, tourists, refugees, exiles, foreign workers, and informed mass media change specific national cultures and their representations. The flow of technologies, the exchanges of multinational financiers, and the images and information distributed throughout mass media and the Internet are all processes of an economic and symbolic transnationalization that changes the specific national cultures and their representations (M. Berger, 1998; Roe, 1995;). In this age, one is frequently called upon to understand the world of other, unfamiliar cultures, making for a new kind of assessment. Thus, a border or cultural crossing approach has become increasingly necessary in societies and nations. Mexican-born American artist Gómez-Peña (1986, 1994) creates artworks that deal with the subject of border-crossing identity and hybridity (Garber, 1995; Lopez, 2003). Gómez-Peña (1986; 1994) has asserted that an individual is not the product of just one culture, but has multiple identities. Gómez-Peña stated that the border is a place where other cultures and countries meet and comprehended others and the we-ness that needs to be understood within a

range of demographic, economic, and cultural facts. The cultural, political, aesthetic, and sexual hybridity that characterizes Gómez-Peña's art is crossracial, polylinguistic, and multicontextual; it is work that deconstructs hierarchical differences. What Gómez-Peña (1994) has advocated is respect for diverse artworks, and teaching about each other’s differences in an effort to understand the other’s extraordinary racial and cultural topographies in contemporary America. Giroux (1995) has argued that transformative cultural politics create the spaces where borderline artists and cultural workers function as border intellectuals. According to Giroux (1995), the people who cross cultures and nations are potentially “border intellectuals” (p. 5), “cultural workers,” “public intellectuals” (p. 13), or “universal intellectuals” (p. 11), because they are critical citizens who may inform one’s identity, struggle, and relationship to the world and show how multiple constructions of agency are figured within new forms of self- representation and collective struggle. Giroux (2005) stated that a border-crosser should engage with the intellectual discourse of collective knowledge and act in the interests of public community, moral accountability, solidarity, and democratic struggle for the invention and reconstruction of the society. Further, Gómez-Peña (1994) has asserted that the artist who understands hybrid cultures develops both the ideas of an insider and an outsider, as a citizen of multiple communities and an expert in border crossing. These border-crossing people may be more globally-minded intellectuals who can speak from more than one perspective, to more than one community, and about more than one reality. Garber (1995) stated that the border-crossing person’s jobs are “to trespass, bridge, interconnect, translate, remap, and redefine” (p. 217). Giroux (1995), Gómez- Peña (1994) and Garber (1995) found that border-crossing artists develop a collective vision in which traditional binary of margin versus center, unity versus difference, local versus global, public versus private are reconstituted through more complex representations of identification, belonging, and community. Canclini (1994) has stated, “Identities are constituted now not only in relation to unique territories, but in the multicultural intersection of objects, messages and people coming from diverse directions” (p. 503). Lippard (1990) noted that boundaries are not only of racial and national origins, but also of gender and class, of value and belief systems, of religion and politics. Thus, changing borderlands and boundaries is a continuous process, not a new phenomenon. The notion of diaspora, then, covers almost any ethnic or religious minority or members dispersed

physically from their original homeland, regardless of the conditions leading to the dispersion, and regardless of whether, and to what extent, physical, cultural, or emotional links exist between the community and the home country (Safran, 2004).

III. Identity Construction in/through Art

Since artists and artworks are inevitably evaluated by the systems of the art world, this section provides an examination of the contemporary artwork and the historical, cultural, and ideological factors contributing to its development. Dunning (1998) found that the Western art world has always had a single center. In the early Renaissance the center was Florence, then Rome in later years, and then Paris for several centuries after that. Since early World War II, with the development of an American avant-garde, the undisputed center of the art world changed from Paris to New York (Gilbert, 1983). But what is the art world? According to Becker (1982), the “art world” includes art communities and institutions. An art community is comprised of artists, audience, art historians, critics, curators, art educators, art teachers, journalists, publishers, patrons, commissioners, exhibition designers, and technicians. Institutions include museums, galleries, international biennial exhibitions, the departments of arts and culture in various nations, auctions, and the owners and directors of these places and events (Alexander, 2003; Becker, 1982). From a sociological perspective, Becker (1982) has argued that all artistic work involves the collaborative activity of a large number of people, and that the existence of art worlds affects both the production and consumption of art works. Becker (1982) also found that an art world can change gradually or quite dramatically, that is, it can be born, grow, change, and die.

The Nature of the Art World

The Binary System of Art and Culture in the Western Art World

The exhibition of art is subject to the systems of power regulating cultural production. Clifford (1993) is known for his description of the “art and culture system” (p. 57) in the art world. He discussed how non-European and non-Western artists’ works are presented (especially in the United States) based on the needs of the art institution, so that museums, international

exhibitions, and art markets get to decide what is presented. Predominant Western connoisseurs and collectors define the artworks of other cultures as "important" according to their own political agendas, economic positions, and social contexts, and often assign national identities to the works. Because definitions and categorizations are subject to political motivations, what is privileged or considered beautiful or interesting is often subject to change. Based on Greimas’s (1979) semiotic square (a "map" that provides a basic structure for the content of any symbolic content) and Jameson’s (1991) writings on cultural criticism and ideological consciousness, Clifford (1993) created a map of the art-cultural system, illustrating the relationship between historical meanings and institutions (Figure 1). According to Clifford (1993), most artworks or objects – old and new, rare and common, familiar and exotic -- can be located either between or within one of four zones: 1) the zone of authentic masterpieces, 2) the zone of authentic artifacts, 3) the zone of inauthentic masterpieces, and 4) the zone of inauthentic artifacts. Contemporary artworks in the international mega-art exhibitions are located in zone 1. Here the cultural or historical value of artworks may be promoted to the status of fine art as the system classifies objects, assigns them relative values, and establishes the contexts in which the art works or artifacts will circulate. In zone 2, the art institution places value on the work of art based not simply on the artistic evaluation of the individual artist but also on his or her home culture.

(authentic)

1 2 connoisseurship history and folklore the the art museum ethnographic museum the art market material culture, craft

art culture

original, singular traditional, collective

(masterpiece) (artifact)

not-culture not-art

new, uncommon reproduced, commercial

3 4 fakes, inventions tourist art, commodities the museum of technology the curio collection ready-mades and anti-art utilities

(inauthentic)

Figure 1. Clifford, J. (1993, p. 57). Art and Culture System.

Clifford (1988) found that Western concepts of culture and art can no longer be simply extended to non-Western artists and artwork. The interpretation and evaluation imposed on an artwork, both historically and politically, changes continuously. Clifford surmised that the structural and historical frameworks of the art-culture system have been crucial to the formation of “Western subjectivity” (p. 49). This binary framework is inherently flawed, he has argued. Such categorization privileges Western art over non-Western because the system of evaluation was itself created by the West or Europe. Further, the Western system of evaluation has been

influenced by the very political, economic, and social conditions and institutions that gave birth to it. According to Clifford (1988), all cultures and identities reconcile in the process of transformation, redefinition, and re-contextualization in the postmodern age. Therefore, this framework is no longer adequate for use in the impartial evaluation of contemporary art world processes. Clifford’s (1993) map of the art/culture system suggests that art communities, including art critics, should approach contemporary non-Western artists as equals of contemporary Western artists. At the same time, the artistic forms of and statements about such artists should be presented and examined as both contemporary artwork and as a representation of their unique cultural sociology in light of aesthetics, historical, and political agendas.

The Capitalistic Political Art World

The identity of the artist and attendant cultural associations are the essential subject matter in this study of the works of border-crossing artists, which directly concerns the formation of identity among three Korean-born artists in a highly international setting. Bourdieu (1990) called the field of art “the site of struggles” (p. 142), because it demands “power relationships…[which] are imposed on all the agents entering the field and…weigh with a particular brutality on the new entrants” (p. 141). Artistic fields of endeavor are inherently political, involving power relationships, strategies, and interests that all relate directly to value. Bourdieu (1990) asserted that artists and writers as intellectuals are subject to the same system, and as cultural producers they should hold political and economic power in the prevailing cultural capital. In a related vein, Jameson (1984) characterized current postmodernity as the cultural product of a social life defined by spectacle and the mass media, and of an economic order determined by the consumer market and multinational capitalism. Capital refers to currency or objects of value; in the art world, art is assigned value (or made legitimate) in ways that are politically and culturally motivated (Bauman, 1999). This practice of legitimizing based on the extent to which a work has capital is the "rule of the game" in the art world (Bauman, 1999). Legitimizing is a way to ensure that the gatekeepers who control the process of legitimization retain power over the capital held by all the other producers (artists). When artists and consumers are culturally, geographically, or temporally far apart, the mediating agents (the aforementioned

gatekeepers) assume greater importance, since it is those agents who control the important flow of information about an object’s origin, age, meaning, and producer. In the art world, the gatekeepers are art critics and historians, museum curators, and commissioners for international mega exhibitions. The powers implicit in capital, knowledge, and information are used to enforce the "rules of the game" such that people who are not members of the global elite stand little chance of joining it (Graburn, 1999; Bauman, 1999). Therefore, in the art world, art and politics are inseparable. According to Bourdieu (1990), because art professionals can influence art as well as capital through their influence in the political world, the members of the art world must be aware of the climates of both the art world and the political world.

The Mega International Art Exhibitions

Between the late 1980s and the early 1990s, the American art world of the postmodern age (centered in New York City) became an increasingly hybrid, transnational, and deterritorialized environment (Canclini, 1994; Kim, et al., 2003). In 2005, artworks of deterritorialized forms circulate throughout world exhibitions and artists are encouraged to adapt to different "global" publics, because competitive and cultural venues have now opened up new frontiers for artists. International art exhibitions take the blockbuster artists who represent the each country’s art and culture, so that the newest venue is a global art market that allows an audience to see the art and cultures of the world. This global art market has a universal theme that often declassifies national artists or subordinates local connotations of the work in such a way that the market converts the nationality of an artist into secondary folkloric references of a larger international and homogenized discourse (Canclini, 1994). Canclini found that international mega-exhibitions subsume the particularities of each country under conceptual transnational networks. International art exhibitions such as biennials – where border-crossing artists participate – exist all around the world, representing different national art and cultures. In referring to the Bienal de São Paulo, Schwabsky (2004) stated, “Like Venice, this biennial combines a curated exhibition with a series of ‘national representations’ outside the curator’s control” (p.190). Vine (2005) wrote about the Shanghai Biennial Art Exhibition: “Some 118 artists, 39 of them non-Chinese, were represented in this installment on a budget of $1.3 million, garnered from local, regional, and national government sources as well as

about 50 corporations and arts-sponsorship organizations” (p. 104). According to Napack (2002), he Korean Gwangju Biennale attempted to accommodate nationalistic aspirations to greatness and equal status with the West, such that the purpose of the exhibition was to raise the status of Korean art in the international art community as a means of augmenting “Korea’s burgeoning nationalism” (p.96). Canclini (1994) noted that art fairs and biennials contribute to the multicultural game. For example, the Venice Biennale includes many countries, each of which has its own pavilion. In this sense, in international art exhibitions, nationality and national representations are inevitably connected and categorized. Now, artists presenting at international art exhibitions are exposed to international fame and global recognition. In these international venues, national identity greatly influences the perceptions of the artworks. A related, fundamental issue here is the democratization of art in the United States (Efland, Freedman, & Stuhr, 1996; Kim, Machida, & Mizota, 2003). Such democratization means that the identity of a multicultural artist goes beyond simple labeling of the artist as multicultural to equalization with Western/European artists (Ballengee-Morris & Stuhr, 2001; Desai, 2005). C. Becker (1999) found that border-crossing artists have become global intellects, since through the process of becoming educated, they inadvertently become multinational and postnational, and ultimately do very well in the global art world. Such border-crossing artists are, in Becker's words, “living on the boundaries of culture, versed in several languages and discourses, constructing and deconstructing their identities at every turn” (p. 27). Becker has written that these intellectual border-crossing artists are “the future of the art world” (p. 27), observing, “Restless, they take the best from each location and move on. Not unlike the artworld” (p. 29). Becker also examined the ways in which international art exhibitions position themselves in relation to particular geographic and historical contexts, suggesting that international art exhibitions such as Biennnales should make their context unique to a specific region and nation. Increasingly, the discourses in the art world are between local and global, between the politics of individual identity and the dominant culture. Many scholars have noted that for true equality within the international art world, exhibition of multicultural artists’ work should be about individual self-identities instead of broad-range categorizations based on ethnicity or culture (Kim, Machida, & Mizota, 2003; McEvilley, 1992).

Transnationational and Multicultural Issues

Marginalized Groups in the New York Art World

I chose New York City as the location for my study because it is currently the center of the international art world and a logical place for me to address my interest in border-crossing by artists and the social construction of identity through art. Because the artists I studied are South Korean nationals who live and work in New York City, it was appropriate to examine how non- Western or minority artists related to the New York art structure and the larger museum system. In New York and elsewhere, museums may be one of America’s most racially biased cultural institutions (M. Berger, 1990; Wilson, 1988). Historically, artists of color or minorities have been unable to gain access to American museums (M. Berger, 1990; Pindell, 1989). Pindell examined exhibition records from 1970 to 1980 from the famous contemporary art museums in New York City (the Brooklyn Museum, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Queens Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art) and found that with very few exceptions, artists of color faced an industry-wide restraint of trade that limited their ability to show and sell their work. Artist PESTS, a group of New York-based African, Asian, Latino, and Native American artists, arrived at similar conclusions, publishing a roster of sixty-two top New York galleries whose stables were all or almost all white (M. Berger, 1990). According to the Guerrilla Girls, an anonymous group of women working to bring more recognition and respect to female artists, female artists have been almost as poorly represented in the American art world as artists of color. In 1985, An International Survey of Painting and Sculpture exhibition included only 13 white women among 169 artists (Kim, Machida & Mizota, 2003). The racial divide does not stop at exhibitions, in that those who control cultural institutions are also biased. In early research, Pindell (1989) noted that the boards of art museums, publishers of art magazines and books, and owners of galleries rarely hire people of color in policy-making positions, so that the interpretation of artworks is usually given to European-descended people, causing inadequate background knowledge for discussion of works from artists of color. One example is the 1993 Biennial of the Whitney Museum of American Art (Kim, Machida & Mizota, 2003). For more than two decades prior to the Biennial, the Whitney had been receiving criticism from cultural activists in African-American and other communities

of color for practicing racial apartheid in their exhibition practices. Still, the 1993 multicultural exhibit failed in two ways. For one, the curators didn’t represent the value and meaning of the works in their cultural context. The other was the response of the mostly white, Western artistic community, which criticized the artworks for their poor aesthetic quality. This criticism was taken by the African-American art community to be emblematic of the art world’s racism. At the same time, Kim, Machida, and Mizota, (2003) have found that on an individual level, marginalized artists, including Asian-American artists in the United Sates, are bothered at having their work reduced to manifestations of their ethnicity or symptoms of their audience’s ambivalence about it. Many Asian-American artists felt singled out for their racial identity rather than for their creative ability. Further, they felt they were considered either an art-market liability or an art-market curiosity because of their ethnicity. As artist Adrien Piper (1996) noted, “Colored artists want their ethnicity, but without the stigma attached to their ethnicity - just as whites have theirs” (p.145). These histories and incidents raise questions about white predominance in the art world and demonstrate some of the existing situations and political struggles that minority and non- Western artists face in the U.S. art world. In order to more clearly view the works of artists from different cultures and backgrounds, critics should examine contextual information carefully in order to approach an artwork holistically.

Border -Crossing Artists

Some artists successfully cross the borders between cultures. This section concerns the ways in which border-crossing artists express their identities through their artworks. One example is Mexican performance artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña, who came to the United States from Mexico City, after his study of linguistics and career as a student activist at the Autonomous National University of Mexico (Hicks, 1998). Gómez-Peña entered Cal Arts in 1979, and two years later cofounded, with Sara Jo Berman, the Poyesis Genetica troupe in order to explore artistic and political contradictions between the United States and Mexico (Hicks, 1998). Gómez-Peña (1994) creates artworks through a bi-national dialogue involving collaboration with people from both Mexico and the United States. He tries to utilize different formats in order to reach different audiences dealing with cross-cultural issues, border culture,

and immigration (Hicks, 1998; Lopez, 2003). Lopez (2003) studied what Gómez-Peña’s performance says about identity construction among Mexican-Americans and attempted to find a better understanding of diversity for both cultures and peoples in light of the boundaries of race and class. Gómez-Peña’s art is significant in that the artist himself is an “intercultural interpreter” (Lopez, 2003, p. 23) who represents a microcosm of U. S. and Latin American relations (Hicks, 1998). Canclini (1994) used the artworks of Gullermo Kuitca and Alfredo Jaar as examples of the concepts of territory and deterritorialization. Kuitca, an Argentinian born artist, painted maps of Latin America and Europe on bed mattresses (Figure 2). He reconfigured the tensions of many exiles -- such as those who come from Europe to America -- from one America to other, again from America to Europe, and so on. The map mattress is ghost-like and the bed is root-like, so that the bedmaps refer to the migrating person who looks for roots at the same time he or she is migrating (Canclini, 1994).

Figure 2. Guillermo Kuitca. (1992). Untitled. Oil on mattress. 76 3/4 x 76 3/4 x 45/16in.

Alfredo Jaar, a Chilean born artist, made a Chilean passport that included the terms “Opening New Doors” in seven languages. The passport is a metaphor for the immigrant’s place, one that is not within any particular culture, but in the intersections between them, in transit. Jaar creates artwork that deals with nationalities and the national problems that exist in such places as Rwanda or Latin America. He created a series of artworks concerning national issues in Rwanda (Figure 3) and “A Logo for America” on a New York signboard at Times Square (Figure 4). . His artworks intend to awaken the viewer to Eurocentric priviledge and evoke sympathetic humanistic discourse. Like identity, the passort art and the mattress maps function in multiple contexts and permit divergent readings as a result of their inherent hybridity (Canclini, 1994).

Figure 3. Alfredo Jaar. (1996). Embrace. Video/Film. One quadvision lightbox with four color transparencies. 26.2 x 23.2 x 6.1 in

Figure 4. Alfredo Jaar. (1987). A Logo for America. Time Square. New York City.

Figure 5. Sung Ho Choi. (1988-1992). American Dream. Acrylic, newspaper, wood, glass jars, suitcase, 86 x 48 x 27 in. Courtesy of the artist.

Korean born American immigrant, Sung Ho Choi (1988-1992) reflects his experience as a border-crossing artist with an installation entitled American Dream (Figure 5). This piece was made of newspapers, kimchi (spicy Korean pickled cabbage) jars, and a large suitcase. The suitcase lies open under a target painted with the colors of the American flag. Korean-language newspapers are pasted on the target, and they are all filled with stories of Korean immigrants’ struggles in America. Kim writes that the suitcase is meant to symbolize Korean immigrants who arrive at this rich and orderly culture, having left their memories of the past at the door (S. N. Kim, 2003). Canclini (1994) found that in considering border-crossing artists it is important to include those who work with issues of globalization and multiculturalism. Because museums, galleries, and critics may prefer to marginalize such artists as representatives of exotic cultures and ethnic difference, in terms of their artistic production, it may be more useful for border-crossing artists to seek recognition of their differences than to demand equality. Argentinean artist Sebastián López (1992) addressed the problem of the foreign artist. According to Lopez, while the European artist is allowed to investigate other cultures and enrich his or her own work and perspective, the artist from another culture is always expected to make works in the background, exclusively using the artistic traditions connected to his or her place of origin. If the foreign artist does not conform to this separation, he is considered inauthentic, westernized, and an imitator- copyist of Western art. Such assumptions demonstrate the well-established tendency to see the universal as European and Western, and the local as non-Western.

Figure 6. Coco Fusco and Guillermo Gomez-Peña. (1992). Two Undiscovered Amerindians. Performance in a cage.

In 1992, artists Coco-Fusco and Gómez-Peña created an installation and performance piece to elaborate on the exoticizing culture of the West through interaction with the audience. Entitled Two Undiscovered Amerindians (Figure 6), the piece involved the artists dressing themselves as Amerindians from an island in the Gulf of Mexico and putting themselves in a cage. In the cage, the artists brought together traditional tasks and contemporary culture through such actions as sawing voodoo dolls, watching TV, and working on a laptop computer. Fusco danced and Gómez-Peña told authentic Amerindian stories with nonsensical language and sounds. "Zoo guards" explained the “primitives” to the audience and took the artists to the bathroom. In the piece, the performers observed the observers, intending to sensitize people to the distancing and objectification that ultimately allows people to commit genocide against others, to enslave them, and seize their lands. Theis ethnographic piece reflected the impact of the history of colonization by dominant nations (T. Anderson, 2003). Bhabha (2003) stated that when critics deal with post-colonial artists or artists whose work represents cultural difference, they often do so by looking at the content or style of the

work, its figurative references, its mimetic demeanor, and its style. When Western audiences have specific expectations of a work because they see it as being non-Western, they are immediately exoticizing it. Bhabha described the attitude of marginalized artists: Supposing we don’t want an exoticism, we don’t want an orientalism, and we don’t want all these referential questions that the artist has gotten. If we don’t want that, what kind of intercultural knowledge is necessary? Where must I stand to be able to actually pick up the great premeditated subtleties of the work that are manifest? Must I be a cosmopolitan? Must I be a nationalist? What must I be as a citizen spectator? (p.147-148) Oguibe (1999) examined the works of Nigerian artists in the contemporary art world and concluded that artists from different cultures and ethnicities do not perceive themselves as cultural ambassadors but claim their experiences in their relocated societies as anyone else would, rejecting the burdens of ancestry and ethnicity. Border-crossing artists suffer the peculiar affliction of never being discussed without some reference to their stranger status, even by the most sympathetic critics. These artists state their sense of self-awareness and clarity, and are determined to ensure that “they are at home in the world” (Oguibe, 1999, p. 41). Canclini (1994) asserted that in this age of globalization, visual thinking and images should be transits of crossings and interchanges--not only visual discourses, but also open, flexible reflections, between nationalist fundamentalism amidst the uncertainties of multiculturalism and the capitalistic judgments of the globalizing market and the mega exhibitions.

Korean Border-Crossing Artists in the U.S.

Koreans are one of the top-five Asian groups that have immigrated to the United States (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000). Having over a one-hundred-year history in America, the Korean- American population is large. In 2000, the total Korean population in the United States in 2000 was 2,421,906 (1,076,872 Koreans and 1,228,427 Korean-Americans) (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000). California and New York are the most heavily Korean-populated states. Yet, a Korean-born American immigrant is not the same as a Korean-American (Park, 1997; 2000). As a result of being born in the U.S., Korean-American persons incorporate American cultural norms into their daily lives naturally. Korean-born-immigrants have to change the conceptions of race, culture, and language that they brought with them from Korean society

in order to adapt to the multicultural North American society. During the transition process, Korean immigrants encounter many challenges and frustrations: they experience alienation while coping with internal conflicts caused by cultural differences, their racial minority status, and language barriers. Many Korean immigrants reevaluate and reconstruct their sense of self- identity once in the U.S., as they adapt their Korean cultural identity to their new environment. Thus, as Korean immigrants experience life in America, they create new identities, cultural forms, and adopted ideologies (Park, 2000). The 1993 Queens Museum exhibition, Across the Pacific: Contemporary Korean and Korean American Art included Korean immigrant and Korean-American artists. The Across the Pacific exhibition established a transnational framework and a global perspective that established the presence of Korean cultural identity both at home and abroad, challenging the spatially bound conceptualizations of Korean nationality (Roe, 1995). When art critics discerned the differences between Korean immigrants and Korean-American artists, they found that artists who had been born in Asia and were working in the U. S. focused on themes of homeland and displacement, and that American-born Korean-American artists frequently seemed rootless, drifting along the margins of U.S. society (E. H. Kim, 2003; Y. C. Lee, 1993) Korean art critics Roe (1995) and Y. C. Lee (1993) interpreted Korean-born and America-born Korean artists differently. While Roe (1995) found similarities between the groups, Y. C. Lee (1993) found differences. Y. C. Lee (1993) found that many Korean-born artists and Korean-American artists focus on trying to understand Korea at the end of the twentieth century, many of them by reconstituting a Korean self, separate from Western culture in an attempt to challenge the center-periphery hierarchy between the United States and Korea. However, the Korean-American artists expressed tentative, multiple, and sometimescontradictory identities and allegiances not bound by the sense of direct cultural lineage or links to national selfhood expressed in Korean art. Conversely, Roe (1995) found that most of the artworks in both groups reflected the very personal experiences of relocation, dislocation, and assimilation that accompany the move away from one’s home country and resettlement in a foreign nation and culture. The artworks studied embodied the artists’ experience of a cross-cultural, transnational identity that corresponded to neither of the existing categories of American nor Korean nationalities. For Roe, the artists seemed to occupy both nationalities as well as experience a sense of dislocation from both. Their

experiences involved the daily crossing of cultural borders as they retained their Koreanness in some aspects of their life and simultaneously functioned as American citizens in other capacities. Through these various analyses and interpretations of the work of Korean and Korean- American artists, I realized that a simple comparison resulting in generalizations about the artworks would be neither meaningful nor valid. While one may identify general characteristics of artworks through comparisons, a more meaningful approach is to view artworks as individual expressions of the experiences of artists in various cultural and social contexts. In this study, I have not sought to generalize about contemporary Korean border-crossing artists, but rather to understand the deep specific meanings and qualities in the artwork of the three artists under study.

IV. Transcultural and Multicultural Art Education

In this section, I discuss the multicultural nature of U.S. society and review the philosophy of the multicultural education movement as a socio-political activity in the United States. Multicultural education was designed as a strategy for cultivating a democratic and equalitarian society, and rejecting a history of racism and discrimination.

The Multicultural Nature of U.S. Society

Gordon (1964) has noted that the existence of ethnic and sub-national communal life in America should be considered a given, despite the concern of American intellectuals who are against racial, religious, and nationality prejudice and discrimination and want to see such phenomena eliminated from American life. Gordon (1964) emphasized “the sense of peoplehood” that the members of a group share as a sense of indissoluble and intimate identity in the larger community. Gordon stated that the analysis of multiple large groups (ethnic and social class groups) suggests that equal opportunity exists within the framework of the U.S. regardless of race, creed, or national origin. Gordon (1964) insisted that the genuine American is a hyphenated character who connects, rather than separates, the great waves of migration that created the national make-up of the United States. On the other hand, Gordon also has described the U.S. as a transnational nation in which various national groups can preserve their identity and their culture, uniting as a kind of “world federation in miniature” (p. 140).

Gordon (1964) created a model (Figure 7) that shows the ethnic identity of an American in light of ethnic and national peoplehood and self-identity. I applied this model to my analysis of Korean border-crossing artists in America. Interestingly, the categories in Gordon’s figure -- such as self, national origin, religion, race, and nationality -- are constructed forms, works in progress. In Figure 7, I added examples of each of the categories that define the individual in the multicultural society of the U.S.

Self(Male Female) English, Korean Protestant Buddhist White, Asian American

Figure 7. Gordon. (1964). Ethnic Identity of an American.

Diaspora and Transnationalism

Multiculturalism has become important in many countries with significant immigrant populations in 20th century (Banks, 2004). Transnationalism, a more recent development, deals with the management of difference beyond the nation-state boundaries that are evident in multiculturalism (Banks, 2004). In the past, most immigrants to North America came from southern and Eastern Europe, but today, most immigrants are coming from nations in Asia and Latin America. Between 1991 and 1998, 75 % of the legal immigrants to the U.S. came from these two regions and only 14.9 % came from Europe. If this trend continues, ethnic groups of color will make up almost half of the U.S. population in 2050 (The U. S. Census Bureau, 2000). Transnational communities are groups whose identity is not primarily based on attachment to a specific territory. I view contemporary Korean border-crossing artists in the United States as members of a transnational community of sorts. Border-crossing artists present powerful challenges to traditional ideas about nation-state belonging, raising issues of cross- border mobility, the growth of temporary, cyclical, and recurring migration, cheap and easy travel, and constant communication through various technologies. The dual-cultural artist's s identity can best be found, then, between individual and group life, experienced through their arts and life experiences. The experience of diaspora has increased inevitably with the rising of transnationalism and globalization (Kokot, Tölölyan & Alfonso, 2004). Safran (2004) explained that dispersed communities have moved around and emigrated from their native countries to other countries. The people in such groups may have retained a memory of, a cultural connection with, and a general orientation toward their homeland. Therefore, diasporic people between two or three nations and cultures are peripheral, both socially and personally (Kokot et. al., 2004). Due to a diverse and dynamic national history, Koreans make upthe fourth largest diaspora in the world (in terms of the percentage of Koreans outside of Korea), following the Chinese, the Jews, and the Italians (Y. S. Min, 2002). There now exist large Korean immigrant populations all around the world, such as in Los Angeles (U.S.), São Paulo (Brazil), Osaka (Japan), Yanbian (China), and Almaty (Kazakhztan) (Min, 2002). Park (1997) found that since 1965, five main factors have influenced Korean emigration to the United States: Korea’s partition; the continuing involvement of the U.S. government in political, military, and economic issues in the Korean peninsula; the rise of the new middle class in Korea; the development of a

new international division of labor and the changing status of Korea; and the migration policies created by both the U.S. and Korean government. Now, many Koreans have immigrated all over the world for jobs and higher education. In addition, many young Korean students are sent by their parents, companies, or schools for short-term or long-term bilingual experiences. Such experiences typically occur in the United States, where immigrant people still flock in search of the “American Dream,” a popular idealized notion of the successful Westernized lifestyle. Park (1997) has noted that for Koreans of lower-class origin, migration occurs for survival. For most middle-and upper-class immigrants, however, migration is motivated by the quest better political and economic well-being and capital investment. For other Koreans, such as those who were bankrupt or fired in midcareer, migration to America offers the chance for a new beginning.

Multiculturalism: The Diversity Advantage

The population movements that have occurred through global and local processes have created today's multicultural America. Multiculturalism necessitates the reestablishment of a multiracial democracy in the United States (Newfield & Gordon, 1996) and suggests that every member of groups in the United States should have equal rights and opportunity in educational, political, economic and cultural spheres (Banks, 2004). The 1970's multiculturalism movement rejected the pre-1970's assimilationism, a part of the popular conception of the “melting pot” in which minorities were encouraged to convert their cultures to European-American standards (Banks, 2004; Lowe, 1996; Newfield & Gordon, 1996). Assimilationism was based on the assumption that European-American culture and practices are superior to non-Western or non-European culture and practices. However, multiculturalism demanded the dismantling of the myth of monocultural nation-states, white- majority control of schools and the use of white backgrounds and values, instead building cultural democracy and cultural pluralism (Banks, 2004; Newfield & Gordon, 1996). Newfield and Gordon have argued that this spirit of multiculturalism can help to recover lost knowledge and produce new fundamental understandings of the multiracial and multiethnic nature of U.S. history and social life. . Multiculturalism aims for tolerance and empathy toward people different from one’s self; such understanding and knowledge of multiple cultures can be a potential tool for developing personal and social maturity. Appiah (1998) asserted that everyone is attached to

their own cultural particularities, but that people can benefit and take pleasure from knowing more about different places and cultures. Zachary (2003) stated that successful and healthy diverse societies allow their members freedom to withdraw, rebel, or freely mingle with outsiders as a model of capitalistic society, and concluded that multicultural identity, as found in hybrid individuals and groups, increase a nation’s power and societal goods by strengthening economic competitiveness, or social capital. Social capital is a resource in a society, and enhanced by mutual responsibility and moral respect to self and others. Zachary (2003) insisted that “Hybridity + Social Cohesion = National Power” (p. 4). Such notions about multiculturalist are consistent with the pragmatic views underlying this study. Multinational and multicultural relationships make for strong bonds and social goods between countries (Banks, 2004).

Multicultural Art Education

In the 1960s and 1970s, multicultural education emerged out of the Civil Rights Movement. In celebrating ethnicity and student diversity, multicultural education helped to reconstruct the educational system in the U.S. to fit with the climate of the times (Ballengee- Morris & Stuhr, 2001; Delacruz, 1995; Desai, 2000; Efland, Freedman & Stuhr, 1996; Kocur & Cahan, 1994; 1996; Newfield & Gordon, 1996; Nieto, 1996). The goal of multicultural education was to protect students from racism and discrimination on the basis ethnicity, race, gender, language, and class, simultaneously creating more accepting understandings and meanings for students. The beginning of postmodernism has also been dated to this same time period (Efland, Freedman & Stuhr, 1996). In a multicultural education curriculum, students learn about the arts, histories, literatures, popular and folk images, political ideas, everyday lives, spiritualities, and even languages of different cultures. Exposure to multiple artworks from diverse cultures enables students to preserve and communicate "wisdom and knowledge across generations and cultures"through "education, reversing stereotypes and presenting positive role models” (Cahan & Kocur, 1994, p. 27). For example, teachers have presented historical and contemporary masks from cultures other than their own (Ballengee-Morris & Taylor, 2005; Cho, 1998). This approach makes students aware that they are surrounded by others from different backgrounds, and encourages them to respect members of other communities as well as cultivate a global mindset.

Multicultural educators view the multicultural movement as necessary for the school reform and social reconstruction, because it can help students to form an identity that incorporates the realities of cultural complexity and the issues of power that correspond to personal, national, and global cultural identity (Ballengee-Morriss & Stuhr, 2001). Multicultural education seeks to instill values about the environment and others, in this way contributing to moral education (Chalmers, 2002; Kocur & Cahan, 1996; Sanford, 1996). Garber (1995) stated that teaching about cultures other than our own helps students learn about a border- consciousness. This teaching and learning ultimately makes an individual a whole person and a citizen of the larger world. In multicultural art classrooms, cross-cultural content about indigenous and diasporic groups can expand the study of art within a broader social, cultural, political, and historical framework (Kocur & Cahan, 1996). Congdon (1989) has promoted multicultural approaches to art criticism that seek to provide a recognition and appreciation of many worldviews and functions of art, and a recognition and celebration of the use of varying language structures that heighten the world views and functions of art. Congdon asserted that multicultural approaches in art criticism expand our dominant worldviews and enrich the lives of all students in a pluralistic society. However, art educators must present accurate and authentic representations of the art of racially, ethnically and geographically different cultures in a multicultural art classroom (Ballengee-Morris & Taylor, 2005; Desai, 2000). How art critics or teachers choose and represent the art of different cultures requires an awareness of the cultural domination and subordination of many cultures. According to Desai (2000), “The representations of cultures are received by different audiences in different contexts and in specific ways" (p. 127), thus, their understandings may contradict the critics' or teachers’ representations. Cho (1998) stated, Whatever the dominant culture, it should be included among the cultures studied through art in order to give students an opportunity to examine how art illustrates power structures in society, practices of exclusion, and concepts of privilege. Students need to explore issues from the social reconstructionist and reform agendas, as well as cultural and formal qualities in the art. (p. 74) Looking at and talking about art provides students with broad aesthetic, cognitive, and humanistic lessons that broaden their understanding of the value of multiple cultures.

Eaton (2002) noted that art is the best way to allow an individual to understand oneself and others in light of communication and respect. In this study, I sought to demonstrate how art criticism in art education might contribute to the improvement of the human condition and a better life for all. I suggest that educational art criticism and cross-cultural artistic criticism based on the philosophy of American pragmatism can do just this.

The Role of Educational Art Criticism

The model of educational art criticism used in this study is Anderson’s Model of Educational Art Criticism (T. Anderson, 1993; 1997; Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005). This model aims toward art for life (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005). Dewey (1934) stated that talking, writing, and reading about works of art all create a bridge for communications between artists and audiences, between artworks and life, and between oneself and others. Because art involves the value of life, “Works of art are the most intimate and energetic means of aiding individuals to share in the arts of living” (Dewey, 1934, p. 336). Anderson and Milbrandt noted that “art for life helps us understand people through their art rather than understanding only the form of the art. Because cultures and artists have specific characteristics, art for life facilitates a multicultural approach” (p. 122). Further, they asserted that art tells about the human experience and its stories, to help us know who we are, and how and what we believe. The resulting sense of oneself and others creates an awareness of community at the national and global level. Art criticism that involves the stages of reaction, description, analysis, interpretation, and evaluation provides a systematic process for artistic criticism. Art criticism, like a work of art, is as much the product of feeling and emotion as of logic and reason. Therefore, the art critic requires critical thinking and logical reasoning as well as emotional sensitivity. To do educational art criticism, the critic must be able to function as a connoisseur in both art and education. Like artwork, quality work in art criticism depends on developing certain sensitivities; and learning basic elements through professional art teachers or art school can help students develop these sensitivities and become aware of their cultural environment and existing social problems. According to Dunning (1998), “The best learning situation uses a balanced combination of the empirical (practice) and the conceptual (theory)” (p. 5).

A Cross-Cultural Approach to Art Education

The borders of the United States have shifted throughout the nation’s history and now many people with different roots and cultures live in this country (Erickson, 2000). Erickson (2000) stated the “changes in borders both reinforce and challenge the inhabitants’ sense of themselves, whether those inhabitants are firmly settled or newly arrived” (p. 46). Of course, an increased understanding of one’s self is necessary in order to realize our relation to others (Bucknam, 2001). The term cross-cultural refers to an interaction of more than one culture other than one’s own (Davenport, 2000; Garber, 1995). Cross-cultural authentic art education includes connecting global themes with local community concerns. This approach is based on the pragmatist’s belief that “art is a socially functional product and should be understood not only for what it is, but for, more fundamentally, what it does in a social context” (Anderson, 1995, p. 200). Anderson (1995) and Garber (1995) both have emphasized appreciating the art of non- Western cultures because many world visions exist, and Eurocentric-Western criticism cannot be applied to all the cultures of the world. For this reason it is essential that art educators and critics avoid using only the lenses of European and U.S. mainstream cultures and values. In the U.S., students should learn non-Western art and cultures to understand their global and multicultural society. A cross-cultural approach to art education might involve studying the performances in the U.S. of Tibetan Buddhist monks (Anderson, 2002), a Japanese rock garden (Anderson, 1995), Mexican Indian paintings (Garber, 1995), the Mexican icon known as the Virgin of Guadalupe (Erickson, 2000), or the American Indian Powwow (Stuhr, 1995). T. Anderson (1995) has described the process of cross-cultural art criticism in terms of a sequence of methods: 1) reaction, 2) perceptual analysis (representation, formal analysis, formal characterization), 3) personal interpretation, 4) contextual examination, and 5) synthesis (resolution and evaluation). In cross-cultural art criticism, contextual examination provides the critical foundation for discovering meaning in works of art. Anderson (1995) has insisted that art is always made for a reason, asserting that cross-cultural criticism in art education not only accesses other cultures, but through examining the ways others do things, sheds light on possibly unexamined cultural assumptions of our own. The act of cross-cultural criticism itself, then, is an effective means for teaching tolerance.

Erickson (2000) emphasized that contextual information should be provided by teachers, and insisted that “students cannot make thoughtful decisions without information” (p. 51). Erickson has provided guidance for teaching art from other cultures to teachers using the following process: 1) identify traditional images from their own culture or community; 2) investigate or retell stories about traditional images explaining how they have been important to people in their culture or community; 3) if possible, identify various versions of the same traditional image and compare interpretations of each version; 4) if considering borrowing images from other cultures, seek information about the meaning and purpose those images have for the people of the culture within which they were made; 5) consider alternative ways to transform a traditional image in order to express their ideas; and 6) execute an artwork drawing upon traditional images from their own culture, their community, or the art of other cultures. Erickson suggested that art teachers use questions to help students look at artworks and determine what an image has meant in the past, what it means to them today, and how they might use it meaningfully in their own art. Cross-cultural approaches by art educators require a strong conceptual understanding of the cultural contexts in which an artwork was created (Garber, 1995). Garber identified four points of confusion in teaching cultural diversity in art: 1) the misidentification of what constitutes diversity, 2) studying a cultural artifact from the perspective of mainstream culture or solely our own values, 3) homogenizing cultures, and 4) exoticizing or fetishizing cultures. Garber (1995) called the study of cultures other than our own “border studies” (p. 223), the place where two cultures or countries meet. Through such studies, students learn a “border consciousness” (p. 223), or the knowledge of two or more sets of cultures, societies, or nations. Much as I have proposed in this study, Garber has asserted that artifact and theme should be considered within a culture as tools for learning about “the other by searching for meanings and nutrient experiences and moving to developing new ways of thinking and valuing” (p. 224). Several art educators in the United States have suggested another cross-cultural approach with therapeutic applications: using art education as a survival tool for immigrant and refugee students (Brunick, 1999; Erickson, 2000). Since many illegal border-crossing people reside in the U.S., many schools and communities across America have responded with civic duty and hospitality by reaching out to the immigrant population. They use art education programs as expressive, encouraging, and therapeutic tools for border-crossing children.

According to Anderson and Milbrandt (2005), cross-cultural approach in art education promotes “new understandings of both [students'] own culture and the cultures of others, moving toward the goal of global community through art” (p. 232). This aesthetic and cultural understanding expands the concept of community and recognizes the variety of lives and groups within the larger society and encourages respect for varying worldviews. Such a process entails appreciating our own culture for its particular values and strengths, with the recognition that one's own culture is not the only good or correct way of living in the world. Dewey (1934) stated that, Just because art, speaking from the standpoint of the influence of collective culture upon creation and enjoyment of works of art, is expressive of a deep-seated attitude of adjustment, of an underlying idea and ideal of generic human attitude, the art characteristic of a civilization is the means for entering sympathetically into the deepest elements in the experience of remote and foreign civilizations. By this fact is explained also the human import of their arts for ourselves. They effect a broadening and deepening of our own experience, rendering it less local and provincial as far as we grasp, by their means, the attitudes basic in other forms of experience (p. 332). The new movement toward cross-cultural approaches in art impacts our personal attitudes, and not just by collective information concerning the conditions under which an artwork was produced. The barriers between self and others can be overcome and prejudices limited, by changes in reasoning and attitudes (Dewey, 1934). The aesthetic experience creates potential communication between human beings, since communication is the foundation and source of all activities and relations that are distinctly human. T. Anderson (1995) has stated that cross- cultural criticism both accesses other cultures and promotes awareness of our own cultural assumptions. The act of cross-cultural criticism teaches tolerance as a whole (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005; Wolff & Geahigan, 1997). In the same way, cross-cultural art education teaches students caring, cooperation, and how to create a self-reflexive community through art, in this way reconstructing long-standing prejudice and ignorance (T. Anderson, 2002). As Anderson and Milbrant (2005) have noted, Through critically examining artworks within their own culture and cross-culturally, students may gain access to other attitudes, mores, and understandings, and start to develop a sense of global community. Understanding others makes us see them as human.

Through reaching out beyond their own culture, students may come to see others not as exotic or aliens but as people who, although they may express themselves differently, have human drives, emotions, and sensibilities much like their own. Integrated, theme- based content, is critical for developing a sense of global community (p. 233). Ballengee-Morris and Taylor (2005) viewed this perspective as changing from an “I” to “we” perspective. Garber (1990) similarly stated that studying different cultures through art criticism can help extend an understanding of otherness: “The ‘other’ defines each individual of every cultural group: Otherness is a potential within each of us as we relate to different cultures… he is just an other among others” (p. 22). As Dewey (1934) conveyed, the essence of morality is love, or a going out of our own nature and to identify ourselves with the beautiful that exists in thoughts and actions that are not our own. “What is true of the individual is true of the whole system of morals in thought and action,” said Dewey (p. 349). Each culture has its own individuality and has a pattern that binds its parts together, and our experience with the beautiful in other cultures enables us to hold its individuality and cultivate attitudes that enable us to reach out toward others. In this process, community and society evolve in a positive direction, and allows us to understand others in daily life, even resulting in the experience called “friendship” (p. 336). Therefore, for Dewey, Anderson, and Garber, cross-cultural art criticism is rooted in friendship and intimate affection. According to Garber (1995), “When we are friends with another person, we don’t become that person, but we value the way they do things, what they say, what they like and value. They influence us and the friendship changes us. In the willful kind of meeting I am discussing, we try to embrace this friend. (p. 229) Educational art criticism and cross-cultural art criticism involves an effort on the part of the art critic to unify and make communications between art forms and contexts, art and life, individual and society, Western and non-Western. Dewey explained this philosophy of art criticism in this way: It is when the desires and aims, the interests and modes of response of another become an expansion of our own being that we understand him [her]. We learn to see with his eyes, hear with his ears, and their results give true instruction, for they are built into our own structure. (p. 336)

Anderson’s systematic approach to art criticism and the continuous practice of interpreting border-crossing art can help students better understand their personal and social identities as well as the world in which they live. U.S. culture is already a synthesis of diverse cultural elements in a state of constant change (Anderson, 1995; Garber, 1995). A cross-cultural approach to art education can be expanded to community building (Arnold, 1994; Phillips, 2003) and learning the concepts of respect, empathy, caring, commitment and responsibility (Phillips, 2003; Stout, 1999). Such mores, values, and ethics must be taught and learned if children are to make a better world for themselves and subsequent generations. Given the cultural diversity of students in art classrooms, comprehensive art education curricula and authentic cross-cultural art education is necessary for the construction of more meaningful knowledge involving a pedagogy of liberation and social responsibility (Davenport, 2000; Delacruz, 1995).

Summary

This study examined the artworks of three Korean-born contemporary artists currently living and working in the United States. The research question guiding this study is, How do artists, originally from Korea but now living in New York City, define themselves and their art in relation to their national, cultural, ethnic, and personal identity? In order to provide a foundation for exploring this research question, in this chapter I have reviewed the literature of art criticism, Korean border-crossing art in the contemporary art world, social foundations of identity construction, multicultural education, and the implications of cross-cultural understanding in art education. This analysis of the relevant literature concerns not only aesthetic discussions of art and art criticism but also the impact of the conventionalWestern dominant culture and multicultural American society on the art world, the practice of art criticism, and the teaching of art education.

CHAPTER 3

METHODOLOGY

Introduction

This study is a critical analysis of the artwork of three artists of the Korean diaspora who live and work in New York City. The goal of the study was not just to understand the artworks for their own sake, but to grasp what the work in its authentic context tells us about the makers and the cultures they inhabit. Further, this research sought to uncover something of the worldview of these artists through a contextual examination of their work in its authentic contexts. This level of analysis required more than an examination of the forms themselves, but also an examination of the circumstances of their making and use. Thus, interviews and document analysis were conducted in conjunction with the Anderson method of cross-cultural art criticism. Due to the nature of the research problem and its data, the method of inquiry to use for this research was qualitative. According to Bogdan and Biklen, “The qualitative researchers’ goal is to better understand human behavior and experience” (p. 38). Creswell (1998) similarly described qualitative research as, an inquiry process of understanding based on distinct methodological traditions of inquiry that explore a social or human problem. The researcher builds a complex, holistic picture, analyzes words, reports detailed views of informants, and conducts the study in a natural setting. (p.15) Eisner’s (1998) suggestions for qualitative inquiry related to the study of artworks provided guidance for this study. Eisner pointed out that our sensory system is the instrument by which we experience the qualities that constitute the environment in which we live. In an aesthetic experience, qualities are present in artworks and contexts, and the ability to experience such qualities requires that one see the subtle. Finding the subtle and making connections between significant forms and experience might be called sensitivity or sensibility. We learn to

see, hear, and feel the significant forms of art through art criticism. Yet such criticism requires experience that in turn requires the exercise of qualitative thought. Reading relevant texts (literatures) is useful because, just as the reader starts with words and ends with qualities, the art critic starts with qualities and ends with words. Thus, through both written texts and figurative images one is able to interpret artworks in their larger context. T. Anderson's method of contextual, cross-cultural art criticism was used in this study (T. Anderson, 1984, 1991, 1993, 1997; Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005). As stated above, Eisner's insights (1998) about the use of qualitative methods for art criticism studies also informed the analysis. The methodology for the study included my own examination of the artworks, as well as the results of one-on-one interviews with the artists (Seidman, 1998), and document collection, a method that yields thick interpretations and multiple layers of analysis from various perspectives. These varied qualitative methods permitted me greater access to complexity and richness of the particular artworks, artistic visions, life experiences, and professional achievements of the artists under study.

Theoretical Foundations

My desire to engage art criticism in a manner congruent with my basic philosophical beliefs about art and education led me to the development of my research question: How do artists, originally from Korea but living in New York City, define themselves and their art in light of their national, cultural, ethnic, and personal identity? Artworks reflect meaning not only in their aesthetic forms, but also in terms of their functions, social position, context and history, technical means and level of skill, and beauty or appeal (Anderson, 1995). Thus, in this study I sought to understand the artworks under study in relation to individual perceptions of meaning and cultural significance. Both Dissanayake’s (1988) inquiries about the purpose of art and John Dewey’s (1934) pragmatist approach to artworks were useful in answering the primary research question. My adherence to Dewey's pragmatism as a philosophical underpinning for the study is based on my strong belief that teaching and learning about art criticism must actively involve peoples’ life experiences rather than simply consist of pleasurable discourse about art itself. Dissanayake’s (1988) questions, “What is art for?” and “What does art do for people?” (p. 61) are questions about the meaning and value of art. In his cross-cultural approach to art

criticism, T. Anderson (1995) similarly asked, “What does it do?” (p. 201). Anderson's question encompasses the issue of social change, but goes beyond it to suggest that we use our experience of the aesthetic to ask ourselves what the work causes us to focus on through the aesthetic, and why. Within all these questions is the assumption that art is something people do and feel. In this way, the study of art and art criticism touches on our understandings about emotion, belief, and behavior as conceptualized in the fields of cognitive and developmental psychology. According to Dissanayake (1988), “Culture is a biological adaption. It is essential, and humans are innately predisposed to be cultural animals” (p. 23). If art is best understood in its cultural context, Dissanayake's views about culture are relevant to the place of art in the human struggle for survival. In this study, I tried to fully understand the human meaning in the works I examined, including their adaptive value in a cultural context. Dewey (Novack, 1975) contributed a body of philosophical work encompassing issues related to naturalism, instrumentalism, and pragmatism. As a citizen of the New World, Dewey lived in a land of pioneers, immigrants, and innovators. Through the exceptionally fast tempo of its development and social shifts, the United States of Dewey's time became the most favored of all the major nations in the modern world and preeminently a land of action and of practical achievement (Novack, 1975). Dewey's pragmatism is rooted in the phenomena of the United States, as well as in the doctrine of empiricism, a philosophy that holds that all human knowing ultimately comes from the senses and from experience. His view emerged organically from historical American phenomena like capitalism and Protestantism (Novack, 1975), and emphasized experience over didactic theory or rules. According to Dewey (1934), “Experience is the result, the sign, and the reward of that interaction of organism and environment which, when it is carried to the full, is a transformation of interaction into participation and communication” (p. 22). Dewey believed that works of art express the various aspects of this interaction, and that critics can draw inspiration from the experience of an artwork by connecting their experience to other phenomena perceived in their daily world, thus expanding the meanings of their perceptions. Since pragmatists view art as “a function, a consequence, of change in the relations they sustain to one another, not an antecedent principle” (Dewey, 1934, p. 322), Dewey's approach to art criticsm would look not for the presence or absence of any particular form in an artwork, but for its adequacy of form in relation

to matters of life and meaning. Consistent with Dewey's pragmaticism, form ideally reflects and expresses lived experience. Dewey (1934) believed that art had a moral function--to remove prejudice by opening viewers’ eyes to the great variety of meanings and significances in life. According to Dewey, the accurate observation of artworks enables us to develop sincere personal experience: We lay hold of the full import of a work of art only as we go through in our own vital processes the processes the artist went through in producing the work. It is the critic’s privilege to share in the promotion of this active process.... The material itself is widely human...The material of esthetic experience in being human – human in connection with the nature of which it is a part – is social. (p. 326) From Dewey's pragmatic perspective, art educators should attend to how contemporary art and cultural images, in their representation of social beliefs and human conditions, might provide tools for interpreting curriculum, pedagogy, texts, and the lives of students themselves (White, 1998).

Research Design

The fundamental research question posed in this study is, “How do artists, originally from Korea but now living in New York City define themselves and their art in light of their national, cultural, ethnic, and personal identity?” The supporting research questions are: 1) What are the characteristic, substantive, stylistic, and expressivistic natures of the selected artworks’ by the three artists under study? 2) What do the artists themselves say about their art and their lives in relation to the construction and understanding of their identities? 3) What do the artworks mean and/or do, as determined by a systematic critique developed in an authentic social context? 4) What conclusions can be drawn about the artists and their work, and their construction of identity through art as members of the Korean diaspora, members of the art world, and/or of the human race? In order to address the fundamental research question posed in this study, I used Anderson's method of cross-cultural contextual art criticsm. One-on-one interviews with the artists and document analysis comprised a significant portion of this effort. Thus, data for data

analysis included the analysis of six artworks (two artworks per participant), interview results, and various related documents. The use of multiple methods for collecting data is called triangulation (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000). The rationale for this strategy is that the flaws of one method are often the strengths of another, and that by combining multiple methods researchers can achieve the best of each while overcoming their unique deficiencies. The opportunity to use multiple methods of data collection is a major strength of qualitative research (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000). Creswell's (1998) five questions for qualitative research are answered here in order to more fully elaborate my methodological approach. These questions are ontological (what is the nature of this study?); epistemological (what is the relationship between the researcher, the artists, and the artworks?); axiological (what is the role of values?); rhetorical (what is my language of research?); and methodological (what is the process of research?). 1. Ontological: What is the nature of this study? I critiqued the artworks under study from my own perspective, following a pragmatic philosophical perspective (Dewey, 1934; Eisner, 1998b; T. Anderson, 1993; 1997), which holds that all theory, all understanding, is constructed first from what we gather through our senses. I also used the artists’ own statements about the themes of their artworks and their lives and the perspectives of other Korean and international art critics as secondary, contextual, corroborating information. This method is typical of pragmatic research, and in particular, field research, which seeks to establish the real world authenticity of its subject matter. 2. Epistemological: What is the relationship between the researcher, the artists, and the artworks? My identity as a researcher is based on my function as a critic. Thus, in this study, I examined the artists’ artworks from the stance of an art critic. As a Korean national living and working in America, I sought to learn more about my own social and personal identity through this art criticism, both in terms of my artistic expression and my personal experience with the art objects. As for the artists, I examined how their life experiences were involved in their artworks, that is, the ways in which their artworks represented their perceptions of their own national, cultural, personal, and social identities. 3. Axiological: What is the role of values?

I value the idea that my own sensibilities are integral to my experience of the artworks under study, as well as the notion that my understandings can only be enhanced by greater awareness of my own and the artists' cultural context for this experience. Thus, I discussed the values and meanings implicit in the artists’ works in the course of my analysis, and use my own reasons, descriptions, and interpretations in conjunction with those of the artists. Further, I tried to determine how these artists used their cultural context as a means of constructing and conceptualizing their artistic and self-identities. 4. Rhetorical: What is my language of research? As an art critic, I used a first-person, narrative style and viewed the artworks from my own informed perspective. I sought for insights into the identities of the three artists, as well as my own identity as an art critic. 5. Methodological: What is the process of research? In summary, my research strategy fell into the category of socially-contextualized art criticism. I analyzed two works from each of three border-crossing Korean artists living in New York City. I triangulated the information gleaned from my own observations with one-on-one interviews with the artists and a textual analysis of reviews and other documents related to the artists' work.

Research Methods

The methodology for this study is known as contextual art criticism, which uses multiple strategies (trigangulation) for looking at and analyzing artwork, including document analysis and interviews. A form of such contextual art criticism, T. Anderson’s (1993, 1997; Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005) cross-cultural method was used for data collection and analysis. This contextually embedded and socially oriented method of art criticism originates in the critic's own experience, based on his or her unique cultural knowledge, awareness and sensitivity (Eisner, 1998). I justifed my role as an instrument of data collection based on these qualities of cultural knowledge, awareness, and sensitivity. The data derived from my own experiences with the artworks was augmented by interviews with the artists using the Seidman (1998) method, which instructs the interviewer to include demographic, descriptive, and interpretive questions. In addition, data included a variety of documents related to the work of the three artists under study,

including reviews by other art critics focusing on the themes of personal identity

Data Collection

Participants

The participants in this study are three artists, Do-Ho Suh, Kim Sooja, and Ik-Joong Kang. The participants were not randomly selected but deliberately chosen for several reasons. First, the participants are all South Korean born artists living in the United States. Second, they are very well known international contemporary artists. Third, their artworks are significant in terms of the subject of this study (self-identity and artistic expression). Fourth, all spent their childhoods and early adult lives in Korea before coming to the United States, where each has lived for more than thirteen years. Finally, the selection of these three artists was based on my understanding of the themes in their artworks, which express issues related to Korean cultural identity and self-identity.

Do-Ho Suh. Do-Ho Suh was born in Korea in 1962, and currently lives and works in New York City. After earning his BFA and MFA in Oriental Painting from Seoul National University, he received another BFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA in sculpture from Yale University. Suh has had solo exhibitions at a number of museums and galleries, including the Whitney Museum of American Art at Phillip Morris, the Serpentine Gallery, the Seattle Art Museum, and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, among other venues. Suh represented Korea at the 2001 Venice Biennale. A forthcoming exhibition at the ArtSonje Center in Seoul, Korea opens in June 2003. His work is included in collections at numerous museums, including the Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Whitney Museum of Contemporary Art. Using cultural and national subjects, in 2001 Suh made sculptures of different cultural experiences under the titles Seoul Home and New York Apartment. He has repeatedly addressed issues related to Korean society, especially military and collective identity issues (Corrin & Kwon, 2002).

Kimsooja. Kimsooja was born in 1957 in Korea, and currently lives and works in New York City. Kimsooja studied in the Graduate Painting Department at Hong-Ik University in Seoul, and the lithography studio at Ecole National Superieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. She was an Artist in Residence at P.S.1, a public elementary school in New York, and a World Views- Artist in Residence at the World Trade Center in New York. Her solo art shows include Kimsooja: Bottari-Cologne, 2005; The Getty Center, Los Angeles, 2005, MIT List Gallery Cambridge, 2003; A Needle Woman, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York, 2001; A Laundry Woman, 2002: The 48th Venice Biennale, Venice, 1999. Kimsooja has received critical attention and major reviews in numerous publications including Artforum, Frieze, ART news, The New York Times, and Art Press. She has exhibited her work internationally, and some of her recent group exhibitions include the 59th minutes in Central Park, New York (2005); Enlightment, Jeu de Paume, Paris, France (2004); Madrid, Spain (2003); the 2002 Whitney Biennial, Central Park, New York (2002); Tempo, Museum of Modern Art, Queens, NY (2002); Makers, the 49th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (2001); Human-being and Gender, the 3rd Kwangju Biennale, Kwangju, Korea (2000); The Sky is the Limit, the 2nd Taipei Biennial, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, Taiwan (2000); Kimsooja-Conditions of Humanity, Museum Kunst Palast, Dusseldorf (2004); Kimsooja-Mandala: Zone of Zero, The Project, New York, (2003); Kim Sooja, A Mirror Woman, Peter Blum Gallery, New York (2002); A Needle Woman, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York (2001) and many others. Kimsooja, who is a feminist artist, made sculpture using bottari (bedcovers) and videotaped herself during her performances, experimenting with cross-cultural issues in her “Bottari Series” and “Beggar and Homeless Series” (Raspail & Martin, 2004; Mpoukala, 2005).

Ik-Joong Kang. Ik-Joong Kang was born in 1960 in Korea, and lives and works in New York City. He received his BFA in 1984 from Hong-Ik University in Seoul and his MFA in 1987 from the Pratt Institute in New York. His art exhibitions include 8490 Days of Memory at the Whitney Museum of American Art at Phillip Morris and Amazed World in the United Nations Building in New York City in 2001. Kang's work is included in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. His awards include fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Joan Mitchell Foundation, and the Prize of Special Merit in the 1997 Venice Biennale. In Berlin, Kang held the exhibition

in the Museum for East Asian Art so he could invite children of Berlin to take part in the project Amazed World in September 2002. Kang made walls with thousands of 3 x 3 inch canvas paintings. With these multiple canvases, he experimented with national history and cross-cultural issues. His artwork also dealt with the world community and educational issues, since the paintings were made not only by the artist, but also by children from all over the world and local communities in the United States, Berlin, and Korea (J. H. Lee, 1996).

Born Year Live & Moved Education of Works in the Birth U.S. Do-Ho Suh South 1962 New York 1992 BFA. Seoul National Univ. Seoul Korea MFA. Seoul National Univ. Seoul (Oriental Painting) BFA. Rhode Island School of Design (Painting) MFA. Yale Univ. (sculpture). Kimsooja South 1957 New York 1992 BFA. Hong-Ik Univ. Seoul Korea MFA. Hong-Ik Univ. Seoul (Painting) Lithography Studio. Ecole National Superieure des Beaux-Arts. Paris. Artist in Residence. P.S.1. NY. World Views-Artist in Residence. World Trade Center. NY. Ik-Joong Kang South 1960 New York 1984 BFA. Hong-Ik Univ. Seoul. (Painting) Korea MFA. Pratt Institute. NY. (Painting)

Figure 8. Participants Demographic Data.

Art Works Selected

The works I selected by Do Ho Suh are Paratrooper I (2001-2003) and Paratrooper II (2005). Paratrooper I is composed of thousands of hand-stitched signatures of family, friends, and acquaintances that were collected over the years. This sculpture is made of linen, polyester, thread, cast stainless steel, cast concrete, and plastic beads. The size is 110 x 281 1/2 x 197

inches. In 2005, it was exhibited in the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Paratrooper II is a translucent sculpture made of knitted monofilament, resin, nylon, poly organza and a stainless steel armature that suspends it 18 feet in the air, and is currently on display at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts’ Morris Gallery. I chose these artworks because they seemed to reflect individual and collective identity issues relevant to this study. Further, the artworks are drawn from a series of expressions over time, since the artist created Paratrooper I through Paratrooper VI. The two works by Kimsooja that were included in the study are Cities on the Move-2727Kilometers Bottari Truck (1997- 2001) and A Needle Woman (1999-2001). Cities on the Move-2727Kilometers Bottari Truck (2001) is a performance video project made in Korea. A Needle Woman (1999-2001) is a video installation that took place in eight cities: Tokyo, Shanghai, New York), New Delhi, Mexico City, Cairo, London, and Lagos, Nigeria. I chose these works because one represents Kimsooja's early work and the other her later work, like Suh, expressions that occurred at different points in her development. In addition, the works can be interpreted through multiple sources and reflect local and global discourses that in turn reflect ideas about national, cultural, personal, and social identity. The two works by Kimsooja also display elements of the artist’s signature productions, such as the Korean cultural product known as Bottari and her own performance. The two works by Ik-Joong Kang that were studied are 8490 Days of Memory (1996) and Amazed World (2001-2002). 8490 Days of Memory (1996) is an installation about Korean War hero General Douglas MacArthur. Kang used chocolate and clear plastic cubes to make his artwork. In 1996, this work was exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art at Philip Morris in New York. Amazed World is a three-walled multimedia installation made up of the drawings of 38,000 children from 135 countries. The work was installed at the United Nations building in New York in 2001 and 2002. I chose these works in part because they were created at early and later points in Kang's career. In addition, the artworks deal with the subjects of Korean national history and the multicultural and globalized world, which reflect Kang's experience of living both in Korea and the United States. Both works also were created in the 3 x 3 inch size typically used by the artist.

The Critic as Instrument

In this study, the researcher was included as an instrument of data collection based on

notions of cultural knowledge, awareness, and sensitivity, and using Eisner’s (1998) approach to educational art criticism in the arts and humanities, philosophy, and the social sciences. Educational art criticism aims to secure understanding by building upon an existing tradition in the arts and humanities, thus enhancing educational practice. According to Eisner, the discourse of traditions and cultures are materialized as a mirror image in the forms of artworks. The human condition, of which art critics are well aware, is based on moral concern.

Becoming Sensitive to Works of Art. Eisner asserted, “The primary function of the critic is educational” (p. 86), meaning that the material of art criticism increases perception and deepens understanding. In order to engage in educational art criticism, then, the critic must be able to function sensitively in art and educational matters. Criticism depends for its content upon the awareness of qualities and their antecedent and contextual conditions, and these represent the characteristics or abilities of cultural sensitivities. In terms of cultural diversity, Adams (1995) argued that cultural knowledge comes from a familiarization with a certain cultural characteristics, such as history, values, belief systems, and behaviors. Thus, cultural awareness occurs when people develop sensitivity and understanding of other groups. Cultural sensitivity involves knowing about the differences and similarities among different groups or cultures in a society. Culture understanding is significance in that it does not assign values of better or worse, or right or wrong to different cultures, but only reflects an awareness of cultural differences. Cultural sensitivity, then, requires cultural knowledge and cultural awareness of others (Adams, 1995). Cultural competence is defined as a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that come together in a system, agency, or among professionals and that enables that system, agency, or those professionals to work effectively in cross-cultural situations (Cross, Bazron, Dennis, & Isaacs, 1989). Operationally defined, cultural competence is the integration and transformation of knowledge about individuals and groups of people into specific standards, policies, practices, and attitudes used in appropriate cultural settings to increase the quality of health care; thereby producing better health outcomes (Davis, 1997). Cultural competency emphasizes the idea of effectively operating in different cultural contexts. Knowledge, sensitivity, and awareness do not include this concept. "This is beyond awareness or sensitivity," says Marva Benjamin of the Georgetown Technical Assistance Center for Children's

Mental Health. Experience creates artistic, critical, and educational insights that nurture fine cultural sensitivity. An art critic should have secured expertise that has been accumulated and constructed through multiple experiences with art (Dewey, 1934; Eisner, 1998). Knowledge is constructed by our internalization of both past and present experience. Eisner found that knowing involves two things: visualization and emotion. Art combines the two components and art criticism provokes and forces the critic to evoke emotion through visualization. To see is to feel and to feel is to see. I wanted to provide my experiences to readers and viewers by looking at these artists’ works and describing how they use their cultural contexts as a means of constructing and conceptualizing their artistic, personal, and social identities.

Sensitivity. Eisner (1998) promoted the notion of “the self as instrument” (p. 49) in educational art criticism, referring to the idea that our human senses should be the means for appreciating and interpreting artwork. Dewey (1934) emphasized that sensitivity is at the very heart of all artistic creation and esthetic perception. Sensitivity is the mediator between the artist and the perceiver. Eisner’s statement that “art is a quality of doing and of what is done” (p. 214) can be understood to mean that the experience of an artwork is a result of art criticism (interpreting artworks) and the work of art itself (artist’s execution). Through these two processes, according to Eisner, one sees art as a whole. Bell (1913) found sensibility to be an intuitive ability such that, “Art is not based on craft, but on sensibility; it does not live by honest labour, but by inspiration” (p. 287-288) and emphasized, for proficient art criticism, the important thing is to “live art and live sensibility” (p. 291). Bell also stated, “To appreciate fully a work of art we require nothing but sensibility” (p. 98). Eisner (1998) noted that the human condition is always constructive, in that people do not passively acquire their own experience--they construct it. Having preferences, tastes, and opinions involves significant personal choices. An art critic’s task is to make the individual experience the artwork, as well as life itself, through art criticism. Eisner used the term "consensus" to describe agreement or persuasion in relation to an artwork. Therefore, if an individual experienced what an art critic experienced, they have achieved consensus. This consensus does not imply truth, since everyone doesn't need to agree, but if consensus is achieved then the art critic has communicated the value of the artistic activity. The criticism of

the art critic, then, has an instrumental utility in that it guides and helps the audiences and the readers to comprehend artwork and anticipate the meanings and qualities the artworks have. Educational and humanistic art criticism attempts to justify all art activities in this way (Eisner, 1998). In regard cross-cultural art criticism, I agree with Bell’s (1913) statement that art fails “for lack of emotion, not for lack of formal adaptability” (p. 278). I depart, however, from Bell's assertion that art is not to be learned, nor to be taught. I feel that art and art criticism should be taught at high levels of craftsmanship, apprenticeship, and practice. My own educational purpose is to illuminate cultural understanding through art criticism. For this study, the implications of this goal are the development of strategies and curricula for cross-cultural art education. The forms of art and the meanings and values of life should be felt and expressed, and can be enhanced by learning that combines theory and practice (Dunning, 1998). To fully understand artwork in its aesthetic forms, we should look at and understand its cultural, historical, or political meanings and utilities at a deep level. In addition, because one's understanding and experience of a work of art is related to other understandings and experiences (Dewey, 1934), criticism and judgment can be verified and justified in a broader sense using our individual sensibilities. As an artist, art critic, and educator, I had to fully expose myself to the experience of multiple interactions with the artworks of contemporary Korean border-crossing artists in the United States in order to fully share in the meanings and values of these works.

Anderson’s Method of Cross-Cultural Critical Analysis

The Anderson method leads the art critic through the primary critical processes of reaction, description, interpretation, and evaluation as follows:

Reaction (What is this?). Reaction is an overall response or judgment. Whenever something new is encountered, it generates an intuitive reaction (Anderson, 1997; Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005). In order to transform our initial global sense about an artwork to a more specific sense, we need to use a focused strategy. Both the global and specific initial reactions to each of the six artworks (two from each artist) are important because they act as catalysts for furthering one's thinking about an artwork in aesthetical, social, political, and philosophical terms. The questions one asks at this point include:

1. What is my first response to this work? 2. How does this make me feel? 3. What does it make me think of? 4. What does it remind me of?

Description (What does it looks like? What is it for? What is its authentic context?). Describing an artwork is the first step in determining meaning and value. First one examines the depicted image, the illusional qualities of the artwork, and the constitutional qualities, such as color, line, shape, material, techniques, size, and setting. Gradually, one shifts one's focus to more subtle and intricate features of the artwork (form). The key to this phase of formal analysis involves looking into relationships between the components of the work. In addition, one must analyze the emotional effect of the work, as it either reconfirms the initial reaction or gives rise to evidence that leads in a new direction. The final component of this stage is a contextual examination, that is, an attempt to determine what can be gleaned from outside sources that may not be accessible from the work itself. One asks four sets of questions at this stage: Obvious thematic, formal, and technical qualities: 1. What images, illusions, and pictures do I see? 2. What colors, shapes, and textures do I see? 3. Are there any outstanding or unusual features I notice? 4. How do I think this work was made? What techniques were used? 5. What is the artist’s physical point of view? What are my clues? Formal analysis of relationships between forms and images, in terms of design (unity, variety, focus, rhythm, contrast): 1. What colors, shapes, textures, and lines dominate the image? Why? 2. Are there significant areas or negative spaces? Is there a focal point? 3. What movement do I see? What design principles (line, shape, rhythm, proportion) cause movement? 4. Where do I see contrast? What causes it? Formal characterization of impact of total appearance and relationships: 1. What mood is presented? How am I meant to feel in the presence of this piece? What is the evidence?

2. Why am I meant to focus on a significant point or not? 3. Is this work realistic, formalistic, or expressionistic? 4. Is it as direct or indirect, static, rhythmic, hot, cold? Why? What is the evidence? 5. What if the background were a different color or texture? How would it feel if key elements were different? 6. If I were inside the work, as a particular character, abstract form, or figure, what would I be thinking and feeling? 7. What does this work remind me of or make me think of? Contextual examination: biographical, historical and cultural context 1. Who did the work? 2. What was the artist’s stated point or intention in this work? 3. What style is it considered to be? 4. When and where was the work done? How does it reflect that place and time? 5. What influenced its production (social context and the artist’s biography)? 6. What impact has the work had on work that came later or on society in general?

Interpretation (What is this work all about? What does it mean?). Interpretation is the heart of artistic criticism (Anderson, 1997). In order to determine meaning, it is necessary to gather as much evidence as possible (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005). The description of artworks, artists’ statements, and artists' biographies are all part of gathering evidence about the meaning of the work. Evidence found in the forms, composition, technique, aesthetic and emotional impact, and contextual information of artworks are the foundation for interpretation. Interpretation is also a form of art, a creative activity that calls on one's sensitivity and ability to synthesize (Dewey, 1934) and distinguish relevant evidence. The use of multiple sources of evidence can help to ensure a mature and valid interpretation. The opinions of other critics are a component of a contextual examination. The general questions to be asked at this point are: 1. What do I think this work means, ultimately? 2. What does this work tell me about the artist? 3. What does the work tell us about the artist and his or her community? 4. What does the work tell me about the society in which the artist lives?

Evaluation (What is it worth?). Evaluation involves our conclusions about the value of a work and our experience of it (Anderson, 1997). As Venable (1998) has stated, “Making judgments is a natural part of experiencing life” (p. 8). Successful evaluation is criterion-based, thus, it utilizes as touchstones such approaches as expressionism, realism, formalism, pragmatism (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005), but only as appropriate to the work in question (Dewey, 1934). From an expressionist perspective, a critic might ask if a work is highly expressive, while from a mimetic stance a critic might address the extent to which the work is realistic or naturalistic. Accordingly, a formalist would ask if the color, composition, and such seem right, and a pragmatist would consider whether the work does something important, or well. In this study I took the stance of a pragmatist. Whether the artworks I studied were formalist, expressivist, or naturalist in form, I was ultimately concerned with the pragmatic issue of how the work reflected the artist's identity. As a pragmatist, I analyzed the artworks in light of what they expressed about the experience of identity in terms of the Korean diaspora and border- crossing between the Korean and U.S. cultures. In evaluating the artworks under study, I asked the following questions: Personal experience (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005) 1. What was the quality of my experience in critiquing this work? 2. Have my perceptions or feelings changed since I started? How? 3. Do I feel a need to resolve what I found through personal critique (looking at the work) with what I found in the contextual examination (the cultures and history of the societies, and the artist’s biography)? Aesthetic judgment 1. Does the work clearly express a point of view technically and compositionally? 2. Overall, is it beautiful, visually satisfying, and complete in and of itself? Contextual judgment 1. Are there other works the artist made that have a similar purpose or theme? 2. Does the work tell us specifically about the Korean diaspora and border-crossing? 3. Does the work tell us the artist’s personal and social identity? 4. Does it address some significant human problem or need? Why?

Final judgment and Evaluation 1. Is the work clear in terms of what the artist tried to show and express to Koreans and other audiences? Is it up to the task I have determined that it set for itself? Was it worth making? 2. Finally, does the work move me? Does it have the aesthetic power to make me feel something strongly, or think something new, or move me to action in any way? 3. Ultimately, was it worth examining for me? Why or why not?

Contextual Examination: Document Collection. As part of this study's larger strategy for contextual examination, I conducted a document analysis of texts related to the artists whose works I examined. In this examination, I paid particular attention to the data relevant to my theme of identity and identity construction. I also collected all the information about the artists that I could, including photographs, audiotapes, transcripts, and emails from the artists. I kept track of information forms, copied written consent forms, and labelled audiotapes and field notes for the interviews (Seidman, 1998). These documents laid a foundation both for my own examination of the artworks and my interviews with the artists. The other critics’ views provided me with insights as well. Along with the literature review, these sources gave me an essential background on the artists’ biographies, education, and experiences, and the forms and subjects of their artworks, ultimately aiding me in interpreting the meanings of some of their artworks.

Contextual Examination: Interviews. An interview protocol was developed for the semi-structured, one-on-one interviews with the artists. (Appendix C) The purpose of interviewing in a qualitative study such as this was to understand the experience of the participants and to make meaning of those experiences. As Seidman has noted, “At the root of in-depth interviewing is an interest in understanding the experience of other people and the meaning they make of that experience” (p. 3). Interviews provide a powerful means for gaining insight into educational issues by helping researchers to understand the experiences of the individuals under study. I was interested in the artists’ stories as an avenue to understanding the meanings of their artworks and life experiences, since the stories people tell about themselves and their art reveal a great deal about their consciousness and perceptions (Seidman, 1998). The purpose of conducting interviews for this study was to gather contextual information that could

not be discerned from looking at the artwork alone, particularly in relation to the study's established themes of identity and identity construction. All interviews were conducted in person. Formal, one-on-one interviews took place at each artist's studio or exhibition space. All respondents were asked the same series of pre- established, open-ended questions according to the semi-structured interview protocol. This protocol was designed using instructions outlined by Seidman (1998). The interview questions were composed of demographic (i.e., age, sex, nationality), descriptive (i.e., media the artist works with, ideas about work, ideas about nationality), and interpretive (i.e., what it means to the artist to create artwork) questions. Before each interview, I first obtained consent from the interviewee, and then conveyed the purpose of the study, the estimated amount of time it would take to complete the interview, and they plan for using the results of the interview. At the completion of the interview, I offered a copy of the report or an abstract of it to the interviewees as a member check (Appendix D) (Creswell, 1998). The interview protocol contained the following demographic, descriptive, and interpretive questions: Demographic 1. Where were you born? Where have you been raised? Where have you lived? 2. What is your background (family, job, education)? 3. How did you decide to be an artist? Can you tell me about your education in art? Descriptive 4. What are the influences to yourself and your work from your childhood, family, and education in Korea? 5. Do you have any ideas/influences that arise from your South Korean (nationality)? 6. Do you think your work represents your personal identity or national identity? How? Interpretive 7. What is the meaning of your work? 8. What does it mean to you to show your work in exhibitions? 9. How have your works changed over the years since you came to the United States? 10. Has your life changed since you have lived in the United States? 11. What was the audience’s impression or response to your first exhibition in America? 12. What are the reactions and response of the viewers to your work now? What do critics

say about your work? 13. Is the response of the international viewers different from Korean viewers? How? 14. How do you feel when you are showing your work in important Western international venues in relation to the other artists? 15. Do you see different experience when you exhibit in Korea or in international (Western)? 16. Where do you prefer to create your work in Korea or in other cultural places? 17. How do people label you (such as Korean artist/ Feminist artist/ immigrant artist)? 18. Were you invited to show your work or did you apply for the opportunity? 19. Where do you receive your fund? 20. What is your image of Korea or being South Korean? 21. What is your image of your community such as family, friends, and colleagues? 22. Do you feel you represent Korea? 23. Is there some way that your experience in Korea and in North America becomes more or different than either experience separately? 24. Pick one of your works; tell what it means to you? Why is it meaningful? Overall, the interview questions were designed to identify the artist's shared national and immigrant experience, the personal significance of the artistic expression, the meaning of the artworks, and the artists' perceptions of art and experience. The interviews permitted me to examine the artists' experiences and artistic perceptions for subsequent thick description and interpretation. I recorded the interviews using an audiotape and digital recorder, and then transcribed them. The interviews gave substance to the documented evidence written by third parties and helped to contextualize my own critique.

Data Analysis

The critique of the two selected examples from the work of each of the three artists followed Anderson’s method of cross-cultural art criticism (1997; Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005), which includes special attention to the primary critical processes of reaction, description, interpretation, and evaluation. Based on the notions of cultural knowledge, awareness, and sensitivity, my own artistic sensibilities served as a significant source of data, which I analyzed in the process of verbalizing and writing my reflections. I also content analyzed reviews of the

artists by other critics; related articles in art reviews, art journals, and art magazines; pamphlets from art museums; internet documents; and other promotional and educational materials related to the artists' works. This analysis was guided by the search for themes related to border- crossing and the construction of identity. The interpretive questions of the interviews addressed particular themes related to the artists' sense of nationality, their relationship to the international art community, and the meanings they construct in relation to their art and identities. Thus, the one-on-one interviews with the artists were an important component of the contextual examination for this critical study. After conducting the interviews with the artists, I compiled the interview transcripts and allowed the artists' to revise their responses to the interview questions (Creswell, 1998). The interviews were conducted both in English and in Korean (the interviews were predominantly in English but detailed and additional explanations were provided in Korean). After transcribing the interviews and allowing the participants to revise their answers, I reviewed all of the responses using a content analytic method to identify common themes and categories that emerged from the data. This analytic process involved my own experience of the work as well as the perceptions of the artists. The transcripts of these interviews can be found in Appendix D. In analyzing the interview data, I looked particularly for the emergence of data, patterns, and themes that addressed the topics of this study: identity construction and artistic expression. In addition, I organized the artists' life experiences according to several predetermined categories relating to the issue of identity, including childhood, family of origin, family life, impact on being an artist, formal art education in Korea and in the United States, experiences of the art worlds in Korea, New York, and internationally, and perceptions of Korean culture and South Korea. I both compared and contrasted the responses of the three artists, with particular attention to the participants' biographies, family relationships, nationality, personal experiences as immigrants, and art-making and professional achievements. Because the notion of transformation is a central part of biographical research (Denzin, 1989), this attention to the biographical elements in the responses of the participants was useful in understanding the evolution of their personal and artistic identities as border-crossers.

Examining Identities

Artistic identity. The artistic identity of each artist was identified based on the particular artistic characteristics of their work, and analyzed in light of the themes of this study. In discussing the results of this analysis in Chapter 4, I explore how the artists' perceptions and thoughts about national and cultural identity become part of their individual artistic identities.

Personal Identity. Each artist’s personal identity was gauged through interviews in which each discussed how contemporary Korean border-crossing artists see themselves in terms of self-identity, and how such artists personify themselves in their work.

Social Identity. Social identity involves the artist's sense of the relationship between self and others both in Korea and the United States, as determined through interviews and through the analysis of their artworks. The artworks reflect the artists' understandings about both the Korean and multicultural American societies and communities, and may inform a more open dialogue about issues related to our multicultural world.

Summary

The aim of this study was to understand how Do-Ho Suh’s, Soo-Ja Kim’s, and Ik-Joong Kang’s life experiences in Korea and in the United States are expressed in their artworks, and how their border-crossing experiences have influenced the development of their personal and artistic identities. The research question guiding this inquiry was: How do artists, originally from South Korea but now living in New York City, define themselves and their art in relation to their artistic, personal, and social identities? In order to answer the question, my primary focus in analyzing the data was on the construction of artistic, personal, and social identity among the artists, and the way in which their selected artworks expressed and contributed to the construction of these identities. In following Anderson’s method of cross-cultural art criticism, I relied on my own cultural knowledge, awareness, and sensitivity, and the analysis of related documents and interview data to guide my experience as a critic and provide a broader context for my criticism.

Through reaction, description of physical qualities, formal analysis, contextual examination, interpretation, and evaluation, I analyzed Do-Ho Suh, Kim Sooja, and Ik-Joong Kang’s artworks in light of their reformulation of artistic, national and cultural, personal, and social identities in the context of the multicultural world of the United States.

CHAPTER 4

CRITICAL ANALYSES AND DISCUSSION

Introduction

In order to study the "border-crossing" experience of Korean artists living in New York City, I chose two pieces from each of the three artists under study and criticized them following Anderson’s (1993; 1995; 1997; Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005) method of cross-cultural artistic criticism. Accordingly, the stages of analysis I followed in interpreting the meanings and values of the artworks were reaction, description, interpretation, and evaluation. For the purpose of educational art criticism, I initially created categories of information as part of the analysis process. The resulting categorization schemes facilitated further information gathering and enhanced my understanding of the content and cognitive processes associated with the artworks (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005). The artists’ statements, derived from interview transcripts, and the reviews of critics provided further evidence for my interpretations. After I compared each artist’s two works with their statements, I grouped the similar subjects and themes and for more in-depth analysis. Later, I synthesized my analyses, focusing on the relationship between the artists’ life experiences and their expressions through art in order to answer the question: What is it (art) for? (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005) In other words, how does this art express the experiences of these border-crossing artists?

Making Contact

Do-Ho Suh

On June 17, 2005, I met Do-Ho Suh at both his exhibitions in the Fabric Workshop and Museum and The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Pennsylvania. He was setting up his artworks for display. Do-Ho Suh showed Paratrooper I (2001-2003) in the Fabric Workshop and Museum and Paratrooper II (2005) in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts’ Morris Gallery. I

interviewed him at 11:00 am for approximately two hours at The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. I attended his lecture with the members of the museum at both the Fabric Workshop and Museum and The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm. Prior to the interview, I sent an email confirmation, and Suh called me to make final arrangements. He was surprised that I could speak Korean; he thought that I was a Korean-American who only spoke English. I arrived in the space where Paratrooper II (2005) was being set up by assistants at the museum. Do-Ho Suh was directing the interns. When I greeted Do-Ho Suh in Korean, he kindly greeted me with an honest smile. He was wearing a dark olive-green shirt, cobalt blue jeans, and glasses. His hair was cut in a short military style. I couldn’t tell that he was over forty; he looked to be in his middle thirties. He was an honest, humble, open, and pleasant person to talk with. He was not afraid to express personal opinions and ask direct questions. During the lecture he showed most of his works; he stood for three hours to present and respond to each question from the audience. Even though he must have been very tired after working from morning to evening, he answered and eagerly greeted the audience with a smile. On December 10th, I sent Suh the transcripts of the interviews I conducted with him over the winter and he reviewed them. On December 30th, 2005, I sent Suh my critique of his artwork, which he subsequently read and corrected in relation to particular facts. After returning to Korea, on January 5th I met him at Kookjae International Gallery in Seoul at 10 in the morning. At that time, he reviewed and signed off on a final draft of of his interview transcript and and artist response to my critique.

Kimsooja

On April 23, 2005, I met Kimsooja at 4:00 pm at her studio in downtown Manhattan. Her studio was on the second floor in a complex with other artists’ studios. She had to leave for Africa the next day, so she was busy with meetings. We arranged the meeting through several emails. She was very diligent and kind. Whenever I sent her an email, I received her response within two days. When she saw me for the first time, she pleasantly greeted me. She was a middle aged woman wearing all black, with long straight hair bound into a ponytail. Her studio was very organized; there was a desk and big pictures of her artworks. She was very calm and her voice was quiet and reserved. I felt from her a certain solemnity but at the same time she was

honest and ready to answer my questions, which she did in a very systematic way. She thoughtfully and rationally answered each question, one by one. She was a very bright person. I was impressed to learn that she remembered the names of every sponsor and person she had met. I felt that she cherished the subject of her artwork, bottari, as if it were her child. The interview with Kimsooja lasted two hours. We drank tea and she gave me three sets of DVDs that included 20 of her video projects. They were the actual footage that was shown in museums and galleries. The two works by Kimsooja that are considered in this study are Cities on the Move-2727 Kilometers Bottari Truck (1997- 2001) and A Needle Woman (1999-2001). Both are video performance projects. Her well organized website, www.kimsooja.com, is highly informative. On her website, she states that her name is now Kimsooja without any space between the first and last names. In Korea, her name would traditionally be written as Kim Soo- Ja, and according to the English order, it would be Soo-Ja Kim. Internationally, however, and in this study, she is called Kimsooja. From December 29, 2005 to January 5, 2006, I spoke several times with Kimsooja by phone. She reviewed my interview questions and answered each one, and sent signed responses to the questions on January 2nd by fax. She also reviewed my critique of her artwork, and and corrected particular facts by phone on January 3, 2006. Kimsooja provided her final responses and signed off on her interview transcripts by email and fax on January 5, 2006.

Ik-Joong Kang

On April 25, 2005, I met Ik-Joong Kang at his studio in Brooklyn, New York. His studio was on the 11th floor in a complex with other artists. His studio was very large and connected to the rooftop, which looked out on the whole of Manhattan and the Hudson River. His studio was completely filled with his artworks. He was working on a piece called Happy World (2005) for an exhibition to be held at the Princeton Public Library in conjunction with the surrounding New Jersey community. When I arrived there at 11:00 am, he served me lunch with his assistants. The menu was a traditional spicy Korean soup with brown rice. I couldn’t tell how old he was, since he looked young and vivid, his attitude was sharp and very energetic, and he had a shy, playful, and honest smile. The two works by Ik-Joong Kang that I examined for this study are 8490 Days of Memory (1996) and Amazed World (2002). In the studio, there was the statue of General Douglas

MacArthur that was in 8490 Days of Memory (1996). I spent about six hours with Kang, looking at his work and interviewing him. Kang gave me a DVD, which included his seven works that were shown from 1998 to 2005 in the United States, Korea, Germany, and Venice. His websites, www.ikjoongkang.com and www.amazedworld.com, contain a great deal of information about his work. He also gave me exhibition catalogues, a poster of Happy World (2005), and a video from an interview with the Korean television program Cho Young Nam’s People on July 3, 2003, the anniversary of American Immigrant One Hundred Years. On December 19th, I met him for a formal interview at 11:30 a.m. in his new studio in the Chinatown section of Manhattan. He revised his interview transcript, corrected pertinent facts, and gave his opinion about my critique. His responses sometimes vary between the first and second versions. In this document, I have done my best to attend to and reconcile those two versions.

Critiques of Selected Works by the Artists

The following sections include critiques of selected works by Do-Ho Suh, Kimsooja, and Ik-Joong Kang. I have analyzed the works according to the processes specified in T. Anderson's (1993; 1995; 1997; Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005) contextual, cross-cultural approach, that is, reaction, description, interpretation, and evaluation.

I. Do-Ho Suh: Paratrooper I

Figure 9. Do-Ho Suh (2003-2004). ParatrooperI. Linen, polyester, nylon thread, cast stainless steel, cast concrete, plastic beads. 122 x 153 x 240 inches, 309.9 x 388.6 x 609.6 cm. The Fabric Workshop and Museum, New York.

Reaction

The sculpture installation is pink and shiny and appears very bright in the dark room. It is an amazing scene, and it creates a powerful tension; the brightest florescent pink threads connect the wall and the soldier sculpture. Lights project onto the soldier statue, thread clot, signs, and whole wall. The entire work presents a heroic scenario.

Figure 10. Do-Ho Suh. (2003-2004). ParatrooperI. (Detail).

Description: Physical Qualities and Formal Analysis

The small metal soldier is illuminated with gold color by lights. The soldier is actually made of chrome colored, polished stainless steel. The muscular soldier appears strong. He is dressed in full battle fatigues and helmet and stands on a concrete monument. The monument is composed of stacks of five-sided concrete slabs. The male soldier tightly holds the threads in his left hand and pulls them out and up with his right hand. The pink threads come from the wall and are held by the soldier. The rest of the threads hang behind the soldier and the monument, like a ponytail. Each thread ends in many small beads. Noticeably, the beads in the edge are black, red, or red-brown. They seem shiny, but somewhat dirty-looking, even ugly, as if they’ve been burned because of their dark colors. The view from the front of the piece, which shows the vivid pink threads, conveys a totally different impression from the rear view, which shows the dark threads. From the front one can see that the threads coming from signatures on the parachute on

the wall are shiny, thin, vivid, subtle, and delicate. The tension and the power of the piece when seen from this frontal view are amazing, but when looking at the piece from a different angle beyond the solider’s shoulder and under the monument, it loses direction and becomes almost ugly, anarchistic, and dull.

Figure 11. Do-Ho Suh. (2003-2004). Paratrooper I. (Detail).

Paratrooper I also involves a giant blue parachute attached to the wall. The parachute is shiny blue – a very cold shiny blue. Each thread from the parachute ends in a signature. The various signatures are in Korean or English. Over the years, Suh has collected thousands of hand-stitched signatures that belong to Koreans, Americans, and people from all over the world whom the artist has known – his family, friends and community. The thread is a florescent pink. The individual threads from each signature extend horizontally through the room and are collected in the grasp of the miniature paratrooper figure, where they become intertwined. Thus, each different signature continues along each thin line, and when the lines are concentrated and combined together, they become a thick cord in the soldier’s hands. The parachute’s blue and the shiny neon pink thread seem to oppose each other; while the blue is very sober, strict and cold, the pink is delicate, light, superficial, and hot, even sexual. This piece is all about power, tension, and contrasts: the parachute on the wall and the soldier in the center of the room; the soldier’s small size and the giant parachute; each fine line and the large thread clots; the horizontal threads and the vertical statue; the illuminating lights and the dark room. The main point of conflict is the soldier’s hand, where the threads of the parachute and soldier’s position meet. The stainless steel statue of the soldier, which looks gold in the light, is the hero in this whole scene. He is holding an overwhelming number of threads from the giant parachute, which is much bigger than he. From the soldier’s perspective, he seems to feel so tired; the parachute is too big to hold but that's what he must do. It seems he will never be able to pull it. The tension comes from the soldier’s desire to pull down the rigid parachute. This can never happen because the parachute is firmly attached to the wall. It is unbalanced and unstable. The scene is tense, since it seems that at any time the soldier may be pulled by the power of the parachute. An interesting feature of the piece is that the soldier is standing on the firm ground of the heavy concrete monument, which evokes a kind of military class symbolism. The five-sided concrete slabs are very similar to the star-shaped badge that connotes rank. The weight and shape of the monument supports the soldier’s representation as a hero. Without the high ground of the monument, the soldier would seem small. What if the soldier lost his balance and the power to hold the chute? He would be pulled by the power of the parachute threads and fall down. The soldier must keep this position forever, until he can pull all the threads to his side.

Let’s suppose that the soldier successfully folds the parachute. The chute would no longer be illuminated, because the brightness is coming from the pink signatures and threads. With the parachute folded we would have only the blue fabric. Is this what the soldier wants? Is this what the parachute was meant to be? On the other hand, the parachute may be a projection on the wall coming from the soldier, so that the threads are not necessarily from the wall, but from the soldier, who carves signatures onto the parachute. The signatures may represent his relationships with people. There is so much tension bound up between the parachute and the soldier. An aura of tension is emphasized by his struggle.

Contextual Examinations

Maybe the tension and the subject in Paratrooper I comes from Suh’s parallel life in Korean society, with its political circumstances and national history. In interviews Suh recounted his experience of mandatory military service in Korea, describing how an individual was mentally trained and how this training related to his perceptions of Korean society or any society in general. Ultimately, I assume that his military experience helped him to create the artistic subjects of paratrooper and parachute. According to Suh, Every male has to go [to military service in Korea]. It’s a good initiation to the real world because the whole Korean society, the whole system is actually based on this militaristic, very hierarchical structure…after several weeks of boot camp…The whole program was basically pushing your psychological and physical limits to extremes, so actually you can kill someone…It’s a process of dehumanization. And you got a lot of punishment. (Art: 21, n.d.) In Paratrooper I, the rigid threads on the parachute are reminiscent of Suh's earlier High School Uni-Form (1996) (Figure 13), in which three hundred black high school uniforms are tightly stitched together. After the turn of the 19th century, the black uniform was required for male students in Korean middle and high schools and in prestigious Korean universities, which the artist wore. Facing the starched white collar and five gold buttons fastening the bosom of each uniform in the piece, the audience becomes sober as they are reminded of the powerful military sternness in schools of the time. Some kind of identification badge is attached to the right neck of each uniform as well. In High School Uni-Form, the group can only move as a whole. The individuals cannot move lest the whole group of three hundred will be in trouble.

Nobody may speak; complete silence is required. The individual may not ask why he must be tightly bound, or why certain alignment is required, or why he should wear black, this badge, these gold buttons. Why can’t the individual pull out one button or leave one button undone? The answer is an unwritten rule – one among many unwritten rules in Korean society or societies in general.

Figure 12. Do-Ho Suh. (1996). High School Uni-Form. Shiseido Gallery, Japan.

Suh was born and raised in Seoul, South Korea. After leaving for a year to go to Paris in 1991 and finishing his Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) and Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Korean painting at Seoul National University, he spent two years in military service. Though he came to the United States in 1991 and studied painting for a BFA at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and then sculpture for an MFA at Yale University, the impact of Suh's experiences with the military in Korea seem evident.

Now Suh lives in New York City. Though his younger brother, an architect, lives in L.A, his parents still live in Korea. His father is the very distinguished Korean painter and scholar Se- Ok Suh, renowned for his large-scale ink paintings linking traditional calligraphy with modern brush painting. His mother, Min-Za Chung, is one of the founders of Arumjigi-Culture Keepers, a group devoted to preserving the disappearing traditions and heritage of Korea (Corrin, L. G., 2002). Suh married in Korea prior to coming to the United States. As he noted, [It] was my decision to come to study here. I had studied Korean (Eastern) painting, so it was not really necessary to continue my studies in the States, but I fell in love and married a Korean-American woman, a woman who was born in the United States. She was studying in college at the time, so it was very natural for me to come to the U.S. with her. (personal interview, January 5, 2006) After acceptance by the RISD undergraduate program, Suh was once again an undergraduate. At RISD he met a sculptor who approached sculpture in a way that captured Suh's interest, so he changed his major from painting to sculpture, and then spent two years at Yale University (Art:21, n.d.). In the course of my interview with Suh, he explained how his bachelor and master degree experiences in the U.S. affected his career: I think it worked well for me in the end. Probably two years at graduate school would not have been enough. If you come straight from Korea, two years is not enough time to observe everything and understand this culture. I realized that when I moved to New York after I studied at RISD and Yale. I have a lot of friends from RISD in New York, and it is very nice to have friends around you and supporting you in this rather brutal art world. The Yale program was very competitive and it was much smaller, so there are not as many people around in New York from the Yale program as there are from RISD. If you come from Korea, spend only two years at graduate school, and then move to a tough city like New York without any kind of support network of other artists, it would be a very difficult life for you as a young artist, I think. (personal interview, January 5, 2006) Stillion (2002) has stated that Suh is one of the best-educated artists working in the limelight of the art world today. With two BFAs and two master’s degrees in two disciplines from two continents, he has spent more than 15 years in art school. The Fabric Workshop and Museum (2005) praised Suh as a leading artist whose work seamlessly marries content and form.

Just five years out of school, his work is experienced globally and seen in some of the world’s most important museums. In our interviews, Suh described how Korean audiences reacted to Paratrooper I in Seoul in 2003: A lot of the Korean audience cried at the opening reception when they saw the piece. They really cried. Isn’t that strange and yet interesting? It was something that I had never expected….Old people. Middle-aged people, not like people in their twenties. They were able to see my piece and the idea behind it together in one view. I think it was pure experience and reaction. They could see the piece with their heart (personal interview, January 5, 2006) Further, Suh described how he had to explain Korean (Asian) concepts and perceptions about life to Western audiences. He found it difficult to find an appropriate explanation for the term in-yeon, because the concept is related to primary assumptions in Korean culture that are related to life style, family and community, and Buddhist philosophy: I looked it up in a dictionary and tried to explain the term, but it is quite difficult. You have to understand Buddhism and other aspects of Eastern culture to fully grasp the meaning of in-yeon. Just the description in the dictionary was not right, but in the end I used the words “relationship and fate” to explain it. I found it is probably the closest and easiest term to make them understand. I am sure that the idea of in- yeon is also an idea that you can find in Western culture. It might be just me who cannot explain it well in English. But one thing for sure is that for Koreans and other Easterners, it is something that is part of their everyday lives. It is such a fundamental concept or philosophy for the basis of the Eastern way of thinking and way of life. That is why it is hard to explain to Americans. When Suh uses the term "in-yeon" it encompasses the connection between an individual’s past, present, and future. When two people meet, for example, their relationship is not considered accidental but is thought to be predestined. In Suh's words, In-yeon is…for example, when you and I met, that special moment is a result of in-yeon. Our meeting was not coincidental, but it was meant to be. There was a reason why we met…Our meeting was predestined…In-yeon is about a belief that everything has a reason for happening and is the consequence of previous action. In our case, whatever we

did in our previous lives reaches forward to affect current events…. Let’s assume that in one’s life, one meets around 3,000 people. Well, this is a Buddhist’s idea, anyway. Among the 3,000 people, the degrees of the relationship are all different. For example, the degree varies from the closest ones, like parents, siblings, wife, girlfriend, to the people you met just once in your life. You may ask yourself these questions: Why do I have special, deeper, and closer relationships with certain people compared to others among the many I meet in my life? Why I was born as a Korean in Korea? Why not in the USA or Africa? Well, the answer would be, because I have Korean parents, right? But then, why are my parents my parents? On the other hand, why might I meet someone only once in my life? I think you can find answers in the relationships or links or strings of past life and the past world. I am convinced by the idea that we had certain relationships before this life, so that they are still linked or connected to us now, and our encounters and relationships of the present will continue in the next life as well. To me, in-yeon means that the consequences of your behavior and what you had in a past life result in our present relationships and encounters…. this idea is just natural to Asian people, specifically Koreans. For example, when a person meets or sees another person, Koreans or Asians don’t look at the person as just a physical entity, but try to find out other aspects such as the person’s background and web of relationships, aspects that are the invisible and intangible qualities of a person. It is about more than finding out someone’s personality. It is more like seeing a person within context. The Asian way of viewing a person yields a view that is more blurry but also more broad and comprehensive than the Western view of that person. It sounds funny, but there has been scientific research on this matter…. You know, we [Koreans] check each other's backgrounds all the time. We ask, “Which elementary school did you go to?” “Which region/hometown/military unit do you belong to?” Americans sometimes do that too, but much less than Koreans do, I think. In some sense, Western people look at a person as a fundamentally individual entity, separate from the background, while we Koreans look at all the surroundings together. So if I made a work that related to in-yeon, I don’t need to explain that to Koreans. But for Americans, even though they may have their concept of that, it is not that important, so when the Americans look at Paratrooper, they try to analyze the individual materials I use in the piece, such as the strings or the human figure,

instead of taking in the artwork as a whole. It seems like my piece is more opaque to non- Koreans. (personal interview, January 5, 2006) For Koreans, in particular, this idea of in-yeon infuses their perceptions and behavior in their everyday lives. Accordingly, the approach of Western audiences and Korean audiences to Suh’s work is very different. In several reviews, Suh’s work was mentioned as site-specific artwork (N. J. Yun, 2003). I asked him what the site-specificity in his artwork meant. He answered, Yeah, mostly it is. But some are not site-specific pieces. A site-specific piece…does mean that something was either triggered by the space or used the conditions of the space, and so it is more integrated with the space than just a sculptural object. That’s what I mean by “site-specific.” (personal interview, January 5, 2006) In light of Suh's comments it can be assumed that the term site-specific artwork does not describe his work very well. Recently in art history, many artists have considered site-specific artwork to be public art. Site-specific artwork refers not only to the artwork’s physical status or functional existence in the space, but also to the contextual space surrounding the work. Such artwork affects the community in the particular area where it exists, as it typically deals with certain history and traditions. Richard Serra's 1981 Tilted Arc at 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan, Jorge Pardo’s 2001 installation and redesign of New York Dia Art Center’s bookstore floor and wall, and Alfredo Jaar's (1996) Rwanda Project, which was made in Rwanda and placed in the Galerie Lelong in New York, are examples of such site-specific artwork. Several critics also have described Suh’s work as minimalist (S. J. Kim, 2003). However, as Meyer (1968) said, minimalism is “anti-form art” (p. 267), a view that derives from a vaguely Marxist dissatisfaction with factory technique. In general, artwork cannot be separated from its aesthetic form. Artwork has to be “object-type work” (p.267). As Meyer (1968) noted, the “minimal” label is a narrow categorization among art critics; artists never consider themselves minimalists, and there is no reason to adhere to such an identity. Therefore, to categorize Suh’s work as site-specific sculpture or minimalist artwork is to engage in inaccurate generalizations and simplifications.

Figure 13. Do-Ho Suh. (2003-2004) Paratrooper I. (Detail).

Interpretation

Paratrooper I seems to refer to the relationship between the individual and society, and to represent, in particular, a hero story. The world can be placed in the context of the larger world, which would include both Korean and American societies and people. The hero story of the work reminds me of is Albert Camus’s (1955) The Myth of Sisyphus, the story of a famous tragic hero. According to Camus, “The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor” (p. 119). Sisyphus continuously works everyday at the same task: rolling a stone. Camus viewed Sisyphus as the absurd hero who comes to a conscious realization of the nature of his task:

The workman works everyday in his [or her] life at the same tasks, and this fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious. Sisyphus, proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows the whole extent of his wretched condition: it is what he thinks of during his descent. The lucidity that was to constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory. There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn. (p. 121) Camus’s point is that Sisyphus is a hero because he is aware of his condition and his ability to choose how he will experience it. When he returns toward his rock, and his suffering and sorrow is about to begin, the tragic hero becomes happy with his melancholy and fidelity. Here, I apply Sisyphus’s story to the artist’s expression of the paratrooper who is ceaselessly pulling out the giant parachute. The artist is aware of the task of the individual in conflict with the giant weight of the parachute and the amount of threads he is pulling and holding. In this sense, I consider the paratrooper to be a tragic hero that is conscious of the human condition. This tragic human condition can be found in several of Suh’s early works, such as High School Uni-Form (1996) and Karma (2003). I view Paratrooper I as both a self-portrait and a group portrait from the artist’s perspective. I interpreted the artwork using statements from several interviews with Suh, and looked for connections to Suh's artistic, personal, and social identity. Suh said that the paratrooper series, including Paratrooper I, has special meaning and personal importance because he feels they are like “self-portraits” (personal interview, January 5, 2006). I see the soldier as Suh himself, and the monument as a representation of his status as an artistic hero. The parachute represents the societies in which the artist belongs, and the signatures and threads are his relationships with Korean relatives and the international art community. The shiny pink threads, the other end of the black red beads, and blue whole parachute sculpture signify his image of his societies, both Korean and international, as epitomized by New York. In Paratrooper I, my impression was that the soldier pulling out the parachute is heavily burdened, though eager to do it because it is meant to be. In this sense, I see the soldier sculpture as a self- portrait in relation to the human condition. The subject of the piece is a paratrooper, “a soldier trained to be dropped from an aircraft by parachute” (Oxford English Dictionary, 2005). The paratrooper comes from an original troop or group, in the name of a land or people, and he can descend safely by parachute to a different

place. The parachute is a savior, in the work, and in real life, because it is a device that is actually used to save lives. But after he lands on the ground, he doesn’t need to carry the heavy parachute; it is time to fold it. This scenario reminds me of the tension between the individual who leaves his country of origin and the collective groups in the place from which this person came. In High School Uni-Form, Karma, and Paratrooper I, the rigidity and standardization (uniformity) in the sculptures represent Korean society or societies in general and the mindset of the people and the human condition as perceived by the artist, in light of his experiences with the militaristic orientation of any country. An individual in a society may be tied and regulated by group conventions and relationships. Thus, when group energy has to be concentrated for a national goal, members of the nation including Koreans can be powerful, in the same way the shiny and illuminating pink threads are powerful in Paratrooper I. The grouping together of individual threads, or individual national sentiment creates a powerful fabric of nationalism. Paratrooper I tells us about Suh’s perceptions of communities and societies as informed by his life experiences and relationships while living in Korea and New York. At first viewing, I felt that Paratrooper I was a hero story, but after a thorough analysis of the work, I feel that it can more accurately be described as both a self-portrait and a group portrait.

Do-Ho Suh: Paratrooper II

Figure 14. Do-Ho Suh. (2005). Paratrooper II. Monofilament, resin, nylon, poly organza, powder-coated stainless steel armature. 192 x 180 inches diameter 487.7 x 457.2 cm. The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia.

Reaction

The attitude of the sculpture can be considered passive or submissive. Immediately, I inferred that the artist implied a relationship between the Korean community and himself. Paratrooper II seemed to me to be a “self-portrait” of Suh as a border-crosser and diasporic person.

Figure 15. Do-Ho Suh. (2005). Paratrooper II. (Detail).

Description: Physical Qualities and Formal Analysis

Paratrooper II is made up of a group of figures (combined to represent a huge parachute) and one solitary paratrooper hanging down under the group. The protagonist is the solitary knitted human figure of the paratrooper suspended in the middle of the room. The figure is bigger than life and inside it is hollow. At first glance, it seems obvious that the single paratrooper is the predominant hero of the piece, however, its attitude and the way it hangs make it seem vulnerable; its upper body is bent forward and it is seamlessly dependent on the parachute. The paratrooper doesn’t have a head, formed by the arrangement of the cloth, and giving one the impression of a doll or hand puppet. The figure is not resisting and seems to have no will to move at all. The upper group of figures that form the parachute appear to completely control the puppet with their many threads, which bind him completely. The decapitated figure must hang the way it does because all the threads from the parachute are attached to his back and arms. The parachute, paratrooper, and connecting threads are all of the same colorful red, white, and gray monofilament. The very large parachute hanging from the ceiling is made from a group of polyorganza blouses. The chute is composed of six concentric circles of two hundred and twenty five of these delicate and individually-sewn polyorganza blouses. The chute is fully open, and the paratrooper has not yet landed. The parachute is very big for the paratrooper, who looks overwhelmed and lethargic. The combination of colors within the parachute include vermilion (vivid red), brown red, dark red, pink, white, and gray. The blending of colors without boundaries is reminiscent of blood. The hero paratrooper is made of a mostly white color with a little bit of red and gray. Since lights illuminate the paratrooper, the colors appear very bright, and the paratrooper just cannot help being the center of attraction. However, different materials compose the parachute and the paratrooper. The parachute, a group of blouses, is sewn with delicate threads like nylons, while the paratrooper is knitted with monofilaments that make the paratrooper look like an empty figure. Because of the air conditioner in the room, the parachute and the paratrooper drift slightly. The parachute was suspended in a very high position in the room, so that what was most visible was the paratrooper at eye level. To see the parachute, I had to look up all the way to the ceiling. Paratrooper II evoked a completely opposite feeling from Paratrooper I because of its pessimistic and passive attitude. The colors were all hot or warm, unlike the cool blues of

Paratrooper I. In addition, Paratrooper I stands firmly on the ground, while Paratrooper II depends entirely on his parachute as he drifts in the air.

Contextual Examinations

This sculpture shows the relationship between an individual and a group, which may refer to Suh’s experiences as an artist in both Korean and American societies. The individual’s tragic passivity is shown also another of Suh's works, Karma (2003).

Figure 16. Do-Ho Suh. (2003). Karma.

In Karma, a couple of huge legs in dark gray trousers and black shoes are stepping on a large group of people. The shoes crunch ruthlessly on everyone in their path, from back to front. The contrast between the giant legs and the ant-sized people is reminiscent of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. While the Gulliver legs step pitilessly on the heads and bodies of many of the tiny people, the others can only run. Old, young, women, and men – all run ardently, solemnly, and earnestly. Even if those in the front are able to escape the steps, they will be forever running. The giant’s steps and shadows may dictate the direction that the people will follow. However, the situation can be reversed; perhaps the people dictate the giant’s direction. Karma and Paratrooper II have several elements in common. Each contains a hero and suggests the inevitability of a continuous, even eternal, task, as well as an enduring relationship between an individual and a group. Yet the two works seem different in important ways. In Karma many people are controlled by one individual, while in Paratrooper II, many people control one individual. In a personal interview, Do-Ho Suh explained that in Karma, the person wearing the shoes represents an individual in one of the groups at the upper stratum of society. According to Suh, the relationship and the stratum continue between an individual and groups (personal interview, January 5, 2006). Barragan (2004) interpreted Paratrooper II in terms of Suh's relationship to his home in Korea and the personal space he creates in his home. Finding “personal space” in an unfamiliar place is central to Suh. In his 2004 statement in the catalogue of the Sydney Biennale, Suh states: I am interested in the space that surrounds me and moves with me both physically (clothing, house) and mentally (space of memory). My desire to guard and carry around my very own intimate space makes me perceive space as infinitely movable. According to Barragan (2004): [Suh’s] notion of personal space leads inevitably to a socio-political position of occupation that can be translated in the relation between the subject and society, between the power of a few and the anonymity of the masses, between the fragility of the individual and the strength of the community. (Exhibition Catalogue, 2004) Suh explained how he came to express his personal vision through his art education in the United States:

I wasn’t really trained to express my feelings or thoughts on art [in Korea]. So it took me an entire semester to just say, ‘I like this work’ or ‘I don’t like this work.’ And then, gradually, I started to learn how to talk about my art. And ironically, I had never talked about my art in Korean before. I feel more comfortable actually talking about my work in English than in Korean. That’s something that I find interesting. So when I give a lecture in Korea, for example, I realize myself actually translating my thoughts in English into Korean. So yeah, it’s a funny thing. (Art:21, n.d.) During an interview with me on December, 13, 2005, Suh explained that the reason he wasn't able to adequately develop as an artist in Korea was that the Korean education of his time was Japanese in style, enforcing a hierarchical relationship between teachers and students. In addition, the educational facilities in Korea lacked supportive equipment and an effective studio environment. As Suh noted, Anyhow, I decided that I wanted to study sculpture in college, since I loved to make things. I started to reconsider doing the sculpture major, though, after I heard that you have to practice sculpting clay busts of classical Roman and Greek statues in order to prepare for the college entrance exams for the sculpture major. I really hated doing those busts. On exam day, you have to make a bust in only three hours, and it has to be very realistic. I thought that was crazy. I think there was and still is a big problem with the art education in Korea. Pretty much all the art education prior to college is focused on preparing a student for the college entrance exams. To prepare for these exams, students spend all of elementary school, middle school, and high school practicing realistic drawings and sculptures. The focus is on knowing how to do classical European busts with clay and with pencil. I just hated preparing clay in the middle of the frigid winter. Man, the clay was so cold in my hands, and it was so frustrating to work on the same kind of bust over and over in that way! So, I changed my mind and decided to become a painter. I finally got into the painting department of Seoul National University in 1981. (personal interview, January 5, 2006) Another reason that Suh found it hard to make progress in his artistic practice in Korea involved the historical events that occurred when he was in art school:

I was in college from 1981 to 1987, which was the most problematic and difficult time in contemporary Korean history. This period in the 1980s was the so-called Fifth Republic of Korea right after the May 18 Gwangju massacre. There were student protests all the time, every day. You could smell tear gas all the time. The riot policemen stayed on campuses; there were too many demonstrations. People were arrested and tortured. It was just a very turbulent time…I didn’t [have many classes during the time]. Students tried to boycott the classes and that was very sad…. It was a very sad and unfortunate time in our history. In high school, there are a lot of hard subjects like mathematics which I still don’t think are necessary for everyone to take. But, once I got to college, I was really motivated to study hard and learn all that I can about those subjects I was really interested in. But, the political situation on campus and in the country at large interrupted my studies. The class boycotts put a lot of students in a very uncomfortable situation. You came to college to study and you worked so hard to get there, but then…everyone was so worried about the political situation. We were all sympathetic and outraged about the Gwangju people who were killed and wounded by the military. I was torn so much between my personal passion and desire, and the greater cause. I am pretty sure that I was not the only one who felt that way. It seemed like there was no way out. It was a very dark and depressing time for everyone. But I didn’t like the way that some students who were more politically engaged were actually forcing other students not to go to class. I don’t think that was democratic. You were seen as part of the problem if you didn’t align yourself with the politically active people and boycott the classes…. This is the so-called 386 generation—people who are now in their 30s, were educated in the 1980s, and were born in the 1960s. I am part of that generation and the current administration is also part of it… that was the environment I grew up in. (personal interview, January 5, 2006). Barragan (2004) concluded that Suh’s work is best expressed by the idiom, “I am the space where I am.” In describing Suh's work, the catalogue of The Fabric Workshop and Museum (2005) stated, “The paratrooper series marks a continuation of Suh’s interest in the increasingly transient nature of a global culture and in his personal reflections on the

experiences of landing in a foreign culture.” Dana (2002), in the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art catalogue, wrote: Dislocation, displacement, and alienation are common immigrant experiences, which, while destabilizing, offer a chance to retrace one’s past: tradition, experience, and memory. No matter the circumstance of departure from the home country- émigré or refugee, exodus, forced diaspora, or privilege – one is still a stranger in a foreign place, or a foreigner in strange place, depending on who’s defining whom. (http:www.kemperart.org/exhibits/CatalogEssays/DoHoSuhEssay.asp.) The Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (2002) extended these ideas about Suh's work in this way: The idea of the global village is of keen interest to [Suh], and his works often address the complicated issue of cultural difference. Many of his works embody a tension between the American emphasis on the individual and the Korean celebration of collective society. (http://abcasiapacific.com/apt/artists/suh.htm) In interviews with Suh, I asked about his images of his community, such as family, friends, and colleagues. Suh said that family actually becomes more important when he is in Korea, and friends and colleagues become more important when he is in New York, since he doesn’t have any family in New York. Suh has discussed the connection between his past work, Seoul Home (1999), and Paratrooper series. Suh said that when he was making Seoul Home, he made a drawing of a house that was a kind of parachute: A paratrooper is descending from the sky with the house-parachute over his head…It is a Korean house. [The] drawing is about my feeling of displacement. Paratroopers are soldiers dropped into enemy territory. They have to survive using any means. They certainly cannot survive without the parachutes that allow them to land on the ground softly so they don’t crash…My transportable Korean house has been my parachute. (Corrin, 2002, p. 39) Therefore, Suh made Seoul Home, as well as a related piece, The Perfect Home (2002), in order to survive his displacement from Korea to the West (Corrin, 2002). Suh created both works in New York (Mizota, 2003). The artworks are fragile, translucent, detailed fabric replicas of his family’s traditional home in Korea and his own apartment in New York, including even the light

switches on the walls. Suh's extreme attention to detail explains a great desire to translate and recreate a sense of home from one country to another. The difference between the two is that Seoul Home is a kind of ghost house made of green silk hanging from the ceiling. While it displays traces of the original home it is not complete or functional, because the audience cannot walk around or touch it. The Perfect Home (2002) is made of silk and industrial nylon with pink and gray color on the floor. We can walk around the house, and down the corridors and touch the doors and light switches. Seoul Home evokes a melancholy attachment of memory to an intimate space of the past. At the same time, it gives the concept of a nomadic and portable notion of home. Simultaneously melancholy and adaptive, it advances a concept of a personal migratory space that is echoed in Suh's Paratrooper series. Suh's use of fabric as an artistic material is, in a way, a means for him to deal the subject of displacement and transportability. Suh explained his initial emotional response to his displacement: “When I first came to the U.S., life was about survival. I wondered how I was going to place myself in this space that I didn’t have any relationship to” (Dana, 2002). Suh elaborated on this theme in an interview with Corrin (2002): You are in between two or three cultures and just wandering around…I don’t really get homesick, but I’ve noticed I have this longing for this particular space, and I want to recreate that space or bring that space wherever I go…I felt that I was granted a new body when I came to America. I was dropped into a strange, foreign space. (p. 33) Suh explained that Seoul Home is about “carrying the personal space of my childhood memories with me, and taking my nostalgia into the space where I currently live. It addresses issues of separation, migration, loss and longing” (Corrin, 2002, p.33). Yet, at the same time, as he showed in The Perfect Home (imitating a New York apartment), Suh explained that after he moved from Korea to the United States and later adjusted to New York life, he didn’t know “how to place myself in this space.” (personal interview, January 5, 2006) He previously had described his paratroopers in similar terms: "These people are dropped into combat out of nowhere, and they have to learn how to survive” (Clifford, 2002, p. 103). Nevertheless, Suh found that "every time I come back to New York, I feel like certain things are very comfortable because I’m surrounded by more strangers than in Seoul. Somehow that makes me more comfortable so I can relax more [in New York]” (Art: 21)

Kraynek (2001) described the nomadic nature of Do-Ho Suh’s artwork as “poetically mobile” (p. 44), because it expresses the intrinsically transportable and translatable characteristics of internationalism, globalism, and trans-nationalism. As Firstenberg (n.d.) stated, “We experience the space as memory inhabits us—disjointed, obscured, decipherable, estranged” (http://www.lab71.org/issue06/171sectionF1/171sectionF1.html) The brochure created for Suh's 2005 exhibition at the Philadelphia Fabric Workshop and Museum noted that Suh draws upon “personal experiences of dislocation from a homeland and native culture,” and “constructs of homesickness and the nature of nationalism” (p. 1). In an interview with Corrin (2002), Suh said about his viewers, when the audiences walk around the artwork, which is embedded with the artist’s individual feelings, the space becomes something else to them, something more than a house in a Korean context. This is only natural, since the viewer brings to the work his or her own set of personal, social, and cultural reference points. When Suh sees exhibition visitors view his work, it gives him a strange feeling that his private and personal life has been exposed and revealed. However, this interaction between the artist and the viewers, through the artwork, transforms the piece. The international audiences with various nationalities and cultures share his experience in Korea and New York. Suh feels that American audience, “don’t necessarily have to know about all the specific references to Korean culture and architecture. The United States is a country of immigrants and Americans are always on the move. I think anyone who has left home and moved around understands the act of crossing boundaries” (Corrin, 2002, p. 39). In Do-Ho Suh’s first exhibition of work in New York, Suh (Stillion, 2002) explained his artistic approach to the audience “You don’t know what’s going on until you get very close, and then you discover that the whole wall is covered with faces. Your experience shifts and it becomes something else. I like the idea of you using all of your senses, not just eyes. I want you to feel [rather than just see]” (http://www.nwasianweekly.com/editorial/doho.htm ). In a one-on-one interview, I asked Suh about the differences between the responses to his art of Western audiences and Korean audiences. In discussing the reaction of a Western audience to one of his pieces Suh observed that: They didn’t know about the Korean culture and Asian culture that well compared to their own culture. Because of that, I think they had a tendency to see things with more…innocent eyes…. It was a wallpaper piece…but I want to talk about a general

tendency. Sometimes people impose their cultural backgrounds on my work and see things totally differently. On some level, they always see different things…. than Korean audiences [so Western and Korean audience perspectives are] different [from each other]. (personal interview, January 5, 2006) Kwon (2002) interpreted his work as brilliant representations of identity and power as they relate to society and individuals. Kwon suggested that Suh's work speaks to the relationships between collective and personal identities in a totalitarian society: Each work depicts the submission of individuals and their unique identities to a larger collective body in which the formal unity of the whole is dependent upon the uniformity and conformity of its parts. As models of individual subjects in relationship to collective social formations, be it a school, team, community, army, political party, or nation, Suh’s work seems to assert that unity and belonging requires sameness. This repression of individual difference and homogeneity of parts in many of Suh’s projects is an ambiguous vision of human collectivity. It signals a critical view of disciplinary regimes of power or affirms the subjugation of individuals as a necessary precondition for the constitution of a collective identity. Suh’s images of the renunciation of individualism resonate powerfully with traditional Korea/Eastern values, which consider self-sacrifice in the name of a larger society or political entity, like the family or a nation, to be a prime virtue. This virtuous submission of self to abstract notions of duty and honor is linked in Suh’s work to the colonization of subjects and bodies. It is unclear whether order and discipline is imposed from the outside or regulated from within. It remains uncertain whether the work represents the resistant strength of the masses withstanding the weight of dominant power structures or their complicity in sustaining these structures. (p. 12 - 13) Kwon (2002) extended her interpretation of the home series works and Floor not only in terms of Suh’s psychical and experiential reality but as a shared societal experience. The artwork explains how the individual perceives and deals with pressures related to collective identity and conflict, and moreover, the pressures and opportunities of globalization; how the individual is confused amidst individualism, universalism, and social pressure in a certain society. It [home or

collective identity] seems to have provided a sense of security in a foreign place. According to Kwon (2002): [There is an] uncertain status of personal and collective identity in the broader context of the profound reorganization of cultural, social, economic, and political life described today as globalization. All those people locked into one another, sustaining their collectivity, but for the mere purpose of resisting being crushed … ‘elegiac recognition of its historical passing,’ ‘issues of identity under the pressures of globalization.’ Despite their separation in terms of geographical reference and their presentation as independent works, they are bound together as a continuous terrain of Suh’s psychical and experiential reality. The home of the past, longing, desire, and memory, with its transparent, weightless appearance and ethereal color, hangs from the ceiling. Like a hallucination or a dream image, home is rendered unreal, and its space remains physically inaccessible to the viewers who gather beneath its delicate shadow, enraptured by its visually stunning presence (p. 17).

Interpretation

The Paratrooper series represents Do-Ho Suh’s self portraits. Paratrooper II is passive toward the environment or society, while the other Paratrooper I is fully and actively engaged in it. They are embedded with deep references to existentialism in light of the individual and the greater society. Thus, Suh tries to understand the purpose and meaning of life through his artistic expression. Paratrooper II looks like a hero, but again, it is a tragic hero. The figure reminded me of the character Meursault, who felt bound by fate in Albert Camus’s (1942) L'Etranger (The Stranger). Camus described the moment when Meursault was aware that he was surrounded by people: “For a moment I had an absurd impression that they had come to sit in judgment on me” (p. 11). Later in the book, Meursault explains before his death, going to the scaffold, For the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe. To feel it so like myself, indeed, so brotherly, made me realize that I’d been happy, and that I was happy still. For all to be accomplished, for me to feel less lonely, all that remained to hope was that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of execration. (Camus, 1942, p. 154)

It is something like Meursault’s negative response to the thought that he is judged and controlled by others that is visually and physically represented in Paratrooper II. The figure's passive mood can change depending on the paratrooper’s willingness. Since the big parachute is fully open, he has not yet landed, and he may be able to decide where he will land. Where he lands may depend somewhat upon the direction of the wind, but his point of descent also will reflect the paratrooper’s willingness and power. If he decides to land somewhere, the big parachute must follow him. Therefore, a tension exists between the paratrooper and the parachute. I feel sorry for the paratrooper; he seems so tired and overburdened. But he will be free as soon as he touches the ground. Then we don’t know what will happen to the parachute and the relationship between the parachute and the paratrooper; this will depend on the paratrooper’s decision. Yet as it hangs, he never touches the ground. Suh (Lehmann Maupin exhibition, 2004) stated in a press release, The paratrooper acts as a metaphor for being dropped into and surviving amidst a new environment, and thus, his reliance on his parachute for a safe landing is key. The singular threads in the work, none of which touch one another, bind and relate the isolated figure to the individuals represented by the signatures. [In Paratrooper II] these strands become deliberate lifelines equally responsible for the fate and existence of the individual…The Paratrooper series explores the notion of the individual as a cumulative product of his or her ancestry and culture. The vacant blouses form the all-encompassing parachute with the solitary figure of the paratrooper.

Figure 17. Do-Ho Suh. (2005). Paratrooper II. (Detail).

When I lay under the paratrooper to look up at the whole picture of the parachute, each individual jacket looked like a blood vessel. I felt as if I was under a big house – too big to see as a whole and too big for the paratrooper. And the distance between the parachute and the paratrooper also seemed so far away. The only connecting bond was the group of threads diffused into and sustaining the paratrooper, like blood. I wondered what Suh thinks of national groups, communities, and their blood connections, as well as their power to sustain an individual. The Paratrooper series is understood in terms of the diasporic and border-crossing context. The paratrooper has a very personal and paradoxical feeling toward nationalism and community. The work offers empathy and also a critique, reflecting inSuh's words, “a love and hate relationship” toward his perception of his native countries and communities. Suh grew up in a close-knit Korean community that included his family, friends, and colleagues; just as most Koreans do or other peoples do. After he left Korea, he was able to gain new perspectives and

opinions as he viewed his country from a distance. The collective thoughts, beliefs, and ideologies that he took for truth in his Korean society simply did not apply in another society, America. Suh used powerful images to create a portrait of both the societies and communities that he experienced. In Karma, the Gulliver’s shoes may be considered a government or an elite or Western politics or European fashion, but at the same time, this individual is also a member of another systems and societies. Set in the artist's perception is also the rigidity, standardization, and uniformity of societies and the mind set present in Korean or American culture. As Suh has explained in interviews, this society is not only Korea which based on a military system but also most of the nations and countries that restrict and regulate individuals through group conventions and relationships. This is the human conditions what Suh percepts. Yet because of this predominant mindset, when group energy is required to achieve a national goal like the World Cup soccer game or Korea's First Five-Year Economic Development Plan, the national peoples can join together in a powerful way, like the shiny and illuminating pink threads of Paratrooper I. In this work, the grouping together of each thread, like the collective force of national sentiment, creates a powerful fabric of nationalism. This may be because the artist has experienced and sensitively because aware of the national sentiment in Korean and America. The Buddhist-inspired philosophical positions that are expressed by Suh in the interviews are very close to Western existential ideas about existence and individualism. In my view, Western audiences, and especially American audiences, are quite capable of comprehending the Eastern thought and philosophy portrayed in Suh’s Paratrooper II. In our modern world, economic, political, and cultural ties connect all of us – nations and groups as well as individuals. Since the world as a whole moves together, no one can escape the interconnectedness of relationships and systems. For the Korean border-crossing artist, although no one can escape from one’s background and nationality, a mutual dependency links each one us, as each in a group of paratroopers depends on the other to make a parachute in Suh’s Paratrooper II. In Suh's Paratrooper II, however, the parachute is made only of blouses without trousers, indicating an absence of legs with which to move.

Combined Final Interpretation/Evaluation of Paratrooper I & Paratrooper II

The Paratrooper series is visually fantastic, specifically illustrating the tension implicit in a power struggle, and contrasting color and light. The Paratrooper series is significant internationally because the work addresses issues of the human condition: the relationship between an individual and collective community in a society, and the life philosophies of both Eastern and Western thinkers through the multiple threads and beads on the tuft (at the end of threads). When I saw the sculptures for the first time, I thought the whole scene looked like heroic scenarios. After critically examining these artworks, however, I found them to be a powerfully direct and straightforward statement about group portraits. As a member of both Korean and international New York societies and a Korean border-crosser, Suh has experienced both societies and communities both from within and from without. To solve problems objectively, it helps to be outside of the space where the problems exist, but at the same time, one must have a deep experience of the problems from inside the space. Having lived both in the United States and Korea, Suh has both objective and subjective insights about Korean society. Whoever experienced the contradictions and political conflicts between individualism and collective group ideology can understand and feel what Do-Ho Suh has expressed in Paratrooper I and Paratrooper II.

Artistic Identity. When I asked about the meaning of his work, Do-Ho Suh answered, “Figuring out what is the purpose of life” (personal interview, January 5, 2006). Through making art, he said, he tries to understand the meaning of life. Suh said that his artistic mediums may change from one project to the next and may include fabric, plastic, and metals. First he gets an idea and then he searches for the right material for the project in order to express it. Most of the time these two processes happen simultaneously. Suh explained others’ interpretations and perceptions about his work and himself in terms of his artistic identity: I think my work is distinguishable from the works of other countries’ artists, but critics have a tendency to add a very specific “Korean” aspect to it that is not always there. For example, like the high school uniform project or my dog tags piece. Dog tags are pretty universal, since every country uses them. I think the shape of the piece, though, somehow reminds people of Asian clothing, like kimonos [traditional Japanese clothing] or

hanboks [traditional Korean clothing]. So then, when they know the artist is a Korean guy, they assume that the shape is from Korean culture. But no, it’s not—it is from the lining of a U.S. military jacket! So, it’s not Asian at all. It’s just something that people wanted to project onto my work. A lot of people assume that I am female, just because I use fabric in my works. Before they meet me, a lot of people think I am a woman. Even some critics have made similar mistakes in their writings. (personal interview, January 6, 2006) Suh noted that his artwork does not only represent Korean cultural or artistic heritage, but universal meanings and aesthetic concerns. I asked whether his work also represents his personal identity or national identity. He stated, My artistic practice is about me negotiating my ever-changing surroundings. Often my work has autobiographical references. So, I mean, people talk about and write about issues of identity in my work quite often, but I don’t make a piece of art just to represent my identity or my national identity. These issues just come as part and parcel of my work. You know, I just make my works. The issues of identity may not be my main interest, although you can find them in the fabric of the larger piece. Suh's work is exhibited throughout the international art world, but whether he shows in Korea, New York City, Paris or Venice, all the audiences are different to him. He said very practically, I show my work in exhibitions simply because there is a demand to show art…. The end product of making the art, showing it in exhibitions, museums, and galleries…this is allimportant, and I believe in that whole system. I am in it. However, to tell you the truth, the process is more important to me. Artists can only be truly free in that process, the process of making art. (personal interview, January 5, 2006) Suh's statement is a very American-style (practical) artist response.

Personal Identity. A major turning point in Suh’s life and career came with his move to the United States. He said that his life has utterly changed since he has lived and worked in New York. He explains, Yes, definitely. I think the way I see things, the way I think, and the way I live my life have all changed. Once you leave the place of your origins and start to live in a different

country, you become more aware of your surroundings and yourself. You start to see the differences, and, well, using a technical term, you are able to maintain a critical distance from everything, basically. Something that you believed was the truth back in Korea is not necessarily a truth in the United States, so when you realize that…then it totally screws up your way of looking at things, your perceptions, and you start to question things that you never questioned before. So that was the most important benefit that I got when I came to the United States. I mean, it could have happened anywhere; if I had left Seoul to go to Japan, for example, I would have had the same experience, I think. This experience has made me more open to other things than I was when I lived in Korea. I am more open to accepting difference since I came to the U.S. (personal interview, January 5, 2006) I also asked Suh during our interview (January 5, 2006) whether his experiences in Korea and in North America have been very different from each other. He replied, “Every culture and every race has their own traits. And yes, they are different, sometimes very subtle and sometimes very obvious. I have a tendency to take the best out of each culture.” As a border-crosser, the artist seems to live in between Korean and American thought and belief. As a border-crossing person, Suh may see his original community and society as, to a certain extent, oppressive and repressive, based on its geographical situation and his position in between Korea and America. Since Suh is renowned in the international art world, I asked him if he felt that he represents Korea on the international stage. He said: I don’t think I am someone who is like an ambassador promoting Korean culture or Korean art. I don’t think that way at all. I am just too busy doing my own thing. But—I think other people might think of me that way. Again, it’s their problem, not my problem. Well, for example, the Korean media would say about me, ‘This artist who represents Korea overseas,’ something like that…. I hated it. You know why? It has nothing to do with who I am and how I feel about it. People just label me that way, well, just for themselves. (personal interview, January 5, 2006) Also in explaining how non-Korean people look at his identity and how he, in fact, looks at his own identity, Suh declared, What people say about the issues of identity in my work is, ironically, a reflection of their own understanding and interpretation. It is not really my concern. I am busy dealing with

other stuff. Most of the time, people try to represent me as a Korean, a Korean man, I guess…. Of course, this is inevitable, since I am a Korean man…. I grew up in Korea and lived there until my early thirties, and I am used to a different culture from what is prevalent here. So, my work naturally may present things that seem exotic or simply different from what American audiences are used to (personal interview, January 5, 2006). He explained why he didn’t want to be called a “Korean-born artist” in the United States: I have lots of problem with this. A lot of people here in the United States, they call me a Korean-born artist. I wish I was not labeled as any of these. But, at the same time, I realize that is probably impossible. That fact is, I am a Korean, so it’s very natural for them to be labeling me that way. (personal interview, January 5, 2006) Thus, though Suh would prefer that he be seen simply as an artist, he acknowledged that because he is Korean and does work that sometimes refers to his national background, the way the Americans refer to him is inevitable and natural.

Social Identity. Suh noted that when American audiences encountered his work Paratrooper I, their sense of the concept behind it – characterized as in-yeon in Korean – is not the same as that of Koreans. Further, Suh found that, in general, Americans tended to analyze the component materials of his works, such as the strings or the human figure, rather than seek a holistic view of the artist's larger meaning and concept. These contradictory perceptions and responses to Paratrooper I and II reveal different social aspects of both the Korean community and the multicultural American community, both of which have impacted Suh's personal and social identity. As an example, Suh mentioned how Koreans prefer to say “we” and “our” rather than “I” and “my,” so that when a Korean player or artist becomes internationally renowned, Koreans consider her or his success as a national success. Koreans who become widely successful outside of Korea become national heroes, just as in other post-colonial and post- independence countries (personal interview, January 5, 2006). Further, Suh's image of Korea is paradoxical and very personal: My image of Korea…it’s kind of a love/hate relationship. I love certain things in Korea so much, but there are also a lot of things that I don’t like, so…it’s very hard…well, for one thing, I think Koreans are very emotional. I like that quality, but at the same time,

when things need to be professional, that emotional quality in Koreans works against what you want. That was just something that popped into my head. If someone is too emotional, then that person is not acting as rational as they should. You know, you have to maintain a balance. (personal interview, January 5, 2006) The dilemma of how to balance personal freedom and social responsibility is basic to existentialistic thinking about the human condition. The contrast between the strong pink and blue colors of Paratrooper I and between a group and an individual of Paratrooper II made me think of the contradictions between individual and group identity. Further, it reminded me of Sysiphus, who kept to his job and responsibilities, and Meursault in L’Étranger, who is accused by others because his behavior is bound by social regulation and personal anguish. Paratrooper I represents this human condition, illustrating both personal and social identity through Suh’s artistic sensitivity and skills.

Final Holistic Evaluation

Living in the United States, individualist and multicultural nature more affect to the border-crossing artist, Do-Ho Suh, rather than homogeneous or monocentric familyhood. In the U.S., “I” tends to be more significant than “we,” as he says, an individual lives more for oneself rather than for the nation or group to which he or she belongs. Suh sees clearly the differences when a person lives both in Korea and America. Suh feels that his nationality no longer controls him, because he is more than a Korean only now that he lives outside of Korea. The nation- related names and labels that people give him do him no favor, because this inappropriate labeling provides a kind of pressure to act in accordance with the label. While Suh was able to accept as inevitable the American label of a “Korean-born artist in the United States,” he resisted being called “the proud Korean who works overseas” by Koreans, because unlike the former label, it is not a fact. The more Suh becomes renowned, it seems, the more he departs from his specific names connected to his Korean origins. Suh’s Paratrooper I and II tells us about a border-crossing individual’s conflicts and struggles in the connection between his society of origin and his new environment and individual insights. The artwork itself mirrors the artist’s experience of the two societies and his border-crossing identity. When I saw the two works, the impression of Paratrooper I was very active, and the other, Paratrooper II, was very passive. Upon further observation, however, the paratroopers appeared strong – the

small paratrooper because of its illuminating metal and heavy statue, and the larger paratrooper because of its real body size. Both identities were male. Paratrooper I and II are straightforward and simple in terms of story, and they speak clearly and directly. I haven’t seen such social criticism of a society or the human condition in any other artwork. Do-Ho Suh reveals to the audience a communal society’s unspoken rule: social pressure. This ability to comment from a distance is the special role of border-crossing artists, who are outside of their original societies and live in a strange place.

II. Kimsooja: Cities on the Move-2727 Kilometers Bottari Truck

Figure 18. Kimsooja. (1997- 2001). Cities on the Move-2727Kilometers Bottari Truck.

Figure 19. Kimsooja. (1997-2001). Cities on the Move-2727 Kilometers Bottari Truck

Reaction

The film scene is very quiet and solemn, even lonely. I feel quiet happiness from the solitariness of the images, but at the same time, sadly missing something, and kind of nostalgic. Looking at the scene, I feel myself inside the film like the woman on the truck, sitting in an unusual pose on a truck moving along outdoors, feeling free and proud in some way. Time passes and the truck is moving past a landscape. In the middle of the screen, one woman is sitting on a stack of colorful wrapped bundles. The woman and wrapped bundles are on the bed of the moving truck. The landscape is reminiscent of an Asian or Chinese landscape painting, giving a poetic feeling of solitude in an empty landscape. It seems morning or noon or afternoon on a quiet highway. In this way, the movie shows time and space.

Figure 20. Kimsooja. (1997). Cities on the Move-2727 Kilometers Bottari Truck

Description: Physical Qualities and Formal Analysis

Cities on the Move-2727Kilometers Bottari Truck (1997- 2001) is a performance video project made in Korea. This performance involved an eleven-day journey throughout several Korean cities by truck. This silent video is seven minutes long, and runs in a continuous loop. The camera shows the back of a truck, and may have been placed in another car behind the truck. The screen shows the snowy landscape in the background, a stack of colorful wrapped bundles on the back of the truck, and a woman wearing plain black clothes and a long black pony tail sitting a top the bundles. The woman is steady in the middle of the screen. She seldom moves her

body, except her head, which moves with the direction of her gaze. Her black ponytail trembles slightly in the light wind. From her profile, I assume that she is a middle-aged Asian woman. The woman sits on a stack of wrapped bundles, called bottari in Korean. The bundles are fastened with strong black rubber bands to the back of the truck. The wrapped bundles are pink, red, yellow green, light blue, cobalt blue, pink with flower prints, yellow, and purple. Many look as if they are made of silk. The colors stand out in the monochromatic scene of the moving truck. The logo “HYUNDAI” and the truck’s light blue color sometimes show. It is winter. In the background, a snowy mountain and dark monochromatic trees look like a white and black landscape. They contrast with the colorful bundles. The truck passes by other cars, highway super-mirrors at curbs, and side traffic signboards. An electrical pole with wires can be seen along the roadside, so it may not be an uninhabited mountain. I can see some Korean letters on the signs and cars. Many cypress trees, which usually exist in the colder areas of the northeast Korean, also can be seen. The trees have few colors and leaves, and have been planted in rows like combed hair. The green plastic mesh along the cliff and hills makes me think that it is a reorganized Korean mountain, one that was cleared and where landslides may have occurred. It is a reclaimed highway and not a rough road, so many cars have already passed and left tire marks. I come to see that it is a Korean landscape of a suburban mountain. The woman and the landscape are black and white. The images have the feel of a Korean or Chinese painting or poem. It is a silent movie, and the woman’s point of view is the focal point. With her back to me, her gaze is on a level with my own. She is sitting on the bundles in the truck, looking at the mountain landscape around her. Her hand is on the wrapping bundles, and she seems deep in thought. She passively sits as it moves along and is not surprised by the scene. The bundles and the woman take up over fifty percent of the screen, but sometimes the mountains look bigger when the screen shows more of the landscape. For me, it evoked a nostalgic feeling, a feeling of missing home in Korea. I feel sure that if the video had been shot in a city or in another country it would be very different and give a very different impression. In the same way, if the season were summer and the atmosphere were bright and sunny, or if the season were autumn with its colorful red and green maple and yellow gingko leaves, the video would bring about entirely different feelings.

The bleak and desolate road in winter is a primary and powerful image that helps the viewers of Cities on the Move-2727Kilometer Bottari Truck to meditate.

Contextual Examinations

Cities on the Move-2727Kilometer Bottari Truck reveals both the Korean landscape and the artist’s experiences as a person born and raised in Korea. Kimsooja was born in South Korea and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Hong-Ik University in Seoul. For six months she studied in the lithography studio at L'Ecole Superieure des Beaux Arts in Paris with a grant from the French government. In 1992, Kimsooja received a grant from the contemporary art organization P.S.1, enabling her to come to the U.S. Cities on the Move-2727Kilometer Bottari Truck was made in 1997. This work sprung from Kimsooja’s childhood with her family, which moved many times around the country. Prior to creating this piece, Kimsooja visited Korea to revisit her memories of her childhood. Now she continues to follow her memory as she travels on her own new journeys. She explained: I grew up in a very sensitive and musical family. My two brothers are musicians and my mother studied music also. But my father was in the military service. So we lived in military zones, like D.M.Z. (Demilitarized Zone) areas a lot when I was a little girl. We moved a lot from one city to another, one village to another all the time, every year and a half or two. When I look back, I think, this kind of family situation in a way had a big influence on my current projects such as the Bottari, Cities on the Move, and Needle Woman projects. (personal interview, January 2, 2006) Kimsooja’s motivation to use bottari in her artwork comes from her emotional awareness and experience. Her ideas about the impermanency of existence come from the memory of sewing her grandmother’s clothes before she passed away and the mobility of her family life during her childhood, wrapping and unwrapping household goods and luggage, leaving people behind, and meeting new people in new and strange cities (Santori, 2003).

Figure 21. Kimsooja (1998). Bottari. Museum Fridericianum, Kassel.

Bottari (wrapped bundles of bedcovers). Bourriaud (2003) noted that Kimsooja’s bottari, composed of bedcovers, are objects of Korean daily life. Such bedcovers are given to newly–married couples in Korea, and covered with beautifully embroidered messages and wishes for love, fortune, happiness, many sons, and a long life in Chinese letter and symbols (Bourriaud, 2003). Keiji (2001) explained that the bottari of Kimsooja’s art is also used in Korea to swaddle newborn babies and to cover corpses on death beds. The bedcover fabrics are created as women learn to sew from their mothers, and then when they leave home, they wrap up their household possessions in the fabric and make a bundle. In 1983, Kimsooja discovered bottari as an art object while she was sewing a bedcover with her mother one afternoon in Korea (Bouriaud, 2003; Dziewior, 1999; Goodman, 2003; Zugazagoitia, 2003). The bedcover was one which her deceased grandmother had sewn and Kimsooja began to sew with her grandmother’s cloth (personal interview, January 2, 2006). As

she sewed a traditional bedspread and remembered her grandmother, she found a means of questioning and reconciling feelings about art and life (Dziewior, 1999). She explained, One day, as my mother and I were sewing a bed sheet, I made a surprising discovery, whereby my thoughts, my feelings, and my activities of the moment seemed to come into harmony. And I discovered new possibilities for conveying buried memories and pain along with the quiet passions of life. (Bouriaud, 2003, p. 29) Since that time, Kimsooja has used the fabric of daily life as a new canvas. Being tied to mourning, the act of sewing was with her grandmother's cloth was an intensely personal experience. Kimsooja's bedcovers shimmer with color, representing all the paradoxical feelings that stir memories and deep wounds about the absence of a person or a time (Bouriaud 2003). In a personal interview with me, Kimsooja explained her varied experiences with Western audiences and Korean audiences for her artwork: Sometimes national audiences are quite different from international audiences, because my earlier work is very much related to national identities and cultural issues. Korean audiences seem to have no distance from their own society and culture, so my work is often considered as one of popular objects which surround people in their daily lives that they don’t pay attention to anymore. But that is my point. I put a question in my work, [taking an object] out of its daily life context to draw the audience’s attention and to question our perceptions and redefine the meaning of our daily lives…As I told you before, when I exhibit in Korea, the context of my work is hidden rather than revealed as much as in the Western countries. Whenever I show in Western countries, the context of my work is much more clear and distinguishable against background of their own cultures and in relationship to Western art history. So Western audiences read my work in a more objective way, and they see the elements more clearly than many in the Korean artworld. (personal interview, January 2, 2006) What Kimsooja means is that Korean audiences in general see her object, bottari, as one of the many bottari that can be found throughout their country and culture as an object of daily life. So for Korean audiences:

Bottari … cannot be distinguished from their daily life and artwork. That’s one actual problem, I show in Korean society, but that’s also the reason why I started these works in Korean society…It seems rather that Korean people do not see the life. The Western people seem to see well the formalistical structure in the context of art history. Westerners look at certain meanings for a comprehensive understanding, such as around issues of globalization, migration, woman issues. Also, they interpret my work in the dimension of painting or sculpture. Bottari itself is a kind of sculpture and at the same time painting [drawing]. The reason why I think this way is that what I use is not wrapping clothes but bedcovers, the specific bedcovers for newly married couples. It has the meaning of love, fertility, long life, and many sons, and good luck, fortune and so on. In this way, I am wrapping a frame around life, and wrapping our agony, our pleasure, our pain, our life and death in it. But in Korea, when we say wrapping bottari, when a woman packs, (does up in a bundle), that means the woman leaves her own family (such as her husband and parents) to pursue her own life, and it is very much a link to feministic elements…In Korea so much is embedded in daily life, [Koreans] cannot see clearly the gap between life and art (personal interview, January 2, 2006). In other words, Koreans couldn’t fully appreciate and discovered the artistic beauty and subjects in their lives. Cecco (2004) explained that bottari introduces a personal experience, the poetic reflection on birth and death, the intimacy of a bedcovering, and bundles. Zugazagoitia (2004) also wrote about the eleven days Kimsooja travelled around towns and other places in Korea that held specific memories for her, as if she was bundling and sewing together her memories. Zugazagoitia (2004) perceptively interpreted Kimsooja’s work in light of the notions of localization and globalization: Kimsooja embodies the complexity of the globalization which both proclaims and denies the local spirit. Her work with textiles had a specificity that was linked to the Korean context of her origins. This opened up in the course of her peregrinations, gaining in breadth without cutting itself off from its roots, or disowning them. Her videos combine nature and the urban, the individual and the collective, the global and the local. The richness of her approach, in its discretion and subtlety, lies no doubt in her unique way of transcending divisions and resolving them in works that

place the spectator at the heart of an extreme questioning process, which for each individual becomes personal and intimate (p. 39). Szeemann (2001) identified the active elements of Kimsooja’s artistic practice - "sew, spread, fold, wrap, assemble, and tie - as “existential doing into the visual,” that is, “consciousness of the ephemera of our existence, of enjoying the moment, of change, migration, resettlement, adventure, suffering, of having to leave behind the familiar” (p. 19). Zugazagoitia (2004) similarly interpreted Kimsooja's work from an existential standpoint, arguing that Kimsooja’s life and actions function as an existence that is representative of our own.

Family life in Korea. Kimsooja explained that her childhood and family life brought to light her relationship with bedcover bundles and contributed to her works Bottari and Cities on the Move. Kimsooja grew up a Catholic who practiced Christianity, but she said that in the practice of Korean daily life there exists a great mixture of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Shamanism: If I hadn’t grown up and lived as a married woman in a Korean society, I wouldn’t have chosen these traditional bedcovers. In Korea, they have a special meaning as the bed is the site of birth and death – of sleeping, loving, suffering, dreaming, dying – it frames our existence…It is so easy to notice it’s a contradiction when we see these symbols. I can’t interpret my own culture with other culture’s materials in the same way… I try to find materials in their own context, but it always ended up with me bringing materials from Korea as theirs looked so neutral and hard to get the sense of the energy I feel from ours…My work is already made. I chose traditional Korean domestic [products] already made. I’ve been thinking more about people who owned and used the objects and their traces rather than the people who made or manufactured them…I’m noticing that they are symbolically genderized in form and function. My work also includes a presentation of the daily life of women’s labor and her domestic performance trying to re-define the social, cultural, and esthetic meaning of it to create its own context in contemporary art history. (Bouriaud, 2003, pp. 48-49)

The bedcover represents our frame of life and death, as well as its impermanency. The color and embroideries of those fabrics are brilliant and beautiful, while showing contradiction in the reality of life is not always bright or esthetic, but realistic, practical, and sober (Brewinska, 2003; Flaminia Generi Santori, 2003)

2727 Kilometers Bottari Truck. Cities on the Move-2727 Kilometers Bottari Truck (1997) was taken from Tae-Back Mountain, one of the highest mountains in the south coast of South Korea. The number 2727 are the kilometers Kimsooja traveled (personal interview, January 2, 2006). After spending time in the U.S., she gained a different perspective on her own culture and gender roles in Korean life. According to Kimsooja, she "re-confronted the society as a woman and a woman artist” (personal interview, January 2, 2006). She explained, My body is just another bottari on the move in the present, is tracing the past and, at the same time, is heading for the future, non-stop movement by sitting still on the truck. I used myself in this work, I tried to locate a more universal point where time and space coincide...Cities on the Move- 2727 Kilometers Bottari Truck emerged from the history of my family that moved from one place to another almost every two years, mostly near the DMZ area, because of my father’s job in the military. We were wrapping and unwrapping bundles all the time; we were endlessly in a new environment, leaving people whom we loved behind and meeting new neighbors, as we passed from one city to another, one village to another. We were, in fact, nomads, and I am continuing the nomadic life as an artist, a condition which has become one of the main issues in contemporary art and society. Yet I am also aware that migration is just an extension of nature and we are literally in a state of migration at every moment. (Jacob, 2003)

The metaphors in Kimsooja's work have been described as an allegory of global migration, reflecting back on her own cultural tradition and contemporary relevance (Dziewior, 1999). In an interview, Kimsooja stated: Cities on the Move is our mind and spirit sewing themselves into this whole globe…Bottari Truck is both object and process, traveling in space and time, so that we ourselves are alternately located at and dislocated from the place from where we came and towards which we are heading. Whenever we want to, we can always

recall a particular time, but we can never relocate our body with respect to that moment. A plane is an interesting object and site that connects one city with another and contains people on the move. I contain all my projects in my body, which I consider to be my studio. (Obrist, 2001, pp. 35-42) As an object that brings us to and from the place from which we came and to which we will return, Kimsooja uses Bottari (the bundle) as a transitory object, a complex, contradictory symbol of location and placelessness. The woman in the film can be anyone, yet this woman radiates “an immense loneliness – melancholy” (Bernhard, 2003, p. 248). In explaining the nomadic condition, Malsch and Meyer-Stoll (2003) argued that a nomad is "not someone without a home, on the contrary he [she] is someone who always and everywhere has his home with him…this home that one carries around is the home of memory and the awareness of where one happens to be” (pp.6-10). According to Kimsooja, “For me, finding my self as an artist, as someone live in a society… is always related to the ‘other’ the ‘foreign’” (Malsch and Meyer-Stoll, 2003, p. 10). Kimsooja has said, “Homeland exists only in our memory in this era.” (p. 10). Kafetsi (2005) stated that Cities on the Move- 2727 Kilometers Bottari Truck (1997) is Kimsooja’s journey into herself and others, and through the others, a journey into the world. In Bottari Truck, Kimsooja traveled to different cities and villages where she used to live, carrying colorful bottari on a flat-bed truck (Goodman, 2003). She considers the performance to have been a social sculpture, loaded with memory and history, which locates and then equalizes physical and mental space. Kimsooja has described an independent individual as one who looks at the world in one’s own way and who recognizes that one’s own path can sometimes meet with a broad stream of thought. But her isolation completely engages her audience through the performance as well. Some critics, such as Nakamura Keiji (2001) and Maria Brewinska (2003), have called Kimsooja’s work minimalist, because they believe that Kimsooja uses minimalist gestures like stillness in her performance.

Interpretation

Cities on the Move - 2727 Kilometers Bottrai Truck (1997) is about the human condition and the journey of life, which, for Kimsooja, begins with her memories of family life and community in Korea. The road in the piece is not only the one she used to travel on with her

family, but also represents journeys and the reframing of personal memories, both of which everyone experiences in their lives. As they grow into adults, most people pack their stuff and say goodbye to the communities from which they originated. Others, like Kimsooja, move while still children, experiencing sadness at having to leave close friends and family. Such individuals may be afraid to make new friends and get to know their communities again, or may fear they might not be welcomed by anyone. Thus, the diasporic experience may be very painful and might even cause an individual to feel panicked. Most of people’s journey continues in this way to many cities or cultures or relationships or jobs or lifestyles, just as Kimsooja's does from urban to countryside, to other countries, to urban and country areas, to natural landscapes and cosmopolitan cities in Cities on the Move - 2727 Kilometers Bottrai Truck (1997). The changing road may become our forever hometown. Kimsooja’s work evokes a sense of the peripheries of contemporary life and displacement, not only as a border-crosser and a member of the Korean diaspora, but also most of all mentally. Thus, Kimsooja’s experience of traveling throughout her childhood and throughout her country is a metaphor for the kind of migration, diaspora, and border-crossing experiences which many people experience in this globalized and multicultural world. On her journey on a truck, her bottari, her cultural heritage, has a double identity. In the stream of the globalized world and society, she is sitting on her own Korean beliefs and inheritance. Yet, a border-crossing person is no longer just a Korean or a certain national but also a cosmopolitan who lives in New York, in multicultural America. What Kimsooja sees is no longer simply the Korean landscape and people, but a broader view that incorporates a Western, and specifically American perspective. Through her performance, Kimsooja realizes this double identification and perception. She commented on this experience, stating, “We ourselves are alternately located at and dislocated from the place from where we came and towards which we are heading. Whenever we want to, we can always recall a particular time, but we can never relocate our body with respect to that moment” (Obrist, 2001, p. 42). What Kimsooja is confronting simultaneously are the perspectives of local and global, Eastern and Western, past and future, all together. She becomes a mediator and a connector between these binary perspectives. She is neither active nor passive, but sits naturally on the moving truck, as society and time pass, and what she comes to is an awareness that her experience is no longer the same as in her past life in Korea. Her memory and experience

become reconstructed and even ruined, as Benjamin (1920, 1955, 1998), Derrida (1976), and Binstock (2001) have mentioned.

Kimsooja: A Needle Woman

Figure 22. Kimsooja. (1999-2001). A Needle Woman. P.S.1., New York. USA.

A Needle Woman (1999-2001) is series of eight video installations that took place in eight cities: Tokyo (Japan), Shanghai (China), New York (USA), New Delhi (India), Mexico City (Mexico), Cairo (Egypt), Lagos (Nigeria), and London (England). Each of the eight silent videos lasts for six minutes and thirty-three seconds and loops continuously. A series of screens placed next to one another along the walls of a dark room show the same woman at the center, standing still. For the duration of the videos, masses of passers-by flow around this woman; most are attending to their business and pay no attention to the still figure.

In A Needle Woman, Kimsooja balances herself and manages to move through the flow of people and fabric of streets without seeming to move at all. I will describe my overall reaction to this work first, and then analyze my reaction to each of the individual videos. Overall, when I looked at the same standing woman and the people in the eight cities who surround her, I ignore the woman, looking for the similarities and differences among the eight cities and communities.

Shibuya, Tokyo

Figure 23. Kimsooja. (1999). A Needle Woman. Shibuya, Tokyo. Video stills.

Reaction

The city depicted in this video seems too busy. It is a well-developed modern city. Many people’s faces can be seen. This video reminded me of Korea. It was easy for me to notice the movements and figures all around the still ponytailed woman, and interestingly, I lost my attention to her in the midst of this. There is almost no interacton between the woman and the

pedestrians in this community around her. Overall, the video is very energetic but grayish in a little bit dark color.

Description: Physical Qualities and Formal Analysis

The people look Korean; the scene looks like a Korean road that is crowded and packed with students and young or middle-aged men and women. In the middle of the busy city, a woman with bound black hair stands with her back to the camera, unmoving. She is, in fact, the only person who is not moving or busy. People pass by the standing woman, casting glances at her way; some smile, some wonder, some glower, some return, and some stand behind her for a few seconds, but they all eventually pass her by. Two girls stand behind her and imitate her for five seconds and then pass. No one touches or accosts her. Most people pretend they do not see her. It is a modern, urban, very busy street. People are talking on their cell phones. The young students have colorful died hair and backpacks. People wear colorful clothes and hats. From far away, I can see junctions, buses, cars passing by, bazaar signboards, and two or three electric poles. The street looks like it is in a college town or near a shopping center. I can tell it is evening, because I can see some grayish red and yellow lights on in the street. While the people around her wear colorful clothes, the standing woman is a monochromatic figure in dark grayish clothes and black hair. The majority of the screen is gray. In some moments, one can only see the backs of people or their faces. At other times the figure of the woman takes up most of the screen, with the crowd of people serving as the background. The camera may be standing behind her or maybe someone is holding the camera, but there seems to be a distance between the camera and the woman. In general, the people that pass the woman by have emotionless, expressionless, and disinterested faces. But the camera doesn't miss the moments, the one or two seconds, when a girl smiles with great expression after passing the standing woman.

Shanghai, China

Figure 24. Kimsooja. (1999). A Needle Woman. Shanghai, China.Video stills.

Reaction

It is a very busy shopping street, another Asian street, but neither rich nor fashionable. Overall, the scene seems grimy, disordered, and bustling. When I saw this piece, it reminded me of both a Korean surburban countryside marketplace and Chinatown in Manhattan. The community of the city seems very humanistic; I saw much emotional and empathetic interaction between the woman and the pedestrians around her. In their facial expressions and gestures, people are curious about the woman and want to know about her.

Description: Physical Qualities and Formal Analysis

The woman is standing in the middle of an Asian middle class shopping street in the daytime. Middle class Chinese arcades and corner shops are on this crowded suburban street. The signboards are in Chinese and people look modern. The woman is standing in the middle of the screen and the camera is showing her back and the backs and faces of other people around

her. Some Western foreigners stop and look at the woman, standing in front of her. People pass her by, but it seems as if there are groups of people around her, since there is a space between her and other people. An old woman and schoolchildren stop and stand to the side of her. Jalopies with Chinese number boards and many bicycles pass by. Several people have hair that is uncombed. The people who ride bicycles wear suits or jackets and various kinds of clothes. They seem to be boring middle class people. People pass by quickly and just take a glance at her. She is the only person standing still. The paces of the people walking by are all different. Some walk slowly and others walk quickly, some glance at her and others stand and look at her. The scene is different from the one in Japan, where all pedestrians ignored her and passed her by quickly. Overall the colors are monochromatic and gray, except for the vivid corn yellow and red signboards.

Delhi, India

Figure 25. Kimsooja. (2000). A Needle Woman. Delhi, India. Video stills.

Reaction

The passing people evoke the sense of a mixture between Eastern and Western cultures. To me, this city and community seem very exotic or different because of their cultural costumes, appearance, gestures, and old style transportation. The transportation suggests 1930's Korean society, possibly during the Japanese colonial period, and makes me wonder why modern people still use it. I feel as if I have gone back in time with some sort of a time machine. I even checked the year to be sure that this movie was made in the twenty-first century. Overall, the scene is monochromatic and dull. People are curious about the standing woman, probably because her South Asian appearance makes her appear exotic to the community, so that she becomes a sort of spectacle to the community. The interest the people seem to take in the woman makes this society seem humanistic to me.

Description: Physical Qualities and Formal Analysis

It is a busy street lined with bazaars and small shops. After many people’s faces pass by, a woman appears standing with her back to the camera in the middle of a city. Working class people with dark brown skin and Western features like round eyes and prominent noses are all around. Many men have mustaches; some men wear turbans. Baggage bearers carry heavy loads from one side of the street to the other. People are on motorcycles and in small, rickshaw-style carriages pulled by people. These carriages seem to take the place of taxis. The woman in the middle of the screen with the long black ponytail is the only Eastern Asian person, thus coming from a different ethnicity than those around her. The owners of the market shops are standing and looking at her. One woman sporting a purple Indian-style cloth with a caste mark and a big red dot on her forehead passes by in a carriage. The people are short, tall, fat or thin; all look different. The standing woman looks like a sculpture, since she doesn’t move at all. People who are in cars or on bicycles compel her indirectly, waiting and checking to see whether she will move or not. When they find she will not move, they seem to give up and pass by her, creating a situation that is somewhat humorous.

New York, USA.

Figure 26. Kimsooja. (2000). A Needle Woman. New York, USA. Video stills.

Reaction

Immediately the scene evokes the sense of a mismatch: In the middle of a crowded, modern, urban Western city, a woman with black bound hair and grayish clothes stands still. Overall, the street and the people in the city around her are very energetic and bright, because of the presence of lots of sunshine and bright, light colors. The multiethnic and multicultural nature of the people who surround the woman, and the great varieties of fashions and appearances they display make me be comfortable and familiar with the community of this city. To me, the city and community seem more familiar than the standing, solemn woman.

Description: Physical Qualities and Formal Analysis

The title “A Needle Woman” appears on the screen. People of all colors and ethnicities appear: whites, Asians, blacks, and others, with all different hair colors as well. People’s clothes

are modern and fashionable. I can see small shops and art exhibition placards. The streets have a very modern and fashionable feel. It seems to be a very busy American city, and it is, in fact, New York. One man passes by the standing woman and then stops and imitates her as if to understand her perspective. Many people wear sunglasses; others carry water bottles and are very colorful and well dressed. Their clothes have short or long sleeves, light or heavy, all are different. The season seems to be early autumn or spring. People walk and gesture lightly, and it is pleasant to watch them. Only the woman in the middle does not move. Her clothing is a monkish gray and she wears her hair long and bound. She seems as if she has dropped down from another world through a time machine. She does not seem to blend in at all with this community.

Mexico City, Mexico.

Figure 27. Kimsooja. (2000). A Needle Woman. Mexico City. Mexico. Video stills.

Reaction

I don’t know where she is at first; obviously, she is not in Korea. The market street is very energetic and people are busy and colorful. There is not much interaction at all between the woman and the people on the street. People don't pay much attention to her and seem to pass by mindlessly. For me the community is very strange, particularly because the faces of the people appear neither expressive nor sensitive.

Description: Physical Qualities and Formal Analysis

After a woman who is holding her child on her shoulder passes from the screen, the Asian woman with the grayish clothing and the black bound hair is visible in the middle of the screen. Many vendors and shops are seen, and people are standing, buying, and eating on the street. The young and the old are on the street. Cotton candy and clothes vendors pass by. Shop parasols line the streets, and the scene is very colorful. After looking at it for some time, the city looks very Mexican. People have Western faces and brownish skin color. They are largely modern middle class people. In general, the people move slowly; they freely stop, return, and look back. Many laugh and smile; others stay expressionless.

Cairo, Egypt

Figure 28. Kimsooja. (2001). A Needle Woman. Cairo, Egypt. Video still.

Reaction

It seems now that the woman is in a Middle Eastern country. Again, she is not in Korea. This appears to be a multicultural and multiethnicity city of predominantly dark-skinned people. The interactions between the people and the woman vary. Some pay too much attention to the video camera, some just ignore, and even push her roughly as they pass on their way.

Description: Physical Qualities and Formal Analysis

Some of the women who pass by have covered their hair with a scarf and their whole body with fabric. Some women don't wear a scarf or cloth on their heads.Two men greet each other. They have brown-colored faces and Western features such as big eyes, noses, and curly hair. Some men have mustaches. People touch the standing woman lightly or push her to pass by. Some people are eating near a vendor on the street. The ponytailed woman standing in the midst

of the scene is the only person of a different ethnicity and culture; she has straight black hair and appears Far East Asian. Some men stand right in front of her and looking at her. One Caucasian man is taking her picture with a big video camera and walking around her closely. He even interviews the people around her. Some people talk to each other about her. There is a man who sells juices on the street, and he carries a plate with many cups full of juice on his head.

Lagos, Nigeria.

Figure 29. Kimsooja (2001). A Needle Woman. Lagos, Nigeria. Video stills.

Reaction

Now the woman seems to be in Africa. Oh, and again, she is not in Korea. What she is doing? She is a spectacle in the community. This community of this city seems very humanistic and not very busy. They want to interact with the woman, even though she has a different appearance and her clothing is obviously of South Asian origin. These features seem to make the

people more interested in interacting with her. The bystanders and beholders all seem very childlike, as evidenced by their playful gestures. Is this what she wants? I wonder what she wants, what she does, where she is looking, and what her facial expression is like. Is she closing her eyes, oris she smiling at them? Or is she gazing far off into the distance?

Description: Physical Qualities and Formal Analysis

The city seems African. Everyone has dark black skin and very short curly hair. Men and women carry plates, plastic baskets, and food on their heads. In front of the standing woman, many children, men, and women are standing and looking carefully at her face. Some people wear suits and others wear more casual clothing. Some women wear African-style scarves in their hair. The Asian woman standing still is an interesting spectacle for them. Eventually, people become curious and look at the camera behind her. In front of her, people look straight at the screen, beckoning and gesturing toward the camera. People try to make fun of her and make her laugh with playful gestures and signs.

London, England.

Figure 30. Kimsooja. (2001). A Needle Woman. London, England. Video still.

Reaction

Here the ponytailed woman is in what seems to be a hectic, urban, Western city. Again, it seems that the woman is not in her city of origin. Overall, the interactions between the woman and pedestrians are few and subtle. People are aware of her existence but they act as if this standing woman is a very normal and familiar sight for them. I wonder what the woman's intention is in this scene.

Description: Physical Qualities and Formal Analysis

The film shows a busy crowded street in front of intersection. It is clearly a modern Western city; I see a large “golf sale” sign in English and many red double-decker buses in the background. Some people are talking on cell phones. I see Muslim women who have covered their bodies with light-colored cloths, a woman wearing a short shirt and showing her navel, and a woman smoking a cigarette. It is a very modern, fashionable, and colorful city like New York, but there are more Caucasians here. One man is taking a picture of the standing woman. Again, she is wearing monkish clothing and standing in the middle of the screen. Her black bound hair sometimes shimmers slightly. People neither ask what she is doing nor seem to care. It is almost as if this kind of performance is common for this community.

Collective Description of Kimsooja’s A Needle Woman

In A Needle Woman (1999-2001), Kimsooja stands in eight cities across the world: Tokyo, Japan; Shanghai, China; New Delhi, India; New York, U.S.A., Mexico City, Mexico; Cairo, Egypt; and Lagos, Nigeria. In Tokyo, the woman is ignored by most of people, because the street is too busy and people pretend not to see her. Although she has the same appearance and ethnicity as the people around her, she seems very much a stranger because of her standing position and monkish cloth, which contrast sharply with the fast pace of the people walking by and their colorful and varied modern dress. Except for some young people, the passers-by have emotionless, expressionless, and disinterested facial expressions. In contrast, the middle class or proletarian Chinese community in Shanghai seems very interested in the standing Kimsooja, perhaps because most of them share the same South Asian ethnicity and culture as the ponytailed woman they see standing in their midst. The people are not very fashionable but they seem to have a somewhat flexible lifestyle, in that everyone’s attitude and walking speeds are various.

According to Kimsooja, in Shanghai and India people worried about whether she might be insane. In the New Delhi scene, the mixture of Eastern and Western cultures seems to me to be conservative culturally and very behind the times. Nevertheless, the people are interested in the standing South Asian woman due to her different appearance and still body position. The community seems humanistic and humorous, because of their indirect way of interacting with the stranger. In New York City, the bright and energetic modern city people do not blend well with the monkishly-clothed, standing woman. In the city, she is a stranger and from another time and space. In Mexico City, the energetic community does not pay much attention to the standing woman. Even though they busily walk around and pass her by, their gestures and facial expressions are blank. In Cairo, the people respond to the woman more obviously, with extreme reactions ranging from ignorance to spectacle, and thereby become an amusing part of the scenery. In Lagos, the African community seems humanistic and imaginative, as evidenced by the way they intentionally, playfully, and actively engage with the standing woman who is so different from themselves. In London, the standing Kimsooja is like an ordinary daily scene to the liberal European people, who give her little attention. I also noticed that in some of the cultures – as in Egypt – people slightly touched or pushed the woman, yet in London and Japan people never touched her at all. The reactions of the people in each city represent the ways in which the community deals with the differentness of people who are foreign or unlike themselves. In addition, the culture- specific responses to the ponytailed woman reflect variations in each culture's use of social space, understandings about their place, and ideas about engaging unknown others.

Contextual Examinations

Korean culture provides many of the motivations and connotations behind Kimsooja’s work (Raspail & Martin, 2004). Zugazagoitia (2004) interpreted Kimsooja’s work in light of the Korean cultural context and within the Western tradition of existentialism. A Needle Woman is emblematic of timeless issues related to the interaction between self and other, and the human condition in both Eastern naturalism and Western existentialism (Bouriaud, 2003, 2004; Cecco, 2004; Goodman, 2003; Keiji, 2001; Zugazagoitia, 2004;). Kimsooja stated, “It is the point of the needle which penetrates the fabric, and we can connect two different parts of the fabrics with

threads, through the eye of the needle. A needle is an extension of the body, and a thread is an extension of mind. The traces of mind stay always in the fabric, but the needle leaves the site.” (Bouriaud, 2003, p. 57). After a decade of sewing, Kimsooja began to see herself as "a needle weaving the fabric of nature” (Goodman, 2003, p. 49). In her art, Kimsooja herself becomes a keyhole that connects past and present, one generation and another, the ancestral Korean tradition and her own time. The medium is bottari that is “passed down from generation to generation” (Zugazagoitia, 2004, p. 21). In A Needle Woman, Kimsooja begins with her Korean tradition and moves into new experiences within other cultures in international societies. Zugazagoitia (2004) described this work as, “a solitary confession, an incessant and infinite conversation with oneself” (p.18). Zugazagoitia (2004) went on to say, The artist would like to be a needle that leaves no mark, that sews and disappears after closing the wound; after joining two bits of cloth, two continents or states of consciousness. Her discretion is consubstantial with her research, and her self- effacement facilitates revelation: to the appearance of the other, and to his presence. This path starts out from an approach to textiles and a practice that are rooted in Korean tradition but go beyond these local references through a language which is that of wandering, exchange and openness to the other, the unknown. (p. 15-16) When I saw the Japanese totally ignore Kimsooja’s A Needle Woman performance, I thought of the Korean community. If Kimsooja had installed herself on a street in Seoul, what might have happened? Of course, such an event would not have occurred, since it is necessary for her performance that no one recognizes Kimsooja, which would be impossible in Korea. Truthfully, I would have likely behaved similarly if I saw a woman standing still in the street, looking like a monk. I might just pass by the performance, smiling, in part because I am a member of the younger generation do not usually get involved in other individuals’ actions. But I would bet that middle-aged or older Korean people would accost her and say, “Hey, are you alright? Why are you standing here?” Or, “Why is a young woman doing this? You don’t have work or a job? How come you are wasting your time?” This attitude would be typical of Korean culture, where Koreans tend to care about other Koreans simply because they consider them to be part of their family. Keiji (2001) interpreted A Needle Woman as an expression of the fundamental uncertainty of our own being. Accoring to Keiji, when the ponytailed woman vanishes,

submerged under the tides of humanity, we see the transience of existence and grow unsettled; only to take reassurance in the constancy of life forces as her figure resurfaces, poised and unmoving. In each city, the location chosen in each nation, the passersby generally walk at a fast clip, with no one stopping to look in the woman's direction. Each is occupied with his or her own affairs, busily hurrying toward some goal, whether business or pleasure. She finds her place as the Needle Woman stitching it all cultures and peoples together, patching things up as a needle connecting people from a different time and space (Keiji, 2001). In essence, A Needle Woman represents the interaction between self and others. Kimsooja conceived her video works as “invisible sewing” (Matilsky, 2003). When the work is experienced in a museum setting, Kimsooja herself becomes the mediator between the people in the video and the audience in the museum, creating an archive of interactions. Kimsooja (Matilsky, 2003) has noted, “My work explores the awakening of the self and the other…It is an awakening of the hidden meanings in elements of our mundane lives, to which the viewers previously haven’t paid much attention…[it is] an act of empathy….All human activities are about linking the self to the other” (http://www.kimsooja.com/texts/matilsky.html). Kimsooja invites the viewer to share her meditative experience, so that audiences become viewers who watch and meet people from different cultures, cities, and nationalities just as she does. As Kimsooja has stated, “I would like the audience to share with me the experience I had during my performance, question and answer, and really put each one’s state of mind and body into that position” (http://www.kimsooja.com/texts/matilsky.html). Kimsooja’s desire for the viewer to “wear” her body suggests the notion of the artist as mediator, opening possibilities for other people to participate in a “certain awareness and awakening” (http://www.kimsooja.com/texts/matilsky.html). She points out that few opportunities in daily life help us to achieve this concentrated state of mind (Matilsky, 2003). Through her videos, the artist invites the viewer to share her meditative experience. Goodman (2003) argued that A Needle Woman embodies the isolation we all sometimes feel by offering a resonant silence and a time of contemplation in the midst of a crowd. Her art provides a meditational mind in the encompassing awareness of its practice. Further, her silent, even prayerful, interactions with the amused, bemused crowds in eight cities show a tenacity of purpose as well as a self deliberately obliterated so as to take in, out of harm’s way, the various responses her stillness and silence create… The odd thing about

Kim's isolation is that it in fact completely engages with her audience; just as she offers solitude as a way of emphasizing universal implications, so she underscores her autonomy as a way of proceeding toward a wide involvement with others. (p. 49-52) Kimsooja viewed her artistic practice as similar to that of Buddhist monks in the sense that They both try to liberate and to become beyond themselves. In this era of globalization and technology, however, the self, the body, the spirit, and the other can be perused in many ways - artists deal with different types of desires depending on their social and cultural context. (Bouriaud, 2003 p. 59) Goodman (2003) found that the cycle of life and death is an important and powerful theme in Kimsooja's work, which becomes almost an act of “empathy” and “compassion.” Kimsooja is aware of the relationship between nature and the body, stillness and movement, life and death, self and others, as well as the unity of life. Tae (2000) contended that Kimsooja’s artwork shows the relationship between art and life. Further, Kimsooja's artistic practice is recognized in the international art scene because she has drawn her strong Korean materials and sense of ethnicity into broader human issues that are relevant globally. Kimsooja achieves a wonderful balance between her traditional, national, and cultural heritage and globalization. In addition, her needlework and its conceptualization bring her art into a feminist context. What A Needle Woman creates is the empathic understanding of displacement and solitude in the contemporary life, issues shared by modern Western European existentialists. Kimsooja’s series conveys political, social, and emotional meanings as she points to the basic existential problem that we are always alone even though we always have the world and people around us (Brewinska, 2003). Zugazagoitia (2004) asserted that Kimsooja’s work shows that displacement implies “cutting oneself off from one’s birthplace and ancestral roots” (p. 29). In certain contexts, in spite of her self-effacement, the artist cannot escape her otherness: she is the foreigner, the observer, the element that can split apart as well as bind together. Zugazagoitia recognized the locality and universalism in A Needle Woman. Kimsooja also viewed A Needle Woman as a combination of Eastern and Western influences: Eastern thought often functions as passive and reserved expression: invisible, non- verbal, indirect, disguised and immaterial. Western thought functions more with issues of identity, controversy, gravity, construction and materiality. The process is

finally the awareness and necessity of the presence of both in contemporary art and life. It is the Yin and Yang, a co-existence that endlessly transforms and enriches. (Zugazagoitia, 2004, p. 46-47) Kimsooja also made two similar video projects called A Beggar Woman and A Homeless Woman. Both deal with different communities in the cities she chose for her performance, but the only difference is in her poses. In the Beggar Woman series, Kimsooja is holding up her right hand and sitting on the ground. In A Homeless Woman, she is lying on the ground on her side. Each pose is like a Buddha; again she wears long grayish monk clothing and her black hair is bound at the nape of her neck in a ponytail.

Figure 31. Kimsooja. (2001). A Beggar Woman / Mexico City. Mexico. Video Still.

Figure 32. Kimsooja. (2001). A Homeless Woman/ Cairo, Egypt. Video still.

Santori (2003) stated that Kimsooja placed herself in one of the most impoverished states of a human being. Her work presented human existential issues in social, cultural, and political contexts. As Kimsooja stated in an interview: The idea of the impermanency of existence gives me a deep compassion for human beings and has been embedded in my work since the beginning of my sewing practice until now—the fabrics I first sewn together were the remained fragments from my grandmother’s clothes when she passed away-memorizing her presence. I’ve been living such mobile life from my childhood wrapping and unwrapping household and luggage and the strong memory I have from my childhood were the huge mountain in front which I was looking in the dark from our house yard and the passing by landscapes I used to see one our way to somewhere else from a bus or a train. Leaving people behind us from where I live and meeting new people in a strange city was part of my family life. (http://www.kimsooja.com/texts/generi.html) Goodman (2003) has said that, from a Western existential perspective, Kimsooja's interventions are indeed disturbing, for they remind us of our mortality. In her art, our

understanding of death becomes deeper as she mediates between her experience and her audience. Her actions resonate because they enter into an existential dialogue with their viewers, replete with the high moral seriousness the presence of death inevitably calls to mind. Kimsooja (Jacob, 2003) explained her experience during her performance of A Needle Woman: In the beginning my body was very, very intense, but in the end I was just smiling, liberated from all attention…I didn’t know where the smile came from but I was just smiling. Maybe it was the moment when I was freed from my self-consciousness and engaged with the whole picture of the world and people as oneness and totality beyond this stream or ocean of people in the street. I think enlightenment can be gained by seeing reality as it is, as a whole which is a harmonious state within contradiction that requires no more intentional adjustment or healing. (http://www.kimsooja.com/texts/jacob.html) Kimsooja’s A Needle Woman speaks to nomadism, globalism, and localism, the latter indicated by her use of objects from Korean domestic daily life (Brewinska, 2003).We can recognize in A Needle Woman how people from various cultures react differently towards her work, since the work involves an interaction between them (Sand, 2002). Significance and meaning can be found in both the interactions and lack of interactions in different places.

Interpretation

Kimsooja’s performance is rooted in very existential ideas. Kimsooja described the meaning of her work as, “examining the boundaries between art and life” and discovering and creating “meaning or contexts of daily life’s elements into contemporary art context” (personal interview, January 2, 2006). Foreigners are always a part of society; in America, it is just life. Many people in the U.S. have the word “alien” on their visas. People all over the world live in different cultures and societies from their own. Yet, Kimsooja's work represents more than just physical displacement. In terms of the self, every person is a foreigner in relation to others, hence the concept of individuality. As in A Needle Woman, the individual can be very isolated and solitary.

Kimsooja began her artistic practice with personal questions grounded in her experience as a granddaughter in her family and as a Korean woman. In Korea, Kimsooja's sewing activities within the context of her memories of her grandmother first grew into the notion of bottari as a representation of Korean people’s lives and then expanded to include herself and her connections with the world community. These then grew to larger universal questions of a cultural and social nature. Thus, in a way, Kimsooja's work represents both Korean cultural identity and her own personal identity and holds universal significance and meaning for others as well. Kimsooja went deeply within herself while in various places – Tokyo, Shanghai, Delhi, New York, Mexico City, Cairo, Lagos, and London – in order to find a new transcultural reality. She herself became a bottari (moving bundle) from one place to another as she experienced what it is to be a human being in a chaotic world. In A Needle Woman, Kimsooja placed herself within her art, standing among crowds in different cultures and communities. I looked not only at her performance but at the people’s different reactions, gestures, and appearances as I sought to interpret her work. Each reaction toward Kimsooja seemed to represent the ways in which the community views different cultures and ethnicities and, even more, the world. Throughout my inquiry, my perspective on the artist changed as I looked at the community that surrounded her. Kimsooja’s position as she stood on the street became my position. As I described her work I became more familiar with the people of each culture because I was looking for the differences between the eight cities. I found it interesting that most of the cultures seemed to be welcoming to the foreign and unfamiliar ponytailed stranger. I thought better of the people who reacted directly and inquired about this strange person than I did of the people who ignored her with apparent disinterest. Community allows one to recognize oneself through communication with others close to one. Through her artistic practice Kimsooja's community has expanded beyond Korea and her own family to include the people of the world. In this way she has developed a border-crossing identity. Kimsooja isn’t particularly concerned about her name or how she is labeled. Whether she is called "Kimsooja," or "Kimsooja - a Korean artist living in America," or just "an artist," her artwork will represent more than just a Korean context, so the names and labeling do not bother her. Two things do concern her though. One is “indifference or disinterest” – the failure to recognize the existence of others. The other involves the pressures of society and groups to join in a collective identification. The first concern is evident in her performance; Kimsooja's work

often suggests that others should recognize her existence in a particular place, whether or not she is different in her behavior or appearance. Her second concern is manifested in the rebellious presentation of her name, which indicates that she is not willing to be distinguished by her marital status, nationality, family, or gender. Thus, Kimsooja clearly values a certain independence and freedom from collective pressures and fixed stereotyping. Kimsooja criticized that despite the Korean people’s recognition of Eastern philosophy they do not value artwork in general, and this idea can be expanded to mean that Korean people do not value the cultural context of their art. As she said in an interview, It seems rather Korean people do not see the art in life. The Western people seem to see well the formalistic structure in the context of art history. Westerners look at the certain meanings in a comprehensive understanding, such as the issues of globalization, migration, woman issues. Because bottari (package) in Korea is so much embedded in the daily life, as all in a day's work, they (Koreans) cannot see clearly the certain gap between life and art. (personal interview, January 2, 2006)

Combined Final Interpretation/Evaluation of Cities on the Move-2727 Kilometers Bottrai Truck (1997) and A Needle Woman (1999-2001)

Cities on the Move-2727 Kilometers Bottrai Truck and A Needle Woman are philosophical, referring to existentialism and the shared human condition. Cities on the Move- 2727 Kilometers Bottrai Truck (1997) represents Kimsooja’s opening up and sharing her life experience with others. The work is very evocative, bringing up feelings of melancholy and nostalgia in the viewer. At the same time, the work refers a shared experience of border-crossing, immigration, and diaspora in this contemporary life. This artwork is significant internationally because it reflects not only a Korean-born artist’s experience, but a universal experience of displacement that anyone in this nomadic era might have. The audience understands loneliness and homesickness of the border-crossers’ and members of diaspora as part of a common human condition, which modernist existential philosophers addressed. As a member of a new generation of diaspora of border-crossing Koreans, I also felt these things, since I left my family and the country I was accustomed to and came to a strange country for the first time. Everything that I went through was new and unfamiliar, which sometimes caused me to feel panic and even anguish. My experience helped me to better understand

Kimsooja and her artwork. Thus, in Cities on the Move-2727 Kilometers Bottrai Truck Kimsooja shares something of her own emotional journey but also connects with our own deeper understanding of a shared human condition in our societies. A Needle Woman is both metaphorical and multicultural in nature. This work has significant meanings internationally and locally, especially in the United States and Korea. In A Needle Woman, Kimsooja uses her body as a metaphor for a needle. The artist "sews" together various nationalities and cultures around the world. We can see how this individual artist with one cultural background connects with other cultures and crosses borders and boundaries, providing sharp instruction and teaching of “empathy” for our global citizens. The meaning of her work was very clear, thoughtful, and humanistic. Her perceptions about the human condition are very much linked to the concept of mortality in existentialist thought.

Artistic Identity. Kimsooja values the artwork Bottari as one of her significant accomplishments. Bottari emerged from her the first attempts at sewing pieces. Kimsooja described how she began: From sewing pieces, I developed deductive objects series, which is wrapping the fabrics around the objects, which is another type of sewing. And also, making bottari is a three dimensional way of sewing, I would say. Because in a way, the sewing itself is wrapping the thread around the fabric with a needle, so in a way, the wrapping element is already in sewing, so that’s how I think my work naturally developed from sewing into wrapping, and into making bottari. And then the metaphor of the needle became more personal, and then this, my body, became a symbolic needle. Because in a way, the needle itself is a tool which is a part of the body, which is an extension of the body, that’s how the needle could have been symbolized and developed as the body as a needle. So that’s the relationship with my previous work and the work that I am doing at now. (personal interview, January 2, 2006) Kimsooja defined her work Bottari as “a body and memory as history and as our destiny” (personal interview, January 2, 2006). When she says destiny she means, “The state which is dislocated, in a way. But your single bottari, which is your body, will be disappeared as well; you know it is about your life as well” (personal interview, January 2, 2006). Kimsooja (Rinder,

2002) uses bedcovers as “frames of our bodies and lives” (http://kimsooja.com/texts/rinder.html) that become a kind of universal symbol for human movement, hinting at migration, nomadism, and the experience of refugees. Bottari are also metaphors for the human form. As Kimsooja (Rinder, 2002) has said, "I find the body to be the most complicated bundle" (http://kimsooja.com/texts/rinder.html). Kimsooja has always said that her practice originated from “the question of painting, which is surface.” Then the idea expanded and developed into different dimensions and mediums such as installation, sculpture, videos, and performances that included light and sounds. When I asked Kimsooja where she prefered to create her work, and she explained: I always like to visit unknown cultures, cities, and nature which I haven’t experienced, so it’s always inspiring for me to visit other places, to meet their people, rather than working only in Korea…although I rediscover the value of my own country in this way as well. This was one reason I enjoyed working on the Needle Woman project in different metropolises, and I didn’t make a performance in Korea to be able to keep a distance from my own identity. Now I am working on another piece, the same Needle Woman piece but in another format, in Nepal, Havana, Cuba, Rio, N’Djamena, Sana’, and Jerusalem. It’s always a challenge for me to visit unknown cities. My mind works well when I am traveling, rather than staying in one place -- it's always refreshing. It’s a good time to have a distance from daily life. So it always inspires me. (personal interview, January 2, 2006) In describing her identity and national background, Kimsooja did not differentiate the Korean artworld from the international art world, saying that: It is just part of being an artist, and artist always create works to communicate with the audience, but if it is a bigger international audience, it has more audiences and communication and dialogue in between. So it is always, you know, interesting to have a different perspective, different reactions, and responses. (personal interview, January 2, 2006) Kimsooja said traveling is meaningful for her, since it gives her distance from her daily life, helping to refresh her mind and inspire her so that she works better. As a border-crossing artist, her statement about the characteristics of travel can be understood.

Personal Identity. On Kimsooja's website, I found an independent statement on the first page of the introduction section that says she wanted to be called Kimsooja without a space (http://www.kimsooja.com/action1.html). In this self-proclaimed “anarchist statement,” Kimsooja argues that the name she chose provides few hints of marital status, nationality, or family origin or religious, or cultural, or any other significance (personal interview, January 2, 2006). Kimsooja explained that when women marry in America, they traditionally take their husband’s family name, and that by putting together her first and family names, she erased the differences – boundaries – between nationality and marital status. Her identity as a woman seemed to be a social pressure in the societies. In that sense, she used the cultural objects of a needle, sewing, and bedcovers, which are considered as women’s objects, as an ironic demonstration of women's right to be free from oppression. So far I was known as a Korean artist but …I consider myself as cosmopolitan, and of course, my background is a Korean, but in a way, the nationality is not important anymore, although I still have my memory, and all the heritage is from there. (personal interview, January 2, 2006). Kimsooja considers herself more cosmopolitan than just Korean. As her practices and connections become broader, she becomes more “mobile,” as she communicates with a broader audience. Kimsooja viewed that an individual’s origin such as for her, Korea, may be not the perfect place for the person, so a person can choose to live in another country, specifically the United States where the person can live the way of life of his or her own choosing. Since moving to the United States she feels that she has differentiated herself from other Korean artists who live in Korea, that she has become, in fact, a border-crossing artist: Sometimes, I felt that [I represent Korea] in the late 1990s, up to the late 1990s, but not any more. I think, somebody who lives in Korea, are occasionally invited, because they are Korean artists, and they are international art world people who want to acknowledge Korean artists in terms of the geographical or cultural relationship rather than artistic achievement, as infrastructure. But since I left Korea, I was considered in a different way. No longer as a Korean artist, but more as a Korean artist that lives and works in the States. Their perception is different. I think. Kimsooja was well aware of that she has been called “a Korean artist who lives and works in New York" and "Kimsooja, a Korean artist showing internationally.” In this sense, she

accepts her label as “a border-crossing artist” or “diasporic artist.”

Social Identity. Her images of South Korea and of being Korean were both positive and negative. She described Korea as “a small country, [with] an amazing energy, bursting energy toward the international community, always… willing to upgrade and follow up new trends and consumerism…Korean society is very aggressive and competitive, also don’t take much time but wants to gain every thing at one time” (personal interview, January 2, 2006). Thus, the characteristics of Korean society seemed to be the main cause of her to move to the United States. She said that on a “personal, social, and cultural level it was difficult for me [in Korean society]" (personal interview, January 2, 2006). This statement demonstrates her personal feelings about being a member of Korean society. As a border-crosser, she feels somewhat less Korean and, in fact, often alien. Throughout the analysis, I looked at the differences between multicultural and multinational communities. The ways in which the communities reacted to and interacted with Kimsooja shows their attitudes toward foreigners, or the other. Kimsooja’s performance represents not only an individual who is a member of the Korean diaspora in multicultural societies but also a group portrait of the individual in the context of the global society of our times. As a border-crosser of culture, nationality, and gender, as well as a resident of the world, she stitches and wraps together cultures, nationalities, and borders, in the process overcoming what she calls “boundaries” (personal interview, January 2, 2006).

Final Holistic Evaluation

Through Cities on the Move - 2727 Kilometers Bottrai Truck and A Needle Woman, I experienced Kimsooja’s personal experience in Korean and American communities and societies. As a Korean border-crossing artist living in multicultural America, Kimsooja combined her memories of family life in Korea with her interaction with diverse communities around the world. Her works provide insights into her beliefs about art and life. Interestingly, the meaning of her artwork is very close to many fundamental ideas in Western existentialism and Eastern Buddhism. Through my analysis, I came to understand Kimsooja’s Cities on the Move - 2727 Kilometers Bottrai Truck and A Needle Woman as personal confessions, providing a window into Kimsooja's life as a border-crossing artist in both Korea and the United States. Like her

"anarchist" name, Kimsooja's work breaks apart boundaries and strict definitions associated with nationalities, cultures, ethnicities, genders, and religions. Kimsooja's artwork is significant internationally because it reflects not only a Korean-born artist’s perspective but a universal experience of displacement as a human being that anyone in this nomadic era might have. In Cities on the Move - 2727 Kilometers Bottrai Truck and A Needle Woman, Kimsooja shares her own personal meanings and beliefs and teaches us a humanist’s lesson, that is, empathy.

III. Ik-Joong Kang: 8490 Days of Memory

Figure 33. Ik-Joong Kang. (1996). 8490 Days of Memory, Whitney Museum of American Art at Philip Morris, New York.

Reaction

I can immediately smell the chocolate’s sweet scent and it makes me want to eat it. Then I see the big statue, which is familiar to me as a Korean – it is the Korean War hero, General Douglas MacArthur. The statue immediately reminds me of the Korean War and the poverty in Korea. Then, the chocolate begins to remind me of the American soldiers in Korea. During the war, whenever Koreans met groups of American soldiers, they asked the soldiers for chocolate. The soldiers handed out the chocolate bars without hesitation. When I was a child, I also asked for and received a chocolate bar from American soldiers. This has been a legend since the Korean War, because for many Koreans (including me) interacting with the soldiers was a curious and hilarious spectacle. 8490 Days of Memory definitely contains a political intention in terms of the relationship between Korea and America.

Description: Physical Qualities and Formal Analysis

8490 Days of Memory (1996) is an installation about Korean War hero General Douglas MacArthur. Kang used chocolate and clear plastic cubes to make this piece. The work was exhibited at The Whitney Museum of American Art at Philip Morris, New York in 1996. The piece has three major components: the big statue, the chocolate wall, and the small objects in the plastic cubes. The whole room seems full of chocolate, like being inside a chocolate bar. The room is very shiny and colorful, since the dark chocolate and shiny aluminum wall create numerous reflections. The artist’s physical point of view is the statue of General MacArthur, since the chocolate wall surrounds the statue and even a monumental stack of toys is under the feet of the statue. The big statue also is covered with chocolate; it holds binoculars and seems to be looking far into the distance. General MacArthurs’s face is serious and sober. Since the statue is covered with chocolate, the seriousness of his face takes on a comic effect. The statue is standing on a stack of 3 x 3 x 3-inch clear plastic cubes. In these cubes there are many objects and toys. Some look like Korean products, mostly small children’s toys of varying colors. The chocolate wall is made of 3 x 3 inch square-shaped chocolates, on which are carved different shapes and forms. They look like little paintings on chocolate canvases. The wall on which the chocolates hang is covered with silver aluminum, reflecting the light and mirroring the faces of observers. The chocolate squares, each of which is half the size of my hand, and the bigger than life-size statue create a great contrasting effect. I wonder how the

chocolate covering the huge statue could be so smooth. The serious statue standing on the toy boxes evoked a child-like and humorous feel. The whole room is very organized but feels disheveled because so much is going on. The chocolate smell, various colors, shiny mirrors, small colorful objects, and the orderly grid of chocolate pictures made me dizzy. This work is expressionistic and directly expresses Ik-Joong Kang’s experience of American soldiers in Korea. The three major components of the piece: the chocolate statue, the wall of chocolate squares, and the toy stacks combine to create an integrated narrative, the artist's childhood story. The face of the statue looks solemn and at the same time generous. The work reminds me of a 1960's scene in Korea and my first experience of American soldiers in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) in Korea. I feel transported back to the place where poor mischievous Korean children were running after the dusty zip of the American soldiers’ cars, shouting “Hello, give me a chocolate,” the only English the children knew. I am reminded of the tall American soldier who gave me a chocolate bar. At the time, I couldn’t believe how tall the white-faced soldier was. His legs seemed so long, like he stood on ladders. I was amazed that he understood my English. I stand behind the statue. From the back, it is even more amusing to see the somber statue standing on the toy boxes. Many questions run through my mind. The title of the work is 8490 Days of Memory; what is the meaning of this number? Is the title of the artwork and the subject related to the artist’s childhood? What made the artist create this work? How did Kang become interested in this subject?

Contextual Examinations

Ik-Joong Kang’s personal experience of meeting American soldiers is embedded in Korean history and politics. Kang's motivation in making 8490 Days of Memory emerged from his desire to retain his memories of his small Korean hometown and school after twelve years in the United States. As Kang described it: “I had to freeze my memories, so they didn't fade away” (personal interview, December 19, 2005). He connected with a gallery in Seoul and received $250,000 to build 8490 Days of Memory. Kang explained that 8490 Days of Memory deals with the war between North and South Korea and the role of General Macarthur in Korean history. As a U.S. military commander in the Korean War, General Macarthur made a wise decision in attacking the

North Korean military in the middle of North Korea after it had attacked in an attempt to take over the whole Korean peninsula(M. J. Chung. 2000; Wright, 1996). Annas (2000) explained the processes and materials used by Kang. The figure that was used as the basis for the MacArthur statue is a close copy of a memorial in Incheon, near Seoul. Annas explained, “MacArthur is probably most important man in Korean history. He was almost a Superman” (http://amazedworld.com/eamazed/eend/eend.htm). Kang's statue has the same height (nine feet tall), same posture, same field glasses at the waist, same uniform, and the same pudginess at the middle. Kang began his statue with a clay model that he then cased in plaster, resulting in a hollow form that he pulled out in sections and rejoined. He obtained about 44 pounds of Korean chocolate, donated by a Korean chocolate company, and then he set up a double boiler in his studio, melting the chocolate, and then laying it on like icing with a wide, bamboo brush. At times, to get in the tight spots around the general’s face he put on rubber gloves and smeared the hot chocolate on by hand. Into the cube stocks under the statue Kang put tiny toys representing the days of his childhood in Korea. His mother collected every one of these toys. Kang (Annas, 2000)stated that, “It’s kind of her life also…Kind of root. So I think it’s important she collect, and we make together” (http://amazedworld.com/eamazed/eend/eend.htm). Kang (Annas, 2000) compared the MacArthur’s chocolate coating to the golden-coated Buddha in Asia: The gold is a sacred material, symbolic of holiness. But in Korean history, wars were fought to obtain gold (or benefits). Chocolate also same thing: Sweet and bitter. The memory of the chocolate was very sweet…The memory of war was very bitter. (http://amazedworld.com/eamazed/eend/eend.htm) His work evokes memories that are still important for every Korean. His concerns about the separation and reunification of South and North Korea like 8490 Days of Memory (1996) also are actualized in his previous work 100,000 Dreams.

Figure 34. Ik-Joong Kang. (1999). 100,000 Dreams. From December 21, 1999 to January, 31, 2000 for 41days Pa Ju Unification Park, Korea

The original intent of 100,000 Dreams was to incorporate works of art by 50,000 South Korean children and 50,000 North Korean children. The aim of the artwork was to be the unification of North and South Korea, but North Korean children didn’t send any paintings, however, so the wall for North Korea remained empty is called the “Wall of Waiting.” In 8490 Days of Memory, 8490 chocolates represent the number of days he lived in Korea; he came to the United States when he was twenty-four years old (Lutfy, 1997). chocolate is used to symbolize the potentially deleterious relationship between Korea and the United States. The chocolate tastes sweet, but when eaten over a period of time, it may result in a range of health problems like tooth decay. In my work, the General MacArthur statue was covered with chocolate. The chocolate means “bitter and sweet” in terms of my memory in Itaewon, since when I lived there the

American soldiers always gave chocolates (to the Korean kids). Many children followed the soldiers to get the chocolates…The memory of the chocolate was very sweet…The memory of the war was very bitter. (personal interview, December 19, 2005) Kee (1998) has explored Kang’s border- and culture- crossing life and artwork. In Kee (1998) interpreted Kang's use of chocolate in this way: The suffocating prevalence of chocolate in 8490 Days of Memory denotes the wholesale acceptance of the culture of the United States by Koreans and the resulting decay of traditional Korean culture as it is displaced by slavish imitation of Western trends. (http://ikjoongkang.com/index.html) Further, Kee asserted, “People talk about globalization, but in order to accomplish that we have to really plunge ourselves into the past.” Such immersion in memories is precisely what Kang has done in 8490 Days of Memory. Ik-Joong Kang’s artistic practice began with his family, from whom he inherited an aptitude for art. His grandfathers are Hee-An Kang and Se-Whang Kang, both of whom are important Korean artists and historians of Korean art. Kang was encouraged to be an artist by family members. From a young age, he was able to draw and paint realistically, and relatives joked that he was a reincarnation of his grandfathers. Kang was born in the city of Cheongju and lived in the Itaewon area of Seoul for a while. He remembered, “When I came to the United States, I felt that New York City was like Itaewon, from my childhood’s experience, so that I was not afraid of communicating with Americans” (personal Interview, December 19, 2005). The Itaewon area is the multicultural, international part of Seoul, representing a fusion of cultures. Itaewon is often referred to as called “America in Seoul.” This peculiar atmosphere seems to have come from the U.S. military post that borders Itaewon. The area stretches from the U.S. 8th Army base eastward. U.S. forces arrived and remained for over fifty years (Yongsan Gu Office, 2005). Ik-Joong Kang came to America in 1984, after he got his B.F.A. at Hong-Ik University in Seoul. He got married to a Korean-American, and got an M.F.A. degree at the Pratt Institute, in Brooklyn, New York, in 1987. As a painter, he obtained several commissions to create art in spaces like the San Francisco International Airport (1994) and subway stations in New York (1991). Five years after he came to the United States he became famous, appearing in the Village Voice newspaper. He explained his experience of moving to New York in 1984 as a student:

I was a full-time student and had two jobs working at a Korean grocery store in Manhattan and at a flea market in Far Rockaway, Queens. Looking for ways to effectively utilize my time spent on the long subway rides, I discovered that 3-inch- square canvases fit easily into my pocket and into the palm of my hand. My lengthy commute became transformed into work time in a mobile studio. I used to draw new and interesting things from my observations on the streets in New York. These 3-inch-square images, I created as many as ten thousand and twenty thousand of these 3 x 3-inch canvases. At that time, I thought I could make them a bigger size in the future. I started liking to make art. I decided to become an artist. (personal interview, December 19, 2005) According to Budick (1990), once in the U.S., Kang began to pick things up off the street to incorporate in his paintings, including such items as broken toys and candy wrappers. Kang described these initial experiences in the U.S.: “When I first came to this country, everything was so new that I wanted to immerse myself in every new sight and sound and taste…. Collecting these materials from everywhere I go became an important routine in my daily life” (http://ikjoongkang.com/index.html).

Interpretation

8490 Days of Memory explores issues related to the shared history of North and South Korea in the context of his childhood memories of America. In the eightieth, in Korea, chocolate was new and foreign, and a symbol of America in postwar Korea, and even to this day, chocolate evokes a somewhat Western feeling among Koreans, in the same way coffee does. Further, the bitter characteristics of chocolate relate to the Koreans’ shared painful experiences and sad feelings during the war. Every Korean, including me, shares this memory of the chocolates of American soldiers and is also aware of the current division between North Korea and South Korea. Thus, the "bitterness" of Kang's piece may refer to the shameful memory of poverty, dependence on other powerful countries, and the pain of families dispersed between North and South. Although North Koreans and South Koreans often come from the same families, they often killed each other during the Korean War. Because of the political situation, many families left their hometowns and lost each other, often without any knowledge of the otherswhereabouts. After the war, it was

difficult for South Korea to adjust to their new democracy. Several presidential military coups and much unrest took place. In a protest against the military dictatorship known as the 1980 May Gwangju People’s Uprising, thousands of innocent people were brutally beaten by their own army, resulting in many deaths. The whole Korean history was related to North Korea’s communism and America’s democracy. Now Korea faces a unification issue that is not solely their decision, as other world powers are involved. “Sweetness,” then, refers to Korean feelings of gratitude and relief that other countries have been able to help them. Kang’s “bitter and sweet” involves the awareness of power and self-identity. In other words, 8490 Days of Memory is a work of both gratitude and shame for Koreans.

Ik-Joong Kang: Amazed World

Figure 35. Ik-Joong Kang. (2001-2002). Amazed World. 38,000 children’s drawings from 135 countries, United Nations building, New York.

Reaction

When I stand in front of the three walls, I can see the accumulated stacks of children’s stories about their dreams. The paintings are very small (3 x 3 inches), and there are many of them all in various colors. I immediately realized how many paintings there are. It feels like I am standing before a huge crowd of children themselves, or inside a classroom, since thousands of children’s stories are being emitted from the wall. I can tell that the children are definitely multinational, multicultural, and multiethnic, because of the different languages on the paintings. Then, I notice that the bridges connecting the three walls are decorated with traditional Korean temple engravings.

Figure 36. Ik-Joong Kang. (2001-2002). Amazed World.

Description: Physical Qualities and Formal Analysis

Amazed World (2001-2002) is a multimedia installation made of 38,000 children’s drawings from 135 countries. It was installed at the United Nations building in New York in 2001 and 2002. The opening day was September 11, 2001, but because of the World Trade Center attack, the exhibition officially opened one month later. Within the three walls, there are windows. I can look through the three walls and through the windows. The windows make us want to look inside, as if we are looking at the inside of a house. Or, if you are in the third corridor, then you are looking outside. The cylinder shaped-wall column is composed of multiple 3 x 3-inch blocks. The wall is painted eight colors: cerulean blue, cobalt blue, vermilion (red), yellow, orange, viridian (green), chocolate brown, and coral pink. It is very vivid and bright. Each painting is attached to a 3 x 3-inch piece of wood and has a small space between it and the adjacent paintings. The wall colors are painted so that they are shiny and bright under the lights of the UN building. It seems a good composition with the paintings and the color tones. The engraved Korean temple figures look like the sun rising against the mountains. The traditional Korean architecture, silk-screened engravings, and multicultural paintings also make for an interesting composition, and the temple design makes the wall seem like a ritual monument. Three-tiered walls are supported by five traditional beams. Each beam is silk- screened with the five sacred colors of the rainbow, as in Korean temples. The five colors are called “danchung colours” in Korean philosophy and symbolize harmony and the universe. In 2002, another column was added after September 11th, 2001. It was also decorated on its outside with the colorful danchung colours. The three windows in the three walls create the effect of an illusion. In addition, tiny mirrors are interspersed throughout the mosaic, which creates an illusion of reflection of both yourself and the images. There are so many things going on; the colors, content, languages, sounds, mirror reflections, and architecture all work at once. The three walls form corridors to walk through and the cylinder wall creates a room that is separate from the wall structures. The children’s drawings and paintings are rough, since the contents, colors, and skill levels differ. But their figures and languages evoke a nostalgic feeling. The children’s names, countries, and ages are on the paintings. The wood is clearly cut and unvarnished. Some of the content is personal; some is about the world or the children’s nation of origin. The dominant

images are naïve and childish and frail. The one-inch spaces between paintings separate each unique one. They are not organized by culture or language or content; the paintings are freely arranged in rows and lines. Though each painting is different, their sizes are all the same, 3 x 3 inches. It is interesting that the background colors in the space between the paintings are limited to seven, but the content and color of the paintings vary, without limitations. I am immediately overwhelmed by the children’s paintings as a whole, but at the same time, each painting tells a small story when closely examined. I feel like I am listening to a child’s whisper in my ear when I look closely at one painting. I want to listen to each, one by one, to hear each child’s story and dreams. When I bent down to see the paintings at the bottom, I felt like I was bending my knees to imitate a child’s perspective. The children could express themselves however they wanted. They did not need to be shy or worry about language or communication problems. They were not asked for formal color tones or regular shapes; they were completely free to obey their own creativity and autonomy. The only rule they were asked to comply with was the 3 x 3-inch size. It was Kang’s purpose to arrange all the paintings in the same way. The background colors were from the seven colors of the flags displayed at the UN building, so that the various colors match with the various paintings.

Contextual Examinations

In Amazed World, dreams for the future come from children of diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds, East and West (Peyser, 2002). These art pieces were sent to Kang by children from all over the world who painted their message of peace (Castronovo, 2001). Kang wrote a letter to the children that said: Hello! I would like to gather all of your dreams for the future and show them in one place so everyone can see! What is your dream? I am very curious about how you imagine your future, the future of our world. Do you dream from the mountains? Maybe you dream from your home near the ocean, or desert, or city with tall buildings. Kang said in personal interview (December 19, 2005) with me: I called the theme “Dream” and asked only 200 pieces from one country, so that children could send pictures of world peace and their dreams since this project was opened from the United Nations. They sent from school, email, letter, and fax to my studio address. The people who worked for the project were 25 people who worked

in the project. China opened national art competitions for children. They sent 2,000 pieces from that. The first country which sent the works was Cuba. South Korea also sent, but… North Korea didn’t send. (personal interview, December 19, 2005) Amazed World and its idea came from Kang’s beautiful memory of the art exhibitions of his youth, memories of telling his stories to other people, listening to other friends’ stories, celebrating each other, and brightly smiling under the blue sky. Kang described this personal background on his Website: “When I was little my school gathered the children's painting and held an art exhibition. I got excited whenever my painting was displayed. Kids participated won at least a notebook as an extra prize, and they were always proudly standing in front of their families” (www.amazedworld.com). In reacting to Kang's work, Castronovo (2001) stated, “The clean and pure dreams of our children are also our own dreams in our youth. A lump comes into my mind when I look at those immaculate dreams of children.” (http://amazedworld.com/eamazed/eend/eend.htm) Kang came up with the name Amazed World for his space for children in the UN building. He first designed it as a maze, but for security reasons, he had to change it to the three walls connected by Korean beams. So the initial idea was “A Mazed World,” which had two meanings: a mazed world and also amazed by children’s dreams. Kang explained that the children’s drawings from all over the world were displayed next to each other, next to others who they didn’t know, but somehow they created an experience of togetherness, not physically but spiritually. As Kang said, “We are all connected. I am relieved that I am not alone. I am a part of these children, and they are a part of me”(http://www.amazedworld.com///AmazedWorld). Yoon (2001) commented on Kang's Amazed World: “Gone are the themes of cultural adaptation seen in early works like 8490 Days of Memory, when his own life was the rich text of his artistic diary” (http://www.amazedworld.com///AmazedWorld). Yoon's observation speaks to a broadening in the context of Ik-Joong Kang’s art world, from national and historical themes to more universal themes. The countries of the children whose art is included in the piece include: Uganda, Cuba, Kenya, Swaziland, Mongolia, Australia, Bolivia, India, Tunisia, Sweden, as well as China. The dreams of the children are are different. One of the first drawings received was from a child in Cuba, whose dream is to become a doctor helping other children. “I have six sisters and want one brother,” says a 12 year-old Uzbekistan girl in her drawing of herself pushing a little brother in a

stroller. A young student from Switzerland designed a beautiful house walking with robot legs. A 10-year-old Italian boy made a painting of a wonderful overhead kick on a soccer field. There is also an image of a Palestinian child and an Israeli child shaking hands, done by a girl from Mexico. The messages also varied. An Afghanistan girl sent a drawing that says, “UN ignored Afghanistan women and children.” Chico of Congo wrote “Les tois sages d’Afrique - Sourd, Avengle, Muet,” which translated means the way to survive in Africa—never see, never hear, and never talk. There were also bad or dark messages in the paintings as about things like suicide or cursing the world; messages about unhappiness, but Kang didn't censor the paintings, he accepted each of them as it is, because they are honest. In addition, Kang said that ninety eight percent of the drawings were bright (Russelle, 2005). The opening of Amazed World exhibition at the UN building was on the day of September 11th. Kang described the situation at that time. The Amazed World exhibition opening was planned for September 11, 2001, at the United Nations building in Manhattan. Because of the September 11th, World Trade Center attack, the opening was delayed until one month later. I was setting the exhibition in the morning for the evening opening. Suddenly people were asked to go out from the UN building. We were making a project theme “World Peace” with the world children in the side, and at the same time, other side there was a terror. (He showed me the picture from an Afghanistan child saying that UN ignored Afghanistan children and woman who are the oppressed and helpless.) Thus, Kang used the Amazed World project as an opportunity to provide new ways to address children’s longing for peace and collaboration. He wrote a letter to the children in New York City and asked them to send him drawings, expressing their feelings about the tragedy and sharing their dreams and hopes with those who lost their lives at the World Trade Center and at the Pentagon. A column was added after the September 11 events, because he had received so many drawings remembering that day of tragedy. Amazed World is a wonderful piece from which one can draw many insights about the collective and the individual. Rahman-Steinert (2002) has noted that Kang always references a range of diverse aspects of traditional Korean art in his work. Kang agreed: “The danchung colours and the Korean concept of harmony symbolize the past. Look at yourself in one of the mirrors, and you see the present. The house holds three concepts of time - past, present, and

future. [Just like the children,] the children and their drawings represent the future” (http://amazedworld.com/eamazed/eend/eend.htm). The artist, who has lived in New York since 1984 and is surrounded by the achievements of the West, does not want to delete from his work references to his culture of origin. He manifests in his person, as well as in his work, the process of globalization as a fusion of Eastern and Western cultures. Origins and whereabouts hold less significance in the work of the artist; the more significant aspects are socialization, spirituality, and emotional disposition. A rich quality of Kang's work is his passionate inclination to engage with the local particularities of his environment; improvisation seems to stimulate and challenge his creativity. Is this a distinctive feature of Korean culture? Kang (Russelle, 2005) connected this concept to his artistic identity: I can poke myself with my sleepy soul, constantly asking which way I am heading for, which I am heading from is important. I am a part of Korea. Korea can be part of my body. So when the country is divided, my body is divided. So that idea, starting from North and South Korea. When I meditate, I’m part of this world, the entire universe. The entire universe is part of me. So I always believe family is extension of the universe. Like my body our bodies, part of this example, small metaphor of universe… When I receive drawings from children, they are tiny… drawings from children we sometimes think they are small, that their ideas are small and we don’t care but trying to kneel down myself, I make myself the same height and see their dream through my window…If I change my way of understanding, whether big or small doesn't matter. A grain of sand or entire beach because beach composed of grains. If I look into sand grain, we can find even bigger world. So it really connects (http://www.amazedworld.com///AmazedWorld) Ik-Joong Kang continued his project, with the world children in Amazed World to another work Happy World at Princeton Public Library project with New Jersey community.

Figure 37. Ik-Joong Kang. (2005). Happy World. The mural project in the Princeton Library. New Jersey.

Kang's Happy World (2005) is installed in the Princeton, New Jersey Public Library. The work was made by the community through the individual contributions and with influences made possible by the public library’s geography and the culture of the community. Kang found that the area in which the public library is located is distinctive, because the east side is a wealthy white college town, and the west side is poor and predominantly African-American. The library sits in the middle of both communities, like the “Panmoonjeom” area between South and North Korea. Kang (2005) commented on this work: There are a lot of walls between neighbors and even countries. By making a wall of art, I believe we can break down walls between each other. I was asked to do the Princeton Public Library project in the winter of 2003. I have researched the areas and visited there many times. Between cultures, I am trying to build a wall of art, so

that we can break down the wall between each other. This means I want to break the walls of classes and hierarchical status in society through my art. After researching the community, I gave a lecture in the library that explained my idea. I asked the people to bring 3 x 3-inch paintings or precious personal mementos. The next week, we got 1,500 paintings from the local people as well as favorite poems, and even old Einstein’s placard. On the wall, there were personal things from the young, old, famous, poor, and rich people. This work brought communication through artwork to the community. Relationship and participation are important in this artwork. Many local newspapers in the Princeton area showed this project including the Princeton Times. Artwork is like making film, so that the artist becomes a director. The children are the protagonists, and the sponsors become producers. (personal interview, December 19, 2005) Kee (1998) pointed to the border-conciousness in Ik-Joong Kang’s artistic identity: Ik-Joong Kang has always had an affinity with the idea of borders. Rather than defining the border as a hostile obstacle or point of tension a la the DMZ (the demilitarized zone dividing North and South Korea), Kang perceives it as a place to absorb and digest the cultures of both sides. (http://amazedworld.com/eamazed/eend/eend.htm) Clearly, as an artist of the Korean diaspora, Kang has demonstrated his role as an artist- connector in both the works 100,000 Dreams in Korea and Happy World in the United States.

Interpretation

Amazed World, along with Kang’s other projects, Happy World and 100,000 Dreams, deal with the subjects of unification and division in the world. These subjects have universal relevance in the contemporary era in light of such conflicts as the U.S. war in Iraq War, the terrorism of September 11th, and the cold war between North and South Korea. On Kang’s Amazed World Website, one of the voices that most resonates from the piece is that of a Korean child who says, “My hope is everyone in this world live without war.” This small phrase hints at what Kang's projects, conducted in cooperation with many communities, seem to say. His works reach out and personally touch both global and local communities.

The title Amazed World can have a double meaning: the promise of the future world that these children can make, and the ironic world, which exists in the space between the children’s innocent dreams and the horrible reality of terror and war. The work finds a balance between small details and a larger meaningful whole. It also speaks to the relationship between the individual and the collective whole. In this works, Kang illustrates how his artwork is related to his philosophy of history, that it involves the past, present, and future. I see Kang as a patriot who feels sympathy for the suffering and pain of South and North Koreans who are separated from friends and family. As a member of Korean national, sympathy and national sentiment play a big role in his artwork. His work expands beyond the borders of his own nation's pathos, however, to include the suffering and problems of the world, as shown through the innocent eyes and paintings of children worldwide. It seems to show that he claims himself as a member of the global community and a border-crossing artist. Such art is obviously about the relationship between the individual and the collective whole. Kang made certain that the 3 x 3-inch-sized canvas would be used by every child participating, ensuring that the artwork, when hung together, would be balanced, composed, and attached in a way that would enable the participants and viewers to realize the concept of community. I view Kang’s art as a kind of art education, about which Eaton (2002) wrote: How does art function to create focused groups of the sort that are or might become communities? How might art turn [people] into a focused group and ultimately into a community? My characterization of community demands awareness of others and a sense of responsibility for their well-being….If a member of a collection of individuals creates something with an awareness of other members of the collection [then he or she] concentrates on exposing what is made in a way that will infuse the experience of others and produce feelings of pleasure or generate solidarity (p. 252). Kang stated that, Amazed World is like the building of a big house, a house with a big roof and a big wall, but with many small windows. Windows of the dream. Children come into the big room and say hello to each other and hug each other, and all their windows of dreams are placed next to each other for us to see. Eaton (2002) stated the coraborative art education project which concerns the community generates “relatedness, psychic closeness, and mutual respect” (p. 253). Under Kang’s

coordination, communities made art together in response to certain intrinsic properties, such as empathy, sharing, and understanding. In this sense, art can both teach and encourage the awareness and empathetic contemplation of others.

Combined Final Interpretation/Evaluation of 8490 Days of Memory (1996) and Amazed World (2001-2002)

8490 Days of Memory tells us about the Korean War and the relationship that still exists between North and South Korea and America. Interestingly, this work was made by an artist after he left Korea and moved to the United States. Perhaps because the artist was outside of his original country and, in a sense, belonging to another, he was able to look at his national history with acute and sensitive eyes. We cannot ignore the artist’s border-crossing and diasporic experience in the interpretation of the artwork. In Ik-Joong Kang’s artwork, his first experiences in New York are very similar to his experience of Korean history and society as a child with innocent eyes. Also, his first impression of America is mix with his childhood memories of Korea, and in particular, the chocolate given to Korean children by American soldiers. These hybrid experiences are shown in his artwork. Objectively, this work is aesthetically pleasant and humorous, but subjectively, it evoked a sad and tragic feeling in me. This critical analysis of 8490 Days of Memory made me more aware of the impact of the Korean War and its aftermath. At the start of this critique, my focus was on Kang’s childhood in Korea. Later, I shifted the focus to issues between North and South Korea, and to the relationship of both to America. As a member of the Korean younger generation, this political awareness was less urgent or significant than to the old Koreans, before I looked at this work; and because this consciousness is painful or shameful, I preferred to forget and ignore it. Thus, this work feels both “bitter and sweet” to me as a Korean, because I don’t want to revisit these sad memories and national history but should no doubt keep the knowledge in my heart. To this still unresolved situation between North Korea and South Korea, 8490 Days of Memory contributes its meanings and days. Do we as viewers, share the same attitude as General MacArthur, holding binoculars and not lifting a finger, staring into the far distance? Amazed World speaks to the notion of being a global citizen. As a cross-cultural art education project, Kang's Amazed World teaches us how to engage in an empathic dialogue and curriculum. As a member of the border-crossing Korean diaspora, Kang tries to create a balance

between the Korean national mission and the world mission. At first glance, this is an amusing project, but when examined more deeply, it is a sympathetic political statement from Ik-Joong Kang and 38,000 children around the world. Throughout the piece I can see the artist’s intent. Kang is an activist artist and a philanthropist sympathetic his national and global problems. Combining painting, architectural design, and cultural figures with paintings made by children from around the world, Kang's Amazed World teaches all of us about cooperation, collaboration, and unification through art.

Artistic Identity. Ik-Joong Kang said about his art: “My art is like a page in a diary where I store my stories” (personal interview, December 19, 2005). Kange explained the change in his art over the time since he first came to the U.S.: When I emigrated from South Korea to New York City in 1984, I began making paintings and drawings that reflected the daily experiences of my life in a new culture with a new language…I think my work was influenced by both American and Korean cultures. In America, I sensed the assembly line, the idea of mass production. (http://www.levity.com/interbeing/ikjoong.html). Kang always used 3-inch-square canvases since he found they fit easily into his pocket and into the palm of his hand. Kang said, “After I immigrated to New York City, the United States, living in a foreign country, I made artworks from what I observed and experienced on the street, in the subway, and on the way to my appartment. I am presenting my own life experience” (personal interview, December 19, 2005). He drew new and interesting things from his observations on the streets of New York as a foreigner, like a child with innocent eyes to the world. According to Kang, after he created ten or twenty thousand of these 3 x 3-inch canvases, he began to like art and the idea of becoming an artist (personal interview, December 19, 2005). Kang believes that “living in this world as a piece of the whole, how a person contributes and connects to the world is very important. To be aware of the world is important for artists” (personal interview, December 19, 2005). His beliefs lead him to find his material and his collaborators and projects: My material is 3 x 3 canvases; it is small, but if you try to see and get close to it, you can see the world. The 3 x 3-inch small size is like a child; if you want to listen, you can hear the world through children’s paintings. If the small child’s painting is collected by one

million, they can change the world. What matters is where you put value, meaning, and your distance. (personal interview, December 19, 2005) In his work, Kang collects “dreams of people,” among them over 125,000 children's drawings from 141 countries, and for the last seven years, a long greenhouse near the DMZ in Korea (the borderline between North and South Korea) with 50,000 South Korean children in 100,000 Dreams, and a Public library project with New Jersey communities. As a connector and contributor, Kang stated that his ideas are apparent in one of the drawings in Happy World: “A wall of dream can break down the wall of hatred and ignorance that separated us for a long time.” In Kang’s artworld, Korean or Eastern Asian cultural contexts are used in many ways. He used a Buddha statue and Buddha paintings as well as traditional Korean architecture, silk- screened engravings in his several works. He discussed his tendency to choose Korean cultural contexts: Sometimes I think I am a chef from Korea working in an American restaurant. I know everyone expects that the only dish I can cook is kimchi soup, even if I can make a better hamburger than most American chefs… Tradition is not something that you can show, but it is a way of thinking or tasting. Tradition cannot be defined; it cannot be grasped or captured… If we make hamburger in a kimchi flavor, that’s even better. (personal interview, December 19, 2005) In beginning to work around issues related to the unification of North and South Korea in 8490 Days of Dreams, Kang found that children’s artworks represent our time with pure eyes and show the past and future at the same time -- just as in Amazed World and Happy World. As a border-crossing Korean diasporic artist, he creates a unique recipe or mixture of Korean heritage and global problem solving in his artworks. Kang stated that his role as an artist that is as: …a connector between Korean culture and Western culture. I also want to be a contributor, since my audience does not simply look at and react to my work, but interacts with my work. I want to interact with the audience as 'the part of the process.' I want to make my work not reaction, but interaction, where the audience’s ideas are contributing to my work and I become a connector. I consider my work like 'weaving a fishnet.' (personal interview, December 19, 2005)

Tsai (1996) noted that a fusion of East and West, art and life are shown in Kang's artwork: “Kang's artworks demonstrate the flexibility, openness, and structure that characterize the traditional Korean dish called bibimbop. Following the adage, Throw everything together and add, Kang's work successfully captures and comments on all that is elusive in the continuum of contemporary culture” (www.amazedworld.com). Kang successfully combined his experience in Korea in 8490 Days of Memory (1996) and added global communal concerns through his experience in New York and multicultural America in Amazed World.

Personal Identity. In the United States, Ik-Joong Kang is called a “New York artist” or “immigrant artist” in local newspapers like the Princeton Times. Kang stated, “I like to be called Ik-Joong Kang” (personal interview, December 19, 2005). Kang identifies himself as Buddha, a reference to Eastern philosophy, through his artwork. In terms of his own philosophy, Kang noted that his artistic ideas begin with his own issues, move into world, and then move back again to himself. In this way, he believes, his own experience connects to more universal meanings and issues: In Buddha Learning English (1994), there is the recorded sound of me learning English. Buddha singing opera, exhibited in Greece, was made with an Italian opera sound and Buddha figure paintings on one thousand canvases. In my works, Buddha is myself. The Buddha is not meant as something religious but as a shared meaning and entity, myself or yourself. It is a shared entity. If I learn English, it becomes Buddha learning English, the same as Ik-Joong Kang learning English. (personal interview, December 19, 2005) Even though he has been in the United States for 21 years, Kang still feels a strong connection toward his Korean national roots, and this national connection expands to universal issues: I am part of Korea and I always feel I represent Korea in some aspect. At the same time, Korea is an important part of the world, so it represents the whole world. One of my goals to achieve through art is breaking the boundaries among us and seeing the divider become the connector and the world become one. I believe that one has a better view of home from a distance…When I look at my son, I find my father in my son. It feels like my father, myself, and my son are all related and linked. In other words, my father is past and my son is future. Therefore, I am looking at father’s father’s father, and also, my

son’s son’s son… all of them are linked from generation to generation. (personal interview, December 19, 2005) However in the United States, Kang had a unique experience (making artwork) that is “a two ways trip.” According to Kang, “You are not included in either American nor Korean, but included in both American and Korean” (personal interview, December 19, 2005). This is the essence of the border-crossing identity. Kang has compared his status as a Korean border-crossing artist in the international art world with the fortune cookies in Chinese restaurants in the U.S. He elaborated on this idea: My work is like the fortune cookie. My Chinese friends believe this cookie represents America, not China. My American friends think it is 100 % Chinese. But, the fortune cookie was born in San Francisco's Chinatown some years ago. The fortune cookie plays an important role connecting two different cultures and ideas, while belonging wholly to neither one. I hope my art plays the role of the fortune cookie in that sense. (personal interview, December 19, 2005) Kang explained his role as a Korean border-crossing artist in the New York artworld is as a connector between and contributor to Korean culture and Western culture, in interaction with the global community.

Social Identity. Ik-Joong Kang is famous for his writings in Korean monthly and weekly women's magazines and tabloids, so that many from the non-art community know him, possibly more than in the Korean art community. It was only in 2004 that a Korean art magazine introduced him. Kang feels that he is a stranger in the Korean artworld, much like his life in the United States: “I feel my artwork has yet to be welcomed by the Korean art world and community. I consider myself a stranger in Korean art society” (personal interview, December 19, 2005). He described a similar sense occurs in his life in the New York artworld: “Even though I've been here for 21years, I still feel like a spectator watching from the stands” (personal interview, December 19, 2005). In terms of the images he remembers of Korea, Kang described many things, such as signboards, “mother, river, DMZ, schoolyard, friends, kite flying, temple, country road, water melon, August 15th, college entrance, unification, American GI, karaoke bar, green bean ice cream, local market, autumn sky, clean subway, Kimchi soup, bright signage, ice skating, bus

token, chestnut, beautiful smile” (personal interview, December 19, 2005). These characteristics are very similar to his explanations of Korean mushrooming and powerful signboards. I realized these characteristics are very similar to the Bibimbob style of his art: Throw everything together and add. Both 8490 Days of Memory (1996) and Amazed World (2001-2002) have many things going on in one artwork, with many small details over a large scale and many meanings. According to Kang, his images of Korea and his art portray certain characteristics of Korean society: “South Korea’s flexibility, it comes and goes so quickly, the so-called character of pot” (personal interview, December 19, 2005). Kang's descriptions of his art highlight his border-crossing identity: “I love to bring some things from the outskirts of my memories of Korea and then toss them over and let them collide, in a head-on crash. If something drops onto canvas, I’d like to revive it and fly it high” (personal interview, December 19, 2005). In his work, he also shows his relationship to the American culture. He stated, “By using chocolate with its distinctive smell and taste as a material I tried to evoke my initial encounter with American culture. Coming to America is more like climbing on to another mountain, where I can encounter many things I’ve never seen before. My role as an artist is not only telling people what I encounter, but also finding myself on the map” (personal interview, December 19, 2005). This visual representation by Kang may not be only that of a Korean national, but of a representative of the many countries which have experienced war and colonialism in relation to the United States. Kang noted, “Now when I make my artwork, I think about the global community, since I collect children’s or communities’ paintings from all over the world and arrange them with my themes” (personal interview, December 19, 2005).

Final Holistic Evaluation

Coming from Korea and living in the United States, Ik-Joong Kang provides seemingly innocent but conceptually sophisticated observation and insights of both Korea and New York. In 8490 Days of Memory, a national history of the Korean War and the political stances between the United States and Korea, he materialized these themes using chocolates and toys. In Amazed World, his dreams for the unification of the two Koreas and world peace are realized with children’s artworks from all over the world and the Korean traditional symbols for harmony. As both a person of Korean nationality and a global citizen, Ik-Joong Kang successfully

incorporates local awareness and global empathy. Thus, his work becomes significant both in the Korean community and the international community, and specifically in the multicultural New York artworld. Kang may be considered an activist artist and a philanthropist sympathetic to national and global problems. Kang's artwork Amazed World teaches all of us about cooperation, collaboration, and unification.

CHAPTER 5

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

Final Evaluation

In studying Do-Ho Suh’s Paratrooper I and Paratrooper II, Kimsooja’s Cities on the Move-2727 Kilometers Bottari Truck and A Needle Woman, and Ik-Joong Kang’s 8490 Days of Memory and Amazed World, I found the words “sympathy” and “empathy” used very often, evoking a deeper need to examine the idea of existentialism and the tragic human condition. In the sense, the artworks evoke an existential feel. That the artists are located in a multicultural society in which they did not originate seemed to enhance this existential attitude. These are diasporic artists whose minds do not belong to only the collective group or the place of origin. In my view, their works provide two representations of identity. One is through their own self-portraits as members of the Korean diaspora and border-crossing community in the United States. The other is through group portraits of the Korean community and global communities.As members of both Korean and international New York societies and Korean border-crossing Korean diaspora, Do-Ho Suh, Kimsooja, Ik-Joong Kang address locally and internationally significant issues that is the shared human condition: the relationship between an individual and collective community in a society, and the life philosophies of both Eastern (Korean) and Western thinkers. Whoever has experienced the contradictions and political conflicts between individualism and collective group ideology can understand and feel what these border-crossing artists expressed. We cannot ignore the artists’ border-crossing and diasporic experience in the interpretations of their artworks, since they all have been constructing their artistic styles and identities leaving from South Korea and coming to the United States. Having lived both in the United States and Korea, the three artists have both objective and subjective insights about Korean and multicultural societies and communities. Their works reflects not only Korean-born

artists’ experience, but a universal experience of displacement that anyone in this contemporary life might have culturally, physically, politically, and mentally. Do-Ho Suh, Kimsooja, and Ik- Joong Kang’s projects are sympathetic political statement and empathetic humanistic dialogues. We have seen how the individual artists with one cultural background connect with other cultures, groups, and boundaries, providing sharp instruction of empathy for our global citizens. Their statements and perceptions about art and life are very much linked to the concept of Western existentialist and Eastern Buddhist thoughts. Through self and group portraits of Paratrooper I and Paratrooper II, Do-Ho Suh let the audiences be aware of an individual freedom and individualism from social pressure and nationalism. Kimsooja’s Cities on the Move- 2727 Kilometers Bottari Truck and A Needle Woman series implies that home or nationality is on a periphery, and is not a fixed land, referring to a universal experience of displacement and nomadism. She also provides empathetic dialogue through her performance art among multiple communities and societies with different cultures. Ik-Joong Kang’s 8490 Days of Memory involves Korean national history and Korea's relationship with the United States. This national and unification issue expands in Amazed World to the larger global concerns of war and the world peace. His concern deals with the reunification of North and South Korea, the communities of the world, and the need for peace and harmony that transcends borders and conflicts. Kang’s works teach us about cooperation, collaboration, and unification through art.

Results and Conclusions

Through reaction, description of physical qualities, formal analysis, contextual examination, interpretation, and evaluation, this dissertation has examined the work of three contemporary Korean-born diasporic artists in terms of the construction of their artistic, personal, and social identities in the context of the multicultural art world of the United States. Do-Ho Suh, Kimsooja, and Ik-Joong Kang’s art is approached here from the standpoint of individuals who are border-crossers in a cultural context. My guiding question in undertaking this study was: How do artists, originally from South Korea but now living in New York City, define themselves and their art in relation to their artistic, personal, and social identities?

In order to answer this question I conducted a critical analysis of two selected works by each of the three artists using T. Anderson's (1993; 1995; 1997; Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005) cross-cultural, contextual approach to art criticism. In the course of the contextual examination that characterizes this method, I conducted personal interviews with each of the artists, viewed the artists' works in person, and collected relevant documents. I also sought to answer supporting research questions, including: 1) What are the characteristic, substantive, stylistic, and expressivistic natures of the selected artworks’ by the three artists under study? 2) What do the artists themselves say about their art and their lives in relation to the construction and understanding of their identities? 3) What do the artworks mean and/or do, as determined by a systematic critique developed in an authentic social context? 4) What conclusions can be drawn about the artists and their work, and their construction of identity through art as members of the Korean diaspora, members of the art world, and/or of the human race? I will answer these research questions through this chapter.

What are the characteristic, substantive, stylistic, and expressivistic natures of the selected artworks’ by the three artists under study?

This study examined how non-Western, Korean border-crossing artists have negotiated their identities through their artwork within predominantly Western communities in multicultural contexts. Through the process, I found that Do-Ho Suh, Kimsooja, and Ik-Joong Kang’s artworks, personal statements, and other critics review always necessarily deal with the issues of the binary system of universal versus Korean, Western versus Asian, in terms of culture and history as well as issues of multiculturalism. By viewing the artists’ works as cultural objects, the artworks become the primary signifiers of a cultural, national, and ethnic identity that proclaimed and celebrated its integrity and "difference" from European-Western ideology (R. Anderson, 2004; Bhabha, 1994). At the same time, their art is also a sign of a mutually productive cultural exchange in capitalism. Interestingly, I found that the way the artists feel about the Korean and international New York artworlds and exhibitions are very indicative of an American-style response, which is practical and realistic. Do-Ho Suh stated, “I show my work in exhibitions simply because there is a demand to show art” (personal interview, January 5, 2006). Kimsooja

stated, “It is just part of being an artist” (personal interview, January 2, 2006). Ik-Joong Kang insisted that making art is, at least in part, “business” (personal interview, December 19, 2005). Do-Ho Suh’s Paratrooper I and Paratrooper II, Kimsooja’s Cities on the Move-2727 Kilometers Bottari Truck and A Needle Woman, and Ik-Joong Kang 8490 Days of Memory and Amazed World each contain some aspects of Korean national and cultural components and contexts. Do-Ho Suh’s artistic media, such as dog tags, high school uniforms, the paratrooper and parachute, as well as statue, came from his experience during Korean military service and in Korean society in general. Kimsooja’s artistic object, bottari, and sewing are objectsof Korean daily life and represent the artist’s memories of her own family life in Korea, as a woman who lived in Korean society and within Korean communities. Ik-Joong Kang represented issues related to Korea's history and relationship with America. 8490 Days of Memory deals with the Korean national history and unification issues and Amazed World shows Korean danchung color engravings. Though neither Do-Ho Suh, Kimsooja, nor Ik-Joong Kang are practicing Buddhists, Zen Buddhist affinities were apparent in their works. The spirit behind their work may best be understood as Korean (Eastern) philosophy and cultural practice. Although Do-Ho Suh knows that each different audience will interpret his work differently, he still has to reconcile his own feelings about and reasons for the artwork’s meaning for non-Korean audiences. He has tried to help Americans understand the Korean concept of in- yeon (relationship) and other Buddhist and Eastern concepts, like the notion that events and relationships in the present and future are "meant to be" as a result of the past. Interestingly and ironically, I found this idea is very close to Western Existentialism. Sartre (1946) saw the inescapable condition of human life as linked to the requirement of choosing something and accepting the responsibility for the consequences. A Needle Woman symbolically shows the Eastern philosophy of selflessness and naturalism, as displayed by the artist herself while dressed as a monk and quietly meditating in the middle of the society and community. In the words of Kimsooja, “I think my work naturally developed from sewing into wrapping, and into making bottri. And then the metaphor of the needle became more personal, and then this, my body, became a symbolic needle” (personal interview, January 2, 2006). Ik-Joong Kang’s Amazed World shows multiple national languages and danchung colors that represent Korea's philosophy of harmony and unification, which, in Existentialist thought, is what humans ultimately want to achieve in this indifferent and unfamiliar world.

The meanings of the artist's selected works are very close to existentalist beliefs concerning life and its meanings. Do-Ho Suh said that his artwork involves “figuring out what is the purpose of life ….My artistic practice is about me negotiating my ever-changing surroundings. Often my work has autobiographical references” (personal interview, January 5, 2006). Suh’s artwork does represent the Korean cultural and artistic heritage, but also incorporates universal meanings and aesthetic concerns. Kimsooja concerns about the human condition revolve around mortality. She defined her work Bottari as “a body and memory as history and as our destiny….your single bottari, which is your body, will be disappeared as well; you know it is about your life as well” (personal interview, January 2, 2006) and bedcovers which makes bottari as “frames of our bodies and lives” (http://kimsooja.com/texts/rinder.html). Kang explained that in his artwork, “I am presenting my own life experience” (personal interview, December 19, 2005). But at the same time, he tries to “break down the wall of hatred and ignorance that separated us for a long time," as much of his art makes clear. In these ways, the search of existentialist thinkers for meaning in a seemingly meaningless world is evident in the work of these artists.

What do the artists themselves say about their art and their lives in relation to the construction and understanding of their identities?

A major turning point in Do-Ho Suh, Kimsooja, and Ik-Joong Kang’s lives and careers came with their move to the United States. They all stated that their artistic career began after they left Korea to live in the New York artworld. Do-Ho Suh, Kimsooja, and Ik-Joong Kang all perceive, to a certain extent, social pressure in their original society and community. Do-Ho Suh stated that his art education began in the U.S. (personal interview, January 5, 2006), saying that “I wasn’t really trained to express my feelings or thoughts on art [in Korea] … And then, gradually, I started to learn how to talk about my art. And ironically, I had never talked about my art in Korean before” (Art:21, n.d.). Kimsooja said that on a “personal, social, and cultural level it was difficult for me [in Korean society]" (personal interview, January 2, 2006). Kang stated, “After enrolling in the most prestigious art college in Korea, somehow I lost interest in making art. I sensed that something was wrong and I realized that art school was not always the best choice for learning about art” (personal interview, December 19, 2005). After Kang came to the U.S. and began to created his own art, he found: “At that time…I started liking to make art. I

decided to become an artist” (personal interview, December 19, 2005). These statements demonstrated the artists' personal feelings about being a member of Korean society and as their sense that they were not free enough to express their art. Ironically, all felt somewhat less comfortable or less familiar in Korean society, almost like an alien or a stranger. The three artists all stated that traveling is meaningful and that, from a distance, it is even better to look at their identities. Suh stated: Once you leave the place of your origins and start to live in a different country, you become more aware of your surroundings and yourself. You start to see the differences, and, well, using a technical term, you are able to maintain a critical distance from everything, basically. Something that you believed was the truth back in Korea is not necessarily a truth in the United States, so when you realize that…then it totally screws up your way of looking at things, your perceptions, and you start to question things that you never questioned before. So that was the most important benefit that I got when I came to the United States. (personal interview, January 5, 2006). Kimsooja said traveling is meaningful for her, since through her experiences in other countries she has been able to gain a distance from her origins that helped her discover more about her cultural, social, political, or natural environment (personal interview, Janauary 2, 2006). Kang stated, “I believe that one has a better view of home from a distance” (personal interview, December 19, 2005). Suh noted, “This experience has made me more open to other things than I was when I lived in Korea. I am more open to accepting difference since I came to the U.S” (personal interview, January 5, 2006). For these border-crossing artists, home is not a physical place, but more of an emotional one, nostalgic and melancholy, in the pilgrimage through life (Berger, 1984; La Cecla, 2000). In publications, Do-Ho Suh, Kimsooja, and Ik-Joong Kang have variously been called a “Korean-born artist who lives in America,” a “New York artist,” a “Korean-born artist based in New York,” or just an “artist.” However, Do-Ho Suh, Kimsooja, and Ik-Joong Kang all prefer not be thought of as a “Korean artist” or “Korean-born artist,” since people will perceive their artworks with a limited approach to their interpretations that prevent them from seeing the work fully. Suh stated, “I don’t think I am someone who is like an ambassador promoting Korean culture or Korean art…People just label me that way, well, just for themselves…. People try to represent me as a Korean, a Korean man” (personal interview, January 5, 2006). He prefers

to be seen simply as an “artist” (personal interview, January 5, 2006). Kimsooja argues through her “anarchist statement,” (www.kimsooja.com) that she doesn’t want to show any hints of marital status, nationality, or family origin or any other significance in the name. Thus, she calls herself just Kimsooja. In the U.S., Ik-Joong Kang’s case is particularly interesting as he has many public art projects, and has been named in many local publications. Kang has been called “a Korean artist but living in the United States” in New York Times (Glueck, 1996), “the Korean American artist” (Gahafer 2004; Kee, 2000), “Korean painter” (Karmoil 2004), “artist” (Potash Kalonick, 2004; Thomas, 2004; Russell, 2005), and “internationally acclaimed artist” (Princeton Packet, 2004). Kang noted, however, that he would just like to be called “Ik-Joong Kang” (personal interview, December 19, 2005). Do-Ho Suh sharply criticized the tendency of the art world to assign names based on nationality: American, Korean, Korean-American…I think it is ever changing. The labels are just for the convenience…I am not denying that I am a Korean-born artist, but that puts you in the situation of ‘Oh, his work has Korean identity.’ It’s so easy to fall into a stereotype (personal interview, January 5, 2006). Nevertheless, each artist has a tendency to claim their identities as border-crossing artists or diasporic artists. The names “a Korean artist who lives and works in New York” and “a Korean artist showing internationally” have the references of a border-crossing artist. In many ways, their artworks are uniquely created and born in among the Korean and New York’s different cultures, nationalities, and geographical and mental distances. Their artworks show an intertwined mixture of the Korean cultural contexts and international ambiances, including “both American and Korean.” Kimsooja stated, “I was considered in a different way. No longer as a Korean artist, but more as a Korean artist that lives and works in the States….I consider myself as cosmopolitan, and of course, my background is a Korean, but in a way, the nationality is not important anymore, although I still have my memory, and all the heritage is from there” (personal interview, January 2, 2006). Ik-Joong Kang compared his artwork and himself with the fortune cookie that was born in San Francisco’s Chinatown. The cookie “plays an important role connecting two different cultures and ideas, while belonging wholly to neither one” (personal interview, December 19, 2005). Kang views his work as influenced by both American and Korean cultures. In America, Kang had a sense of the assembly line of Koreans -- “the idea of

mass production” (http://www.levity.com/interbeing/ikjoong.html). At the same time, Kang feels, “I am part of Korea and I always feel I represent Korea in some aspect” (personal interview, December 19, 2005). Thus, Do-Ho Suh stated, “I have a tendency to take the best out of each culture” (personal interview, January 5, 2006). This idea is very close to ways in which poststructuralists and postmodernists view self in this contemporary era, as fluid and flexible, something that can be manipulated and constructed (Harding, 1971).

What do the artworks mean and/or do, as determined by a systematic critique developed in an authentic social context?

Lippard (1990) noted that for an artist, making art involves expressing oneself as a member of a larger community, so that one is also speaking for those who cannot speak. I agree with Lippard (1990) that the three border-crossing artists seemed to express their own individual emotions and perceptions, those of the larger community of the Korean people, and any people who have left their cultures origin or countries and now live with multiple identities. Through analyzing Do-Ho Suh, Kimsooja, and Ik-Joong Kang’s artworks and personal statements, I have seen the group portraits through their perspectives, which show the different characteristics of Korean and multicultural communities and societies. In Kimsooja’s A Needle Woman I became more focused on and attentive to the reactions of the world communities. How the communities reacted to and interact with Kimsooja shows how the communities deal with the differentness of people who are foreign or unlike themselves. For example, in Egypt, people slightly touched or pushed Kimsooja, yet in London and Japan people never touched her at all. Kimsooja’s performance represents not only an individual who is a member of the Korean diaspora in multicultural societies but also a group portrait in which the individual inevitably faces the world in this global society and age. Do-Ho Suh’s Paratrooper series represents the hierarchical military cultures and systems that most nations and societies have. In Ik-Joong Kang’s Amazed World, children’s dreams represent our mission for this very time with pure but critical eyes. In reference to 8490 Days of Memory, Kang stated, “By using chocolate I tried to evoke my initial encounter with American culture.” (personal interview, December 19, 2005). This visual representation by Kang could be thought to reflect the experiences of the people of many countries who have experienced wars and colonialism in relation to the United States. Kang stated, “Now when I make my artwork, I think about the global community” (personal

interview, December 19, 2005). Through the combination of their Korean heritage and local spirits and multicultural societies and interactions within a global context, these uniquely Korean border-crossing artists in the New York artworld create artwork with sensitive and unique observations and insights which Americans and the local communities cannot similarly catch or express. Yet the perceptions and responses of the Korean community and those of the multicultural American community toward these artists’ works are very different, reflecting different social perspectives. Do-Ho Suh, Kimsooja and Ik-Joong Kang all pointed out that Americans or Europeans and international audiences tend to analyze the each of the materials and components in their artworks, while Korean audiences seek a more holistic apprehension of the total meanings and concepts. In their interviews, the three artists’ descriptions of South Korea and the Korean community generally are very similar. Do-Ho Suh explained that Korean art education reflects a stereotypical and uniform style that involves imitating Roman and Greek figures and statues. Further, the pressure to conform is reflected in the political situation in Korea, and in the way students force others to act in particular ways, as when students forced others to boycott classes as a protest of government policies. Through Suh's artworks, I was able to perceive his feelings about these as social pressures. The Korean community prefers group and collective identity -- saying “we” rather than “I” -- thus for them, group harmony or balance is more significant that individual freedom or individualism. The emphasis on Korean familyhood or peoplehood can be seen in Kang's statement: “Koreans are very emotional…when things need to be professional, that emotional quality in Koreans works against what you want…If someone is too emotional, then that person is not acting as rational as they should” (personal interview, January 5, 2006). Karma, High School Uniform, and Paratrooper I and II represent these group characteristics and social pressure. For example, in Karma, the groups are forever running under a couple of big shoes, which also could be a member of another group. In High School Uniform and Paratrooper, the uniforms’ arms are tightly stitched to each other, and the individual paratrooper is attached by a number of strings from the big parachute composed of a group of blouses. Ultimately, the blouses do not have legs or trousers that would enable them to move out from the group. Kimsooja described Korea as “a small country, [with] an amazing energy, bursting energy toward the international community, always… willing to upgrade and follow up new

trends and consumerism…Korean society is very aggressive and competitive, also don’t take much time but wants to gain every thing at one time” (personal interview, January 2, 2006). These Do-Ho Suh’s and Kimsooja’s images of Korea are somewhat very similar to the Bibimbob style of Kang’s art: varied small 3 x 3 inch canvasses combine together in lines to form a whole. However, the social pressure makes it difficult for an individual to express his or her feelings or thoughts, as Do-Ho Suh stated: “I wasn’t really trained to express my feelings or thoughts on art [in Korea]” (Art 21, n.d.). These social characteristics make some Koreans feel isolated and ignorant, and gradually, as if they do not belong to there, as if they are aliens or strangers. Of course, this characteristic may be present in many societies other than Korean as well. National identity and culture are not formed through a natural process but are historically determined and selective (A. Smith, 2001; Dieckoff, 2004b; Gellner, 1997; Hannerz,1996; Hutchinson & Smith, 1994; Kymlicka, 1995;Mortimer, 1999; Norman, 2004; Olivier, 1999; Seelye & Wasilewski, 1996; Stalin, 1994; B. Anderson, 1997). So what or who determines national identities? As I found through this examination of the artists’ works, it is at least in part, family. Families embody the psychoanalytic self with the constitution and genealogy of the self and also serve as a comprehensive category for national, nomadic, and foreign identity (Benson, 2001). Artists’ memories and cultural practices are initiated in their family lives and traditions -- Do-Ho Suh’s traditional Korean house, which was established by his artist father; Kimsooja’s bottari, sewing with her grandmother, and her transient childhood; and Ik-Joong Kang’s two great artist grandfathers, and his feeling toward his son and father. For these border-crossing artists, family is an emotional place that they carry with them. As Benjamin (1936) wrote, “Memory creates the chain of tradition which transmits an event from generation to generation” (p. 154). Kwon (2002) explained this complex and intertwined relationship between personal identity and national and cultural connections in contemporary life. According to her, Korean diasporic art does not concern one's relationship to one's nation as much as one's ethnicity and culture in the larger world: Many have found new ways to be Korean in the different places where they are settled. We are actually creating new cultures that did not exist before. For many Koreans in the diaspora, home has become any place where one’s family resides

such that the real concern is the prospect of dwelling not outside the nation but outside one’s clan or extended kin (p. 53). The Korean diaspora is centered on the immigrant experience and complex questions about the identity of Koreans. How do we understand this notion of diasporic living? Yong Soon Min (2002) noted that the work of Korean diasporic artists addresses "the tension-breeding structures of duality thrust upon Korean expatriates as well as the dichotomies of harmony versus collision, adopted cultures versus motherland cultures, assimilation versus rejection, and familiarity versus strangeness" (p. 53). Therefore, the three border-crossing artists expressed not only self-portraits but also group portraits. I found that the Korean border-crossing artists are very well aware of their roles in both Korea and the United States. Moreover, in my view, through their diasporic and border- crossing experience, these artists have become people who are sensitive enough to be aware of the human condition in contemporary society. The three artists have reconstructed themselves as new people, and become a part of the cultures in which they wish to belong. Thus, when border- crossing artists present their past experiences of family and homeland, their narration is reconstructed and continuously changed. For these artists, the experiences of the past along with the present provide a continual space for exploration. They are constructing whole new identities in terms of their personal beliefs and social relationships

What conclusions can be drawn about the artists and their work, and their construction of identity through art as members of the Korean diaspora, members of the art world, and/or of the human race?

The work of these artists becomes significant both for Korean community and the international community, and specifically multicultural New York world, since the three border- crossing artists share their personal beliefs about human life, and our perceptions, informed by Western existentialism and Eastern Buddhism, teach us a humanist’s lesson, empathy. When the individual conflicts between one's relationship with groups and one's own unique individualism (Harding, 1971), contemporary concepts of self seem to move away from the sense of self of that people held in previous times, when self seemed to be fixed and identifiable by nationality and cultural stereotype (Yoon, 2000). Through looking at the selected artworks of the border-crossing artists studied, binary oppositions of locality/globalization,

Korean/international (specifically, the United States), and East/West were found to be intimately related to concepts of personal and social identity. As the studies of diasporic art, Hall (1991) observed that African immigrant art is “the journey to another identity” (p. 153). The Jewish diasporic artist Kitaj (1995) said that while his art concerns his own condition, it is a manifestation of the human condition. Kitaj (1995) wrote in his Manifesto, “Diasporist art is contradictory at its heart” (p. 32), but that it is also a source of strength for diasporic artists. The heart of diasporic art is political in nature, since immigrants are people in transition in between or among many. Artists who were born in Korea and immigrated to the United States are in continuous contact with the dominant Western culture and multicultural identities. At the same time, these individuals are inevitably bound to the ethnic and cultural communities in which the memories and cultural practices of their homeland and family are rooted. As a consequence, the individual retains both the identities of the ethnic community and of the host nation in a complex and shifting nexus between the two nations and cultures. The border-crossing artists’ works of art tell us about humans of the past and their struggle to make sense of, preserve, and possibly, communicate their perceptions and experiences in consciousness, as conscious beings. These works help us to understand other cultures and periods in ways only artwork can make happen. However even though an identity of self necessitates the notion of the other, and that this oppositional determination is a contradiction of the identity and difference (Žižek, 1993), the three artists’ works studied here are not only tragic struggling their identities as the border-crossers and tragic heroes who are aware of the human condition and over the borders. For example, Kimsooja was smiling at the end of her artistic interaction. Ik-Joong Kang sees hope for the future through our children. Even Do-Ho Suh sees there might be a good and safe landing in freedom. Artwork is created and best understood in relation to an artist's personality, family history, relationships, traditions, religion, economics, ethics, and national fate as well as in terms of personal emotional sensitivity, intellect, and experience (Heidegger, 1971). Art is "a means of reaching out to others for mutuality and is a means of communication as well as communion which can be achieved in both direct and symbolic ways” (Dissanyake, 1991, p.74). This border- crossing, a culturally displaced person in the adjustment can navigate a bigger map of the world than those bound to one location, culture, or identity is treated as representative able to speak about a nomadic nature of globalization (Kwon, 2002). All of these ideas must be considered

using the concepts of settlement and hybrid identity. The artists studied here form a bridge between the past and the present, between Korea and the United States, and between Eastern and Western. They are products of the conditions of their society and eras, and create something that transcends time and place. In their contemporary reflections on concepts of self-identity they speak to diverse issues of existential thought about the human condition and collective group identity. How have non-Western, Korean border-crossing artists negotiated their identities through their artwork within a multicultural context? Coming from Korea and living and working in the New York artworld, Suh was able to accept as inevitable the American label of a “Korean-born artist in the United States,” he still resisted being called “the proud Korean who works overseas” by Koreans, because unlike the former label, the latter one is not a fact, in fact, he is not only Korean or just a member of Koreans. Kimsooja combined her memories of family life in Korea with her interaction with diverse communities around the world, breaking apart boundaries and strict definitions associated with nationalities, cultures, ethnicities, genders, and religions. Thus Kimsooja became Kimsooja self. Ik-Joong Kang’s innocent and conceptual dreams and hope cooraborating with the world childrens, Kang became an activist artist and a philanthropist sympathetic his national and global unifications and problems. The Korean border-crossing artist teaches all of us about cooperation, collaboration, and unification. Do-Ho Suh, Kimsooja, and Ik- Joong Kang are members of global citizen and communities, as well as an individual self. Their artworks are social criticism of a society and the human condition, as well as individual claims to be oneself and real artist in freedom! From a distance is the special role of border-crossing artists, who are outside of their original societies and live in a strange place. “The personal is political” (Collins, 1998, p. 231). This idea refers that politics permeate everyday life, and that actions in everyday life are important in challenging structural power relations. Artists, like anyone else, can not change the world alone, but that art is nevertheless a powerful and potentially subversive tool of consciousness (Lippard, 1995). The three Korean border-crossing artists studied here have shown through their works that the arts are a powerful way to see what life is like (Eisner, 2002), and how an individual can communicate with others through art (Coombes, 1992).

Summary

The three Korean border-crossing artists, Do-Ho Suh, Kimsooja, and Ik-Joong Kang explore the relationships between self, society, and community. Do-Ho Suh’s Paratrooper I and II, Kimsooja’s Cities on the Move- 2727 Kilometers Bottari Truck and A Needle Woman series, and Ik-Joong Kang’s 8490 Days of Memory and Amazed World are self-portraits and at the same time group portraits. Conditions of existence, communication in the framework of globalization, a nomadic way of life, migration, and the family lives and contemporary society are central to the three Korean border-crossing artists. The artists combined Korean cultural contexts and the unification of people from different societies and cultures in their artistic identities, including their memories and perceptions of their life in Korea, and their border-crossing life experiences and perceptions of the United States and multicultural communities. Do-Ho Suh, Kimsooja, and Ik-Joong Kang present historical problems and current phenomena in the art world and society using transcultural and transnational artwork. Do-Ho Suh’s Paratrooper series, sculptural installations, illuminate the interdependence of personal identity with national, cultural, and social identity. Suh explored issues of individuality and group consciousness, displacement and transience, and his dependence on his understanding of the people of his homeland for a safe landing in America, as well as the tenuousness of this transition. The tensions in his work are about the transitions from social pressure to individual freedom. Kimsooja’s Cities on the Move- 2727 Kilometers Bottari Truck and the A Needle Woman series, video performance projects, depict sewing and wrapping bundle (bottari) as a symbolic action of coexistence, as an allegory for communication and interaction. The memories and experiences of her own family life and Korean culture expanded to the interaction with the multicultural communities and human life in her artwork. Ik-Joong Kang’s installations made up of 3 x 3 inch squares represent. The work, 8490 Days of Memory, reminds the viewer of past national history and diplomacy between South Korea and America with his own childhood memory. Another work Amazed World refers to the Korean concept of unity in the global and multicultural contexts. The three contemporary border-crossing artists studied herein proudly display art forms that are representative of their roots and spirits and are, at the same time, clearly instructive through their warm, humanistic interaction with the global community. The artworks instruct

multiple audiences, including Koreans and Americans, as well as the international community. For Koreans, these border-crossing artists are able to point out the characteristics and problems of their society, since they are outside of the society and free from societal pressure or blame. For Americans, the border-crossing artists suggest diverse viewpoints, by looking at American multiculturalism with innocent eyes. Furthermore, these three internationally renowned artists have sympathy for all people in light of the issues associated generally with passive and active life and the mortal and interrelated human condition. Through their artworks, audiences are encouraged to feel and change their actions and lives, and learn how to open their hearts to others and their differences. What we need in this society and the art are intellectuals who are aware of the larger problems of society and attempt to change them for the betterment of humankind and these three artists fit that world’s needs. Gómez-Peña defined border-crossing artists as “media pirates, border crossers, cultural negotiators, and community healers” (Lacy, 1995, p. 40). Internationally reknown Korean contemporary border-crossing artists Do-Ho Suh, Kimsooja, and Ik-Joong Kang represent important contemporary concepts and contexts. Examining these contemporary artists’ works has revealed new and fresh insights about the self, as it relates to culture and society. The three border-crossing artists’ works lend themselves to conceptual criticism and provide hopeful messages through art.

The Implications for Art Criticism and Art Education

Anderson's (1993) method of educational art criticism was effective for analyzing the descriptive/analytic and synthetic/creative aspects of the artworks selected for this study. This systematic method for contextual, cross-cultural art criticism provided a means of talking and writing about art that was logical and reasonable, and enabled the researcher to broaden the context for criticism by including interviews and document analysis along with the perceptions of the critic – a means of triangulating the data for more thorough analysis. Because these multiple, varied sources resulted in an enormous amount of data, the research questions enabled me to gain a more reasonable focus. Concentrating on the themes of artistic, personal, and social identity yielded meaningful insights about the works of these artists. A recommendation for other critics and for art criticism curricula is to ensure that the critic specify what she or he is looking for in a

piece prior to critically engaging it, and to think about his or her own personal theoretical orientation to and philosophy of art. In this way, the critic can be explicit about the potential impact of his or her own values and meanings on the interpretations. I found my critique informed by my deep experiences in both my native culture and my temporary American home culture. I feel certain that the same method of analysis I used would work in analyzing cultures, which are the ways of people’s lives, since I found that artistic identities inevitably reveal much about the national and cultural identities of the artists. In this way, Anderson's method of art criticism is truly cross- cultural art criticism. I feel that to truly understand the artists’ ideas and meanings, the critic must have a grasp of Korean culture and Eastern Buddhism and European Existentialism. When I talked with the artists about my critique, they became more interested in the interconnections of their art with literature and philosophy. These interrelated connections make criticism more interesting and produce more insights. The critic also must be sensitive to artistic materials and shapes of aesthetic elements as well as the power structures in society if he or she is to fully utilize critical theory. In this study, I considered the works of art not only as expressions that originated from certain societies or cultures, but also as products of the discourse between the increasingly multicultural world and the dominant Western international art world, which inevitably compares West and non-West. The messages in the works of art that result from the border-crossing experiences of the artists are significant in many ways. Contemporary discussions of identity, immigration, nationalism, globalization, and multiculturalism strongly resonant in the work of border-crossing artists, which often reflects on the history of decolonized culture and political powers in society (Gilroy, 2005). In each of the six selected artworks, Do-Ho Suh, Kimsooja, and Ik-Joong Kang depict a kind of nationalism and existentialism that exists between their Korean nationality and American multiculturalism. The works of these three border-crossing artists merge the artists' personal experiences with Korean and global communities with humanistic narratives, so that their art educates their audiences. Whether in Korea, the U.S., or in Europe, the content of art education should be very interdisciplinary, including not only aesthetic concerns, but also literature, language, philosophy, and critical theory

in general. This approach would be more useful for students, enabling them to see art as a form of ideas, and artistic practice as both visual and intellectual. Such students will have critical insights, sensitive eyes, and heightened cultural sensitivities. In this way, those students who have less artistic skills will still find the study of art interesting and accessible and enjoyable. Indirectly, such an approach also helps art museums and enriches the role of art in communities, such as through art auctions. I also hope this study of artists is useful to art students, future artists in Korea and the United States, as well as internationally. I agree with Ik-Joong Kang and Do-Ho Suh that making artwork is very competitive, since there are so many talented artists, so“to be famous is almost ninety percent good fortune” (Kang, personal interview, December 19, 2005) and “meant to be” (Suh, personal interview, January 5, 2006). Success in the art world depends in large part on the needs of the era and personal preferences. I believe that art students should ask "What is the purpose of my art?" and at the same time, "What are the consequences?" (Heck & Quintero, 2004). I asked Do-Ho Suh, Kimsooja, and Ik-Joong Kang what advice they might offer to future artists in international venues. Kimsooja said, “It all depends on their qualification, their experience, their personality and their talent, without taking a risk, on their life, we won’t be able to achieve anything meaningful and new” (personal interview, January 2, 2006). In Ik-Joong Kang's view, one should have a true mind, a lot of effort, and the right attitude (personal interview, December 19, 2005). Do-Ho Suh explained how he went through two bachelors degrees and a masters degree in both Korea and the United States. Though this was not something that he had planned, through these schools Suh met many artist friends and gained a valuable support network of other artists. Suh noted that an artist’s truly valuable work requires a certain degree of life experience and the artist’s maturity through practice. I understood his statements to mean that art requires practice (learning) and personal, artistic, and conceptual maturity. According to Suh, he was not sure that his art could have happened if he had not left Seoul to go to the United States (personal interview, January 5, 2006). The lessons of these border-crossers, and the gains to be made from a view “from a distance,” are useful instructions for any artist.

Recommendations for Further Research

My primary suggestion for further research is continued study of each of the three artist’s works independently. I would like to examine the work of each of the artists chronologically in order to better understand the personal and artistic progress of each one, through attention to the alterations in the content and expression of their art over time. I also suggest the study of the second generation of Korean-American artists. In terms of identity issues, they may be different from the three Korean border-crossing artists I studied, since such individuals are born and raised in the United States, and likely know less about the Korean cultures and language, except from their family. Another research subject could be the study of successful Korean contemporary artists in Korea. Despite an impressive amount of activity, knowledge of Korean art typically stops at the nation’s borders. Another area of interest would be the study of American or African-American artists who work in the European art world in locations such as Paris, Germany, or London, where cultural practices differ. Such a study would focus on another type of border-crossing art in the international art world, in the context of European multiculturalism. Dewey (1934) stated that the critic may or may not, in the end, articulate the definitive value of the object. This study of Korean border-crossing art may serve as the beginning of an ongoing investigation to find new meanings and significance in art and life. In the future, my further study of Korean contemporary border-crossing art in the international art world may result in different interpretations than those drawn in this study. For me, the significance of analyzing and interpreting artworks is in helping to illuminate the ultimate value of the artistic experience by revealing artistic ideals and uncovering personal and social issues. This study of Korean contemporary border-crossing art in the international art world has revealed many personal issues, social problems, and ideologies that arise in the artworld. The process of conducting this study has altered my perceptions of Korean society and community, and my knowledge and understanding of other cultures and people. The process of interpreting and criticizing artworks encourages open dialogue and communication. This expression of and speaking out on social issues is significant for our lives, such as when activists at the launch of the United Nations Global Media Initiative on HIV/AIDS in New York communicated the

message “Silence is Death.” To survive in this modern age, communication is a key survival tool. Soliloquy is not effective communication. True communication requires interaction guided by wisdom and empathy (love). Wisdom involves knowing how to negotiate a personal decision with others, and empathy involves understanding others as one would seek to understand one's own fate. All people should know how to advocate for themselves and to communicate with others. As Dewey (1934) stated, “The value of ideals lies in the experiences to which they lead” (p. 322). I suggest that art criticism and cross-cultural approaches to art education should initiate open and revealing discussion, and that the art critic can help others to hone artistic and humanistic sensitivities. In this way, border-crossing art and artistic criticism teach audiences and readers how to dialogue with others in a way that promotes mutual understanding and alleviates distress. Ultimately, further research into the work and experience of border-crossing artists can guide art viewers and readers to become more whole individuals whose wisdom and empathy is augmented by an awareness of our newly evolving global culture.

APPENDIX A

Human Subject Committee Approval Letter

APPENDIX B

Consent Form

APPENDIX C

Interview Protocol

A Critical Analysis of Contemporary Korean Border-Crossing Art in the New York Art World

This study addresses how selected internationally known contemporary South Korean border-crossing artists view their artistic, national, cultural, and personal identities and how this is reflected in their artwork.

Demographic

1. Where were you born? Where have you been raised? Where have you lived?

2. What is your background (family, job, education)?

3. How did you decide to be an artist? Can you tell me about your education in art?

Descriptive

4. What are the influences to yourself and your work from your childhood, family, and education in Korea?

5. Do you have any ideas/influences that arise grow your South Korean (nationality)?

6. Do you think your work represents your personal identity or national identity? How?

Interpretive

7. What is the meaning of your work?

8. What does it mean to you to show your work in exhibitions?

9. How have your works been changed over the years since you came to the United States?

10. Has your life been changed, since you have lived in the United States?

11. What was the audience’s impression or response to your first exhibition in America?

12. What are the reactions and response of the viewers to your work now? What do critics say about your work?

13. Is the response of the international viewers different from Korean viewers? How?

14. How do you feel when you are showing your work in important Western international venues in relation to the other artists?

15. Do you see different experience when you exhibit in Korea or in international (Western)?

16. Where do you prefer to create your work in Korea or in other cultural places?

17. How do people label you (such as Korean artist/ Feminist artist/ immigrant artist)?

18. Were you invited to show your work or did you apply for the opportunity?

19. Where do you receive your fund?

20. What is your image of Korea or being South Korean?

21. What is your image of your community such as family, friends, and colleagues?

22. Do you feel you represent Korea?

23. Is there some way that your experience in Korea and in North America becomes more or different than either experience separately?

24. Pick one of your works; tell what it means to you? Why is it meaningful?

APPENDIX D

Interview Transcript

Do-Ho Suh Interview

Demographic Questions

1. Where were you born? Where were you raised? Where else have you lived? I was born and raised in Seoul, Korea. I lived in Korea until I left for Paris in 1991. I stayed in Paris for about eight months, and after that I came to the States. Now, I’m living in New York.

2. Can you tell me more about your family background and your education? My parents still live in Korea. My father is a painter and my mother is a housewife, but she is very involved in a foundation that works for the preservation of Korean culture. I have one younger brother; he is an architect in L.A.

I studied Korean painting at Seoul National University in Korea. After that, I came to the United States. I got an undergraduate degree in painting at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and got an MFA in sculpture from Yale University in 1997. I moved to New York as soon as I graduated from Yale.

3. How did you decide to become an artist? Can you tell me about your education in art? My father, Se-Ok Suh, is a very famous painter in Korea, so I grew up in an environment where everything that surrounded me was related to art, and being in an artistic world became natural for me. I felt very comfortable with art. When I was growing up, I was relatively good at art in comparison to other kids in my class, and this must have been because of the artistic environment my parents immersed me in from an early age. But I didn’t really think I was going to be an artist until…maybe the middle of high school, around eleventh grade. Before that, I had had my mind set on becoming a marine biologist, which had been a dream of mine since I was five years old. I wanted to study fish and other creatures in the ocean. But in Korea, you have to take very rigorous entrance exams to get into college. I wasn’t good at math, so my poor math scores prevented me from going to a good school. It sounds like a strange reason, but I had to give up my dream of becoming a marine biologist because of these poor scores. I decided to go to art school instead. It still seems strange to me, this sudden switch from pursuing a science career to studying art. It was quite an abrupt change. For a long time, I had been very serious about becoming a marine biologist, and I had invested so much time and effort into preparing for this career. By the time I graduated from high school, I already had a college-level understanding of the subject. But, in the end, I decided to apply to art school, and to this day, I have never

regretted the decision. It is clear that I was not meant to be a marine biologist. And yet, I still keep some of my favorite books about fish near my bed.... Sometimes I flip through them just before I go to sleep.

Anyhow, I decided that I wanted to study sculpture in college, since I loved to make things. I started to reconsider doing the sculpture major, though, after I heard that you have to practice sculpting clay busts of classical Roman and Greek statues in order to prepare for the college entrance exams for the sculpture major. I really hated doing those busts. On exam day, you have to make a bust in only three hours, and it has to be very realistic. I thought that was crazy. I think there was and still is a big problem with art education in Korea. Pretty much all the art education prior to college is focused on preparing a student for the college entrance exams. To prepare for these exams, students spend all of elementary school, middle school, and high school practicing realistic drawings and sculptures. The focus is on knowing how to do classical European busts with clay and with pencil. I just hated preparing clay in the middle of the frigid winter. Man, the clay was so cold in my hands, and it was so frustrating to work on the same kind of bust over and over in that way! So, I changed my mind and decided to become a painter. I finally got into the painting department of Seoul National University in 1981. At that time, you just applied to the painting department—it was not until sophomore year that you had to decide whether you wanted to major in Korean painting or Western painting. Although I had never studied Korean painting before coming to college, I just went for the Korean painting major. I figured that I could study Western- style painting at any time, and I would have opportunities to do this at any school anywhere in the world. I could only learn about Korean painting, on the other hand, at a school in Korea. I did not want to miss that opportunity, and, since my father was a painter in the Korean tradition, it was just natural to study Korean painting. I have an undergraduate degree and a master’s degree in Korean painting.

In 1991, after getting my MFA in Korea, I went to RISD [Rhode Island School of Design] to study painting. Of course, you cannot study Korean or Eastern painting in the United States. At RISD, I studied painting in the Western tradition. I was doing oil painting and all kinds of techniques that were different from what I had learned in Korea. But, at the same time, I was required to take some non-major elective classes. When I was a sophomore, I took a sculpture class called “Figure in Contemporary Sculpture.” Taking this class was a total accident, but it ended up having a great effect on me. I didn’t want to take this class, since I wasn’t interested in figurative sculpture, but I had no other options. All the classes that I wanted to take were already filled, and this was the only class left open to me, so I had to take it. I thought it would be a figure-modeling class. It turned out that the class was not about figurative sculpture in the classical sense. My teacher, Jay Coogan’s approach to this subject matter was really different from what I expected. What I did and learned in the class has permanently changed the perspective I have on my art. That semester, while I was making paintings, I was also making sculptures and preparing installations simultaneously. At the end of my RISD years, I decided that I really wanted to become a sculptor, and then I applied to graduate school for sculpture.

[What was your motivation? You already went through a Korean BFA and MFA, and then you began a BFA and an MFA in the United States. What happened?]

Well [smiles]…that was an accident too. I didn’t really plan to start all over again, from the undergraduate level…. What happened was that I applied to both undergraduate and graduate schools when I got to the United States. But, I only got accepted by RISD, which was an undergraduate program. I got rejected from all the other schools that I applied to. I had no choice but to start over again if I wanted to pursue art education in America. It was not something that I had planned, but I think it worked well for me in the end. Probably two years at graduate school would not have been enough. If you come straight from Korea, two years is not enough time to observe everything and understand this culture. I realized that when I moved to New York after I studied at RISD and Yale. I have a lot of friends from RISD in New York, and it is very nice to have friends around you and supporting you in this rather brutal art world. The Yale program was very competitive and it was much smaller, so there are not as many people around in New York from the Yale program as there are from RISD. If you come from Korea, spend only two years at graduate school, and then move to a tough city like New York without any kind of support network of other artists, it is a very difficult life for you as a young artist, I think.

Descriptive Questions

4. What are the influences that your childhood, family, and education in Korea had on you and your work? Well, I think the most obvious thing to influence me was just the fact that I grew up in an environment like what I mentioned before: having very artistic parents who were very supportive of an artistic career…everything about that environment contributed to who I am now. The house I grew up in is a very traditional Korean building surrounded by a very beautiful garden that has lots of pine trees…. The experience I had in this house that my father built really influenced me a lot, and it comes to my mind all the time. It was quite an experience to grow up in this very unique place surrounded by trees, plants, antique furniture, paintings, rocks, books, all the result of my father’s hard work. My mother also has very sophisticated tastes. Even though she is a housewife, she has so much knowledge about Korean traditional culture and taught me a lot about architecture, traditional dress, and cooking. She has always been a great resource for me.

[Can you tell me about your college education in Korea?] Well…I was in college from 1981 to 1987, which was the most problematic and difficult time in contemporary Korean history. This period in the 1980s was the so-called Fifth Republic of Korea right after the May 18th Gwangju massacre. There were student protests all the time, every day. You could smell tear gas all the time. The riot policemen stayed on campuses; there were too many demonstrations. People were arrested and tortured. It was just a very turbulent time. [You did not have many classes during this time?] No, I didn’t. Students tried to boycott the classes and that was very sad…. It was a very sad and unfortunate time in our history. In high school, there are a lot of hard subjects like mathematics which I still don’t think are necessary for everyone to take. But, once I got to college, I was really motivated to study hard and learn all that I could about those subjects I was really interested in. But, the political situation on campus and in the country at large interrupted my studies. The class boycotts put a lot of students in a very uncomfortable situation. You came to college to study and you worked so hard to get there, but then…everyone was so worried about the political

situation. We were all sympathetic and outraged about the Gwangju people who were killed and wounded by the military. I was torn so much between my personal passion and desire, and the greater cause. I am pretty sure that I was not the only one who felt that way. It seemed like there was no way out. It was a very dark and depressing time for everyone. But I didn’t like the way that some students who were more politically engaged were actually forcing other students not to go to class. I don’t think that was democratic. You were seen as part of the problem if you didn’t align yourself with the politically active people and boycott the classes. [Was it serious in the art department?] I think it was probably less serious than in other departments, but there was still some pressure there in the art school. This is the so-called 386 generation—people who are now in their thirties, were educated in the 1980s, and were born in the 1960s. I am part of that generation and the current administration is also part of it. I don’t want to get into it too much, but that was the environment I grew up in. [How did you decide to come to the United States? Did your parents or professors help you to decide?] No, it was my decision to come to study here. I had studied Korean (Eastern) painting, so it was not really necessary to continue my studies in the States, but I fell in love and married a Korean-American woman, a woman who was born in the United States. She was studying in college at the time, so it was very natural for me to come to the U.S. with her. How did I meet her? Well…I mean…it is a long story…but anyway, I followed my love. Actually, this is something that I just heard from other people recently, that some people thought I had carefully planned out how I would go to the United States for another undergraduate degree and would then go to Yale and then move to New York…as if it were all planned in advance. No! Not at all. It just happened by accident, like a whole series of accidents, really. Anyway, that’s how I came here. My experiences at RISD and Yale were really extraordinary, and they allowed me to compare art education in Korea to art education in the U.S. It was really different. When I had my first class at RISD, the first thing that came to mind was that I wanted to build and make a school like RISD in Korea. Yes, that’s how I really felt about the education at RISD, and I really thought I was learning something meaningful there. [And after graduating from RISD, you spent, what, two years at Yale?] Yes.

5. What media do you work with? Well, I don’t have any specific materials that I always use. The medium I use differs from one project to the other. I have been using fabric a lot these days, but that doesn’t mean that I only use fabric. I use plastic and metals as well. The choice of materials in my work is not something that I am really interested in that much. It must make sense with the idea I am trying to express, but that’s it. Sometimes you have the concept and then you search for the right material to express it. Well, to be precise, most of the time those two processes happen simultaneously.

6. Are there any ideas/influences you have that arise from your South Korean nationality? [Already answered.]

7. Do you think your work represents your personal identity or national identity? How?

My artistic practice is about me negotiating my ever-changing surroundings. Often my work has autobiographical references. So, I mean, people talk about and write about issues of identity in my work quite often, but I don’t make a piece of art just to represent my identity or my national identity. These issues just come as part and parcel of my work. You know, I just make my works. The issues of identity may not be my main interest, although you can find them in the fabric of the larger piece. What people say about the issues of identity in my work is, ironically, a reflection of their own understanding and interpretation. It is not really my concern. I am busy dealing with other stuff. [What do you think about how people represent your identity?] Most of the time, people try to represent me as a Korean, a Korean man, I guess…. Of course, this is inevitable, since I am a Korean man…. I grew up in Korea and lived there until my early thirties, and I am used to a different culture from what is prevalent here. So, my work naturally may present things that seem exotic or simply different from what American audiences are used to.

Interpretive Questions

8. When you are showing your work in international venues, do you feel that your works are qualitatively different from those works done by artists that come out of other countries? Of course there is a difference. I am not quite sure how to answer your question. I think my work is distinguishable from the works of other countries’ artists, but critics have a tendency to add a very specific “Korean” aspect to it that is not always there. For example, like the high school uniform project or my dog tags piece. Dog tags are pretty universal, since every country uses them. I think the shape of the piece, though, somehow reminds people of Asian clothing, like kimonos [traditional Japanese clothing] or hanboks [traditional Korean clothing]. So then, when they know the artist is a Korean guy, they assume that the shape is from Korean culture. But no, it’s not—it is from the lining of a U.S. military jacket! So, it’s not Asian at all. It’s just something that people wanted to project onto my work. A lot of people assume that I am female, just because I use fabric in my works. Before they meet me, a lot of people think I am a woman. Even some critics have made similar mistakes in their writings. [Laughs.]

9. What is the meaning of your body of work? That is the hardest question to answer…. I think at the core, it is about the process of figuring out, you know…“what’s the purpose of life?” It is such a fundamental and profound question, but through making art, I think, I try to understand the meaning of life in my own way.

10. What does it mean to you to show your work in exhibitions? I show my work in exhibitions simply because there is a demand to show art…. [Laughs.] The end product of making the art, showing it in exhibitions, museums, and galleries…this is all important, and I believe in that whole system. I am in it. However, to tell you the truth, the process is more important to me. Artists can only be truly free in that process, the process of making art….

11. How has your work changed over the years?

My first solo show in New York was in 2000, so my career has been only five years long. I don’t think I have had the time to significantly change my work in those five years. But I feel that my general interests in life have started to shift recently. It may or may not start to show in my work visually. I think the metaphors in my work are broader than they were before…. That’s the only change I can see. It will probably be a slow transformation…. To be honest, this is not something that I think about all the time.

12. Has your life changed since you came to the United States and started to work in New York? Yes, definitely. [How has it changed?] I think the way I see things, the way I think, and the way I live my life have all changed. Once you leave the place of your origins and start to live in a different country, you become more aware of your surroundings and yourself. You start to see the differences, and, well, using a technical term, you are able to maintain a critical distance from everything, basically. Something that you believed was the truth back in Korea is not necessarily a truth in the United States, so when you realize that…then it totally screws up your way of looking at things, your perceptions, and you start to question things that you never questioned before. So that was the most important benefit that I got when I came to the United States. I mean, it could have happened anywhere; if I had left Seoul to go to Japan, for example, I would have had the same experience, I think. This experience has made me more open to other things than I was when I lived in Korea. I am more open to accepting difference since I came to the U.S.

13. What was the audience’s impression or response to your first work in New York? I was in a group show in New York that was right after graduate school in 1997. Well, I think, this is a difficult question, I don’t know, because they didn’t know my cultural background that much, I mean, they knew my basic cultural background, but they didn’t know about the Korean culture and Asian culture that much compared to their own culture. Because of that, I think they had a tendency to see things with more…innocent eyes…. [Which work was it?] It was a wallpaper piece called Who am we?…. But I want to talk about a general tendency. Sometimes people impose their cultural backgrounds on my work and see things totally differently. On some level, they always see different things. [Than your idea?] No, than Korean audiences. [Ah, so their perspective is different?] Yeah, it’s different.

14. Can you explain some of the ideas expressed in your artwork? Ah, I love answering these kinds of questions. There is a piece at the Fabric Workshop that I showed in Korea two years ago at the Artsonje Center. It’s called Paratrooper (there are two works, titled Paratrooper II and V) and it has pink threads in it. I think it was quite different. [What was the response to that piece?] Ah…a lot of the Korean audience cried at the opening reception when they saw the piece. They really cried. Isn’t that strange and yet interesting? It was something that I had never expected.

And then, I showed the piece a year later in New York. There was a different reaction. The piece was about in-yeon (relationship; fate; karma; string; link). The concept of in-yeon was, I found, very difficult to explain to the American audience, but I think for the Korean audience, they didn’t even need to know that my piece was about in-yeon…. I didn’t have to

explain. It’s like something ingrained in their culture so deeply, that they were able to see, or understand, or experience it right away without any word of explanation. I think that’s why people reacted so emotionally. [Were the people who cried young or old?] Old people. Middle-aged people, not like people in their twenties. They were able to see my piece and the idea behind it together in one view. I think it was pure experience and reaction. They could see the piece with their heart. [What word or term did you use to explain in-yeon to Americans?] I looked it up in a dictionary and tried to explain the term, but it is quite difficult. You have to understand Buddhism and other aspects of Eastern culture to fully grasp the meaning of in-yeon. Just the description in the dictionary was not right, but in the end I used the words “relationship and fate” to explain it. I found it is probably the closest and easiest term to make them understand. I am sure that the idea of in-yeon is also an idea that you can find in Western culture. It might be just me who cannot explain it well in English. But one thing for sure is that for Koreans and other Easterners, it is something that is part of their everyday lives. It is such a fundamental concept or philosophy for the basis of the Eastern way of thinking and way of life. That is why it is hard to explain to Americans. [What exactly do you mean when you say in-yeon?] In-yeon is…for example, when you and I met, that special moment is a result of in-yeon. Our meeting was not coincidental, but it was meant to be. There was a reason why we met. In other words…. [It was already set up, you mean?] Our meeting was predestined…. In-yeon is about a belief that everything has a reason for happening and is the consequence of previous action. In our case, whatever we did in our previous lives reaches forward to affect current events…. Let’s assume that in one’s life, one meets around 3,000 people. Well, this is a Buddhist’s idea, anyway. Among the 3,000 people, the degrees of the relationship are all different. For example, the degree varies from the closest ones, like parents, siblings, wife, girlfriend, to the people you met just once in your life. You may ask yourself these questions: Why do I have special, deeper, and closer relationships with certain people compared to others among the many I meet in my life? Why I was born as a Korean in Korea? Why not in the USA or Africa? Well, the answer would be, because I have Korean parents, right? But then, why are my parents my parents? [Laughs.] On the other hand, why might I meet someone only once in my life? I think you can find answers in the relationships or links or strings of past life and the past world. I am convinced of the idea that we had certain relationships before this life, so that they are still linked or connected to us now, and our encounters and relationships in the present will continue in the next life as well. To me, in-yeon means that the consequences of your behavior and what you had in a past life result in our present relationships and encounters. [These sound like very Buddhist thoughts.] Yes. [Are you Buddhist?] No, I am not…. Well, I am a semi-Buddhist…but this idea is just natural to Asian people, specifically Koreans. For example, when a person meets or sees another person, Koreans or Asians don’t look at the person as just a physical entity, but try to find out other aspects such as the person’s background and web of relationships, aspects that are the invisible and intangible qualities of a person. It is about more than finding out someone’s personality. It is more like seeing a person within context. The Asian way of viewing a person yields a view that is more blurry but also more broad and comprehensive than the Western view of that person. It sounds funny, but there has been scientific research on this matter…. You know, we [Koreans] check each others’ backgrounds all the time. We ask, “Which elementary school did you go to?” “Which region/hometown/military unit do you belong to?” Americans sometimes do that too, but much less than Koreans do, I think. In some sense,

Western people look at a person as a fundamentally individual entity, separate from the background, while we Koreans look at all the surroundings together. So if I made a work that related to in-yeon, I don’t need to explain that to Koreans. But for Americans, even though they may have their concept of that, it is not that important, so when the Americans look at Paratrooper, they try to analyze the individual materials I use in the piece, such as the strings or the human figure, instead of taking in the artwork as a whole. It seems like my piece is more opaque to non-Koreans.

15. Is the response of the international viewers different from Korean viewers? How? [Already answered.]

16. How do you feel about the relationship you have with other artists of your nationality? Do you have anything to say? If you don’t want to answer, I can skip this question. No, it’s not that I don’t want to say, but it’s not that important to me, and I think I have explained the reason in my previous answers.

17. Where do you prefer to create your work: in Korea or in another cultural context? You have made artwork in Korea, right? I have studios in Korea and I have one in New York; I don’t have a preference. Yes, I’ve been making my work mostly in Korea, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t make works in the United States. I make works in the States too. I have a series of projects about my family’s Korean house, and it makes sense to make them in Korea. I decide whether I will make a project in Korea or in the States based on what makes the most sense to me. I would also love to make works in places other than Seoul or New York.

I make and finish works in my studios, wherever they are, but it takes several days to actually install [at the exhibition space]. That’s what’s happening here at the Fabric Workshop. [I read an article that said your work is site-specific artwork.] Yeah, mostly it is. But some are not site-specific pieces. A site-specific piece doesn’t mean that I always make the piece in the space, but it does mean that something was either triggered by the space or used the conditions of the space, and so it is more integrated with the space than just a sculptural object. That’s what I mean by “site-specific.”

18. How do people label you? As a Korean artist? A feminist artist? An immigrant artist? I have lots of problem with this. A lot of people here in the United States, they call me a Korean-born artist. I wish I was not labeled as any of these. But, at the same time, I realize that is probably impossible. That fact is, I am a Korean, so it’s very natural for them to be labeling me that way.

19. Have you ever applied to any exhibitions, for example, at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, the Lehmann Maupin Gallery in New York, or theVenice Biennale?

No. [You had an exhibition in the Venice Biennale in 2001, didn’t you?] I was in two shows; one was in the Korean pavilion, and the other one was in Harold Seaman’s international exhibition.

20. Where do you receive your funding from? You sell your work and earn [money] from that. That’s how I do it right now. Also, when you are invited to certain shows, they pay for your production. But at the beginning, you work at something else for money. I was a carpenter and did all kinds of things to make money when I was first getting started. I also applied for grants and fellowships to help support my art.

21. What is your image of Korea or being South Korean? That’s a tough question. It’s hard to explain. My image of Korea…it’s kind of a love/hate relationship. I love certain things in Korea so much, but there are also a lot of things that I don’t like, so…it’s very hard…. [Such as? Can you give me examples?] Well, for one thing, I think Koreans are very emotional. I like that quality, but at the same time, when things need to be professional, that emotional quality in Koreans works against what you want. That was just something that popped into my head. If someone is too emotional, then that person is not acting as rational as they should. You know, you have to maintain a balance.

22. What kind of a role do your family, friends, and colleagues play in your life? Family becomes more important, actually, when I am in Korea. Friends and colleagues become more important when I am in New York, because I don’t have family here in New York.

23. Do you feel you represent Korea on the international stage? Well, again, I don’t think I am someone who is like an ambassador promoting Korean culture or Korean art. I don’t think that way at all. I am just too busy doing my own thing. But—I think other people might think of me that way. Again, it’s their problem, not my problem. Well, for example, the Korean media would say about me, “This artist who represents Korea overseas,” something like that…. I hated it. You know why? It has nothing to do with who I am and how I feel about it. People just label me that way, well, just for themselves.

24. Is there some way that your experiences in Korea and in North America have come together to form something more or different than each experience separately? Every culture and every race has its own traits. And yes, they are different, sometimes very subtle and sometimes very obvious. I have a tendency to take the best out of each culture.

25. Pick one or two of your works, and tell me what they mean to you. Why are they meaningful to you? Every piece is meaningful! The Paratrooper series is probably meaningful. The first version was made three years ago, and the second version was made this year. I treat them as self- portraits, so they are pretty important to me personally. The Who am we? and Floorpieces are very meaningful too… And another of my recent works in Japan is Reflection. [It looks

like l’Arc de Triomphe.] It is actually a small gate that is at my parents’ place. I like this one very much. It somehow allows me to see my life in it. I still have goose bumps when I think about the piece. It is kind of a summed up verion of every piece I have made. [Why?] When you have exhibitions, you have the feeling that everything just worked perfectly for the piece…that the space was not conventional museum space—in other words, a very difficult space for most artwork—but was the perfect space for my piece. And you know, sometimes, you don’t make work until you meet the right space, like in-yeon. The space had great chemistry and my piece and the space were perfect for each other. They were dependent on each other. There were harmony and contradition at the same time.

Reflection was made in the winter of 2004; I think I could not have made that kind of piece five years ago. This kind of work seems to require a certain degree of experience in life, and also the right timing is necessary. I feel like that work is another pivotal piece, like a monument that marks the passing of a certain period in my life. But, of course, I think that everything I have made is important and related to each other.

Interview Transcript

Kimsooja Interview

Demographic Questions

1. Where were you born? Where have you been raised? Where have you lived? I was born in 1957 and raised in Daegu, South Korea. I live and work in New York now.

2. What is your background (family, job, education)? I graduated in Painting from Hong-Ik University in South Korea with a Bachelors and Masters of Fine Art. I studied in Lithography at Ecole National Superieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France (1984-1985). I was an artist in residence at P.S. 1 Museum, New York (1992- 1993) and world views-artist in residence at the World Trade Center, New York (1998-1999).

3. How did you decide to be an artist? Can you tell me about your education in art? Well, I’ve been always interested in art. When I was a little girl, I was interested in painting. When I was in 5th grade, my school teacher asked me to choose an occupation for my future. I wrote a paper about wanting to be a painter and a philosopher. Even before I wrote this paper, I was dreaming about becoming an artist. However, this was the first time I really described wanting to be an artist. After, I realized that being an artist was natural to me and so I continued drawing and examining various materials. After graduating from high school, I went to Hong-Ik University.

4. What are the influences on yourself and your work from your childhood, family, and education in South Korea? I grew up in a very sensitive and musical family. My two brothers are musicians and my mother studied music also. But my father was in the military service. So we lived in military zones, like D.M.Z. (Demilitarized Zone) areas a lot when I was a little girl. We moved a lot from one city to another, one village to another all the time, every year and a half or two. When I look back, I think, this kind of family situation in a way had a big influence on my current projects such as the Bottari, Cities on the Move, and Needle Woman projects.

5. Do you have any ideas/influences that arise from growing up as a South Korean Of course, the cultural influence. The social and political situation in Korea was definitely influential for me, as a woman, obviously. Also, most Korean societies’ basic attitude is based on Confucianism in a way. A lot of my works were actually based on the conflict between this Confucianist society and individuals. I have tried to achieve my own life and identity as an individual person and woman.

Descriptive Questions

6. What media do you work with? I would say different kinds of mixed media. Because of my interests, it has always originated from the question of painting, which involves surface. However, it was expanded and developed into different dimensions and media such as installation, sculpture, videos, and performances. Now I am working with light and sound, so my interest has gone further, in a way, to theimmaterialization of the material world. So, there shouldn’t be any boundaries in my work. Can you describe your work in your own words? Well it is a little bit difficult to explain and also it is too abstract for me to describe my work because my work is so diverse. I can’t really describe it in one word. But, basically, my work examines the boundaries between art and life, I would say. In the work I create, I try to discover the meanings and contexts of the elements of daily life in contemporary art contexts.

7. What are the ideas or meanings about your works? Putting oneself in quietness and in meditative space leads to a certain awareness, perception, awakening. We don't have that many opportunities to do it in our daily life.

Interpretive Questions

8. What was the audience’s impression or response to your first Western exhibition? It was in Western society and countries….I think it was at P.S. 1. in 1992. I was at the P.S. 1 open studio in 1992 and the show was in 1993. I already had had a couple of shows in New York, we would say in 1992, and I also showed at the New Museum in 1992 as well.

9. Were you invited to show your work or did you apply for the opportunity on your first exhibition in the exhibitions? Well, you know, I got invitations from the New Museum while I was at P.S. 1. So it is basically related to my P.S. 1 residency.

10. How have your works changed over the years? Well, of course, the first attempt was, I would say, sewing pieces. From sewing pieces, I developed the deductive object series, which is wrapping the fabrics around the daily Korean folk objects, which is another type of sewing. And also, making bottari is a three dimensional way of sewing, I would say. Because in a way, the sewing itself is wrapping the thread around the fabric with a needle, so in a way, the wrapping element is already in sewing, so that’s how I think my work naturally developed from sewing into wrapping, and into making bottari. And then the metaphor of needle became more personal, and then my body itself became a symbolic needle. Because the needle itself is a tool which is a part of the body, that is an extension of the body, that’s how the needle could have been symbolized and developed as a body and a needle. So that’s the relationship between my previous work and the work that I am doing now.

11. Has your life been changed, since you have become an international artist?

Well, I have become more mobile, and I can communicate more with a broader audience. I consider myself more as a cosmopolitan, rather than a Korean.

12. How do you feel when you are showing your work in important Western international venues in relation to the other artists from other countries? I don’t feel anything special – I see artists from different countries just individual artists rather than as representives of their countries. Of course, they have their own identities and national backgrounds but, for me, it is just the diversity we all live with. In this multicultural and global society, our diversity stimulates each other and expands our horizon and it’s nothing surprising.

13. What does it mean to you to show your work in exhibitions? Artists create works to communicate with themselves and with others…it is always interesting to have different perspectives, different reactions. Sometimes national audiences are quite different from international audiences. My earlier work is very much related to national identities and cultural issues. Korean audiences seem to have no distance from their own society and culture, so my work is often considered as one of popular objects which surround people in their daily lives that they don’t pay attention to anymore. But that is my point. I put a question in my work, I take things out of their daily life contexts to draw the audience’s attention and to question our perceptions and redefine the meaning of our daily lives.

14. Do you think your work represents your personal identity or national identity? How? My [artistic] question always started from my personal questions but it naturally embraces our own cultural and social issues as well as human conditions, so I think it is always united and inseparable, as a totality.

15. Is the response of the international viewers different from Korean viewers? How? (She answered above.)

16. Where do you prefer to create your work -- in Korea or in other cultural places? I always like to visit unknown cultures, cities, and nature which I haven’t experienced, so it’s always inspiring for me to visit other places, to meet their people, rather than working only in Korea…although I rediscover the value of my own country in this way as well. This was one reason I enjoyed working on the Needle Woman project in different metropolises, and I didn’t make a performance in Korea to be able to keep a distance from my own identity. Now I am working on another piece, the same Needle Woman piece but in another format, in Nepal, Havana, Cuba, Rio, N’Djamena, Sana’, and Jerusalem. It’s always a challenge for me to visit unknown cities. My mind works well when I am traveling, rather than staying in one place – it’s always refreshing. It’s a good time to have a distance from daily life. So it always inspires me.

17. Do you see different experience when you exhibit in Korea or in Western? As I told you before, when I exhibit in Korea, the context of my work is hidden rather than revealed as much as in the Western countries. Whenever I show in Western countries, the

context of my work is much more clear and distinguishable against the background of their culture and in relationship to Western art history. So Western audiences read my work in a more objective way, and they see the elements more clearly than many in the Korean artworld. What do you mean objective? Unike Korean audiences, some audiences in Western countires read my work more significantly and profoundly…most people in Korea see, for example, bottari, as one of the many bottaris, being found in our daily lives around the country, so it cannot be distinguished from their daily life and artwork, although I show it in the museum to redefine it. They don’t see the meaning behind why I brought this daily life object into a museum. That’s one actual problem when I show in Korean society, but that’s also the reason why I started these works in Korean society. So in a way, it will take time for my work to have more specific and clear distinctions in contemporary art contexts in Korea.

It seems Korean people do not see the structure of my work… the Western people as Westerners seem to read well the formalistic and conceptual structures in the context of art history. Westerners look at certain meanings in a comprehensive way of understanding, including issues such as globalization, migration, feminism or identity, while they interpret my work in the dimension of painting or sculpture as well. I think it is probably because of the accumulated history of modern and contemporary art in Western society and their educational system.

Bottari itself is a sculpture and at the same time a painting. The fabric that I use for making bottari is not a traditional cloth for wrapping, but a bedcover which was used by newly married couples and which symbolizes love, fertility, long life and many sons, good luck, and fortune …etc. This is to wrap our love, relationship, agony, pleasure…our pain, our life and death in it, as we are born, love, dream, rest, suffer, and die in the bedcover. But in Korea, when we say “wrapping bottari”, especially, when a woman packs [up the bundle] that means the woman leaves her own family, such as her husband, children, and her parents to pursue her own life, and it is very much related to feminist issues. But also bottari in Korea is so much embedded in the daily life, as "all in a day's work," [Koreans] cannot see clearly the certain gap between life and art.

18. What are the reactions and response of the viewers to your work now? What do critics say about your work? It all depends. It cannot be generalized. I have good reactions and responses from audiences, but it’s a question of how and in which context, rather than just generally. The real criticism or responses can be made only with certain directions and about certain works and contexts. In general, I think I’ve been well received internationally, having big solo shows in respectable museums, and participating in many of the important biennales, so I have no complaints. And I continue to have precious relationships with my audiences from all over.

19. How do people label you (as Korean artist/ Feminist artist/ immigrant artist)? Kimsooja, a Korean artist who lives and works in New York, or sometimes, Kimsooja, Korean artist showing internationally, something like that.

I found that you want to call your name as one word. Have you found the reason at my website – an anarchist’s statement? There is no space in between the first and last names, so that it doesn’t show any familial identity or marital status. For example, in America, when women are married, they have their husband’s name at the end. We don’t do it this way in Korea as we retain our family names, which I think is more democratic. By putting those first and family names together, I erase the differences between them. And also don’t show any religious, or cultural, or any other significance.

20. Were you invited to show your work or did you apply for the opportunity? I have never applied for shows unless I was invited.

21. Where do you receive your funds? When I was in Korea, I often applied for grants from The Korean Culture and Arts Foundation. They’ve been very supportive of my P.S.1. residency and many of my shows and also for the Cities on the Move project. So they’ve been one of the most supportive institutions. And also the Paradise Cultural Foundation supported me, and I got a Wookyung prize in 2002, and the Sungnam Foundation as well, and there was another one from the Songweun Art Foundation. But you know, there is always a limited amount of support, it’s not easy for one artist to get the big support in Korean society as most grants are supposed to be divided into many artists and projects – that’s the policy of most Korean institutions and foundations. So this was one difficult part for me in my work, as I had no other source to support myself. As my projects become bigger and bigger, and more demanding, they cost a lot more money than I could possibly get from grants. Since I came to New York, I’ve got support from also Federal government of United States, CEC Arts Link, organization which supports American artist who works in the Eastern European countries or Eastern European Russia, and also Central Asia. I’ve got an Anonymous Woman prize which is also very meaningful and unusual good support. Whitney museum commissioned the a piece of the price for the American Art World, which Cartier cooperation supported. French government gave me short residence grant for a lithography studio work at Ecole des Beaux Arts in the 80s and many European museums were very supportive for my shows and projects.

How did you make connection as you were a student in Korea to the international exhibitions? Well, most of the cases, I never applied for grants except few in Korea and never made any proposals for the exhibitions unless I was asked to. I was always participating for the show I was invited. Applying for a grant or a show takes too much energy, unless you know the real possibility and time.

22. Do you feel you represent Korea in international milieu and form, because they call you as Korean artist? Sometimes, I felt that way till late 1990s, but not any more. I think, some artists who live in Korea, are occasionally invite because of their Korean identity, and they are people in the international art world who want to acknowledge Korean artists in terms of the geographical and cultural relationship rather than artistic achievement. As an infrastructure, for example, since I left Korea, I was considered no longer as a Korean artist, but more as a Korean artist who lives and works in The States. Their perception is different now.

23. What is your image of Korea or being South Korean? What is my image of Korea? Well… it’s difficult. It is such a small country but has amazing and bursting energy toward thefuture and to be part of international community, always willing to upgrade and follow up new trend and consumerism. In a way, I have quite critical opinion on Korean society, I find sometimes Korean community is very aggressive and too much competitive, also don’t take much time to be matured but wants to gain every thing at one time, so anyway this Korean society wasn’t the society I wanted to be- on personal, social and cultural level it was difficult for me to adjust to this society. What do you think about as a Korean as your nationality? Well, so far I was known as a Korean artist but …I don’t really think about it much now. Because I consider myself as cosmopolitan, and of course, my background is a Korean, but, in a way, my memory, and all the heritage from there. It’s not the society I want to be in, the Korean way of living is not the one I want to persue, so So that’s why I am here…Do you go to Korea a lot? How many times a year? Few times, once or twice a year.

24. What is your image of your community such as family, friends, and colleagues? What do you mean your community? Does it mean Korea? Community in New York? Your family is always family, it can never be changed. But friends and colleagues are all international. When I was in Korea, I really didn’t have many …friends I can really communicate and share ideas that I have. So I’ve been communicating all the time on email (laugh) with friends from all over the world. My friends are from every where. Of course, I have Korean friends, but they also scattered every where. I don’t have a certain community to define friends except my family.

25. Is there some way that your experiences in Korea and in North America have come together to form something more or different than each experience separately? Yes, it is obviously different and separated. But at some point, it begins to combine together, you know. Can you say about proportion? The proportion may be changed depends on how long you spent there and how much you were engaged to the culture.

26. Pick one of your works; tell what it means to you? Why is it meaningful? If I choose one, I will choose bottari - bottari as a body and memory as history and as our destiny. What sense is destiny? Well, the human condition of location and dislocation which can be connected to life and death. But our own bottari, which is your body, will be disappeared one day.

27. What do you suggest if you recommend or suggest to be future artists in international venue. It all depends on their qualification, their experience, their personality and their talent, without taking a risk, on their life, we won’t be able to achieve anything meaningful and new, that’s what I want to advise.

Interview Transcript Ik-Joong Kang Interview In January 2006, Ik-Joong Kang provided these revised answers to the interview questions that he had originally responded to in 2005. Both this transcript (2006) as well as the former (2005) are included in this appendix.

Demographic Questions

1. Where were you born? Where have you been raised? Where have you lived? I was born in Cheongju and raised in Itaewon in Seoul. Since 1984, I have lived and worked in New York. Even though I still have a strong emotional tie with Cheongju and Seoul, I now consider New York my permanent home. Many of my relatives still live in both Cheongju and Seoul.

2. What is your background (family, job, education)? I received a Bachelor's degree in Fine Arts from Hong-Ik University in Seoul, Korea in 1984. I received my Master’s degree in Fine Arts at the Pratt Institute in New York in 1987. I am a full time artist with galleries in Europe, Korea, and the United States. I have one son and a wife and we live in lower Manhattan. I had various jobs during my college years to support myself, ranging from Manhattan dog walker to sales clerk in a clothing store to fruit handler at a Korean deli and delivery boy in the diamond district. One time I owned a small business selling watches on the corner of Canal and West Broadway in New York. But it didn’t survive long because of police activity that cracked down all the street vendors. Many of the left over watches were recycled for my art installations..

3. How did you decide to be an artist? Can you tell me about your education in art? I was quite a diligent young artist when I was in high school. My great great grand father was a famous court-appointed artist and therefore my family was always supportive of me going into this field. But after enrolling in the most prestigious art college in Korea, somehow I lost interest in making art. I sensed that something was wrong and I realized that art school was not always the best choice for learning about art. One of the jobs I thought about after college was as a tour guide for English speaking people. Not because I was a good at communicating in English, but it was more about my desire to get out of my “wandering” situation. As you can seem my English level is not so great for a professional tour guide, but I guess it barely meet the needs of an artist living in the U.S.

Descriptive Questions

4. What are the influences to yourself and your work from your childhood, family, and education in Korea? Both of my grandfathers, Hee-An Kang and Se-Whang Kang, were recognized artists during their lifetimes, and their work is regarded as important in Korean art history. I am the sixteenth

son on Se-Hwang Kang's side of the family. I remember when I was six; I drew my great grandmother’s portrait in a realistic way. My relatives were surprised and jokingly said that I was the reincarnation of my grandfathers. I guess encouragement was the most important part of my choosing to be an artist!

5. Do you have any ideas/influences that arise grow your South Korean (nationality)? Do you know that Korea is located on the exact opposite side of the world from Argentina? I remember a TV commercial during the 2002 World Cup about two friends in Argentina. They couldn't get plane tickets to Korea, so they started digging in their backyard so that they would end up on the other side of the world, in Korea, so that they could see the World Cup in Korea. After they dug and dug, they realized that they had taken a wrong turn and ended up in the wrong country – China. So they did it all over again! We are in a sense all connected if we dig deep enough to touch each other. The sense of self or national identity becomes more clear when the boundaries dividing us are broken into pieces. I think the divider becomes the connector and the word "they" transforms into the word "us."

6. Do you think your work represents your personal identity or national identity? How? In my works such as Buddha Learning English (1994), there is the recorded sound of me learning English. Buddha singing opera, exhibited in Greece, was made with an Italian opera sound and Buddha figure paintings on one thousand canvases. In my works, Buddha is myself. The Buddha is not meant as something religious but as a shared meaning and entity, myself or yourself. It is a shared entity. If I learn English, it becomes Buddha learning English, the same as Ik-Joong Kang learning English. For me, making artwork begins with my own issues, embraces the issues of the world, and then goes back to my own issues again. My work is like the fortune cookie. My Chinese friends believe this cookie represents America, not China. My American friends think it is 100 % Chinese. But, the fortune cookie was born in San Francisco's Chinatown some years ago. The fortune cookie plays an important role connecting two different cultures and ideas, while belonging wholly to neither one. I hope my art plays the role of the fortune cookie in that sense.

Interpretive Questions

7. What are the ideas and meanings in your work? I think my art is like a page in a diary where I store my stories. Upon my arrival in New York, in 1984, I enrolled at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. The 3 x 3 inch canvas format was developed around that time. I was a full-time student and had two jobs working at a Korean grocery store in Manhattan and at a flea market in Far Rockaway, Queens. Looking for ways to effectively utilize my time spent on the long subway rides, I discovered that 3-inch-square canvases fit easily into my pocket and into the palm of my hand. My lengthy commute became transformed into work time in a mobile studio. I used to draw new and interesting things from my observations on the streets in New York. These 3-inch-square images, I created as many as ten thousand and twenty thousand of these 3 x 3-inch canvases. At that time, I thought I could make them a bigger size in the future. I started liking to make art. I decided to become an artist. I believe that as an artist, living in this world as a piece of the whole, how a person contributes and connects to the world is very important. To be aware of the world is important for artists. Painting is subjective, so through painting, like a window, a painter understands and finds out about the world. My

material is 3 x 3 canvases; it is small, but if you try to see and get close to it, you can see the world. The 3 x 3-inch small size is like a child; if you want to listen, you can hear the world through children’s paintings. If the small child’s painting is collected by one million, they can change the world. What matters is where you put value, meaning, and your distance.

An artist is like a storyteller who climbs the mountain to see things at the top of the mountain and tells the people about what he or she saw from the mountain. The higher we climb, the more things we can see and the more stories we can tell. I am continuously climbing for the higher peak and with each peak I arrive at, I have a better story to tell. I also believe that how and when to climb the mountain is just as important as how and when to make the art.

8. What media do you work with? I use all kinds of materials such as canvas, wood, plastic, glass, ceramic, and many times, I work in collaboration with many people. People are my main media and they are my main inspiration.

9. How do you feel when you are showing your work in important Western international venues in relation to the other artists? I don’t know much about international artists who are famous internationally and how the art world is going on. But when I meet and hear from people in person in the international biennial art exhibitions in Venice or Pompidou center, I get to know personal characteristics of the artists. Of course there are some people who research famous people, but most of artists just focus on their own works.

Well, I feel good and lucky. Also it’s fun to go to the local market and the back streets of the old town before and after the working schedule. Showing my work in different parts of the world is about communicating with people, and feeling the people. And it’s a good method of finding my location on the map of my life.

I believe one of my weakest points is the lack of knowledge of current issues in the art world and I don't know much about international artists’ names unless we are in the same exhibitions. I always think I should go back to college art class to learn more about them.

10. Do you see different experience when you exhibit in Korea or in Western? Sometimes I think I am a chef from Korea working in an American restaurant. I know everyone expects that the only dish I can cook is kimchi soup, even if I can make a better hamburger than most American chefs. Once a German critic asked me when I had an exhibition in Germany: "What are the Korean traditions or flavors are in your work?" I asked him then, "Could you show me what German tradition or flavor is?" He couldn’t answer. Tradition is not something that you can show, but it is a way of thinking or tasting. Tradition cannot be defined; it cannot be grasped or captured. For example, to make bibimbob (mixed rice and vegetable), you need only rice and anything you can put together. What you need is only a frame, if you know fundamental essence, the form is not important. The importance is flexibility in cooking. Some day Asian artists will be able to paint airplanes and mountains: we won’t have to only paint kimchi and chowfun. If we make hamburger in a kimchi flavor, that’s even better.

Sometimes I see myself as a chef working in an American shopping mall food court. Even though I can make a better burger than most of the Western chefs, I often find people automatically going to next door for McDonalds instead of trying my special Bulgoki Burger. But, my business is getting better, because people are becoming tired of the same hamburgers and French fries. It’s time to get ready for more customers to come.

11. How have your works been changed over the years since you came to the United States? My works have changed as my life has changed. After I immigrated to New York City, the United States, living in a foreign country, I made artworks from what I observed and experienced on the street, in the subway, and on the way to my appartment. I am presenting my own life experience. After I exhibited “Sound Painting,” [six thousand canvases with mini speakers and wires on each] at the Venice Biennale in 1997, [where he got an award] I changed the direction of my work. I turned to North and South Korean issues, trying to make my own identity by finding my place. I found that children’s artworks represent our time with pure eyes and strong power and energy. I like a picture which shows the future and past, even thought it’s taken in the present. I found that the children’s artworks embrace all these aspects and insights. This experience came from having a seven-year-old son. When I look at my son, I find my father in my son. It feels like my father, myself, and my son are all related and linked. In other words, my father is past and my son is future. Therefore, I am looking at father’s father’s father, and also, my son’s son’s son… all of them are linked from generation to generation.

12. Has your life been changed, since you have lived in the United States? Yes, I have a wife and a 7-year-old son. And now I spend most of my days in a beautiful studio in Chinatown. The best benefit of having a studio in Chinatown is all the cheap and good restaurants around the block. A few years ago I wrote and published a book called, “The Restaurant Guide for Starving Artist” I was the member of a Tuesday lunch club for eight years, which was formed with a group of artist friends who had studios around the Chinatown area. With the knowledge and experience of eating cheap but excellent food around the neighborhood, I decided to create this book. I’ve gained so much weight ever since then. The Lunch club friends called me the “little Buddha.”

13. What was the audience’s impression or response to your first exhibition in America? It was at the small window gallery at Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus in 1985. The title was 1,000 paintings. I think people liked it. One man came to the gallery and spent a day looking at each piece of art. I knew it was successful!

14. Is the response of the international viewers different from Korean viewers? In Korea, I’ve been known for my articles. My writings have been in many Korean magazines, including monthly and weekly women's magazines and tabloids. Therefore, much of the non-art community and audience knew me but I had not been in any Korean art magazines, such as Wolgan missool Art Magazine, until last year, in 2004. So the art world and community [in Korea] didn’t know me until last year, 2004, when Wolgan Missool Art Magazine introduced me, because I seldom had exhibitions in South Korea after I came to the United States. I feel my artwork has yet to be welcomed by the Korean art world and community. I consider myself a stranger in Korean art society.

I think so, although I’m not quite sure to what extent and how they differ. Even within Europe, my exhibitions seem to get a lot more positive response from viewers in Germany. If there is a previous life, definitely, I was a German.

15. How do you feel when you are showing your work in important Western international venues in relation to the other artists? [Answered above]

16. Do you see different experiences when you exhibit in Korea or in international (Western)? Coming to the United States was like going to a gigantic baseball stadium. You get there and you dream of playing in the major league some day. Even though I've been here for 21years, I still feel like a spectator watching from the stands. That might be the best way to hit the ball right -- by maintaining distance from myself.Whether I am in New York or in Korea, any place that gives me a new perspective of myself is the right place for me to play the ball game.

17. Where do you prefer to create your work -- in Korea or in other cultural places? I have created my works mostly in New York. New York has a magical power to connect me, maybe because I have a family. It is becoming more like my own backyard where I can cook and chat with friends.

18. How do people label you (such as Korean artist/ Feminist artist/ immigrant artist)? Most recently, the Princeton Packet labeled me as a New York artist. I guess it really depends on people's cultural viewpoints or experiences. Some people call me a Korean American artist, a Korean artist, an Asian American artist or even an immigrant artist. I like to be called Ik-Joong Kang.

19. What is your image of Korea or being South Korean? Mother, river, DMZ, schoolyard, friends, kite flying, temple, country road, water melon, August 15th, college entrance, unification, American GI, karaoke bar, green bean ice cream, local market, autumn sky, clean subway, Kimchi soup, bright signage, ice skating, bus token, chestnut, beautiful smile….

I am reminded of Korean signboards. The signboards were so impressive when I visited South Korea twelve years after I left. They seem very disorganized yet still there are rules and order, regularity. The signboards don’t compromise and are unique, but they are also powerful, energetic, and passionate. They are mushrooming, but it shows South Korea’s flexibility, it comes and goes so quickly, the so-called character of pot. I love to bring some things from the outskirts of my memories of Korea and then toss them over and let them collide, in a head-on crash. If something drops onto canvas, I’d like to revive it and fly it high.

20. What is your image of your community such as family, friends, and colleagues? I collect dreams, dreams of people. For the last 7 years, I've collected over 125,000 children's drawings from 141 countries. It is like building a big house, a house with a big roof and a big wall, but with many small windows that are called the community. People come into the big

room and say hello to each other and hug each other, and all the small windows are transformed into one big family. Now I plan to collect millions or billions of windows or dreams, which, I believe, can connect the villages, countries, and even the entire world.

In 1999 we created 100,000 Dreams. Thousands of drawings were displayed inside a one- kilometer long greenhouse near the DMZ, the borderline between North and South Korea. It was lit up at night, as if to invite North Korean children on the other side to come out and play. We followed this project with Amazed World 2001, an installation composed of 34,000 children’s drawings from all over the world, at the headquarters of the United Nations in New York. The project was supposed to be open on September 11, 2001. The dreams of the children were waiting to be heard and seen in uptown New York, while the tragedy struck in downtown Manhattan. Drawings are from the mountains in Tibet, street corners in Hong Kong and from the war zone in Iraq. Amazed World is like the building of a big house, a house with a big roof and a big wall, but with many small windows. Windows of the dream. Children come into the big room and say hello to each other and hug each other, and all their windows of dreams are placed next to each other for us to see. Now we plan to collect millions or billions of children’s dreams, which, I believe, can connect the villages, countries, and the entire world. One drawing says, “A wall of dream can break down the wall of hatred and ignorance that separated us for a long time.” Children’s drawings have a magical power. Through their drawings, a divider becomes a connector, a winter becomes a spring. A night becomes a morning. And the enemy becomes the friend. “What is your dream?”.…When I asked, a child answered back. “Hey, Mr. Kang, what was your dream and what is your dream now?” We have to answer. Before it’s too late.

21. Do you feel you represent Korea? I don’t know whether my answer can be applied to your questions properly. I am part of Korea and I always feel I represent Korea in some aspect. At the same time, Korea is an important part of the world, so it represents the whole world. One of my goals to achieve through art is breaking the boundaries among us and seeing the divider become the connector and the world become one.

22. Is there some way that your experience in Korea and in North America becomes more or different than either experience separately? I believe that one has a better view of home from a distance. Through the installation 8490 Days of Memory (1996), I was trying to revisit my childhood. By using chocolate with its distinctive smell and taste as a material I tried to evoke my initial encounter with American culture. Coming to America is more like climbing on to another mountain, where I can encounter many things I’ve never seen before. My role as an artist is not only telling people what I encounter, but also finding myself on the map. In the United States, what I have experienced (making artwork) is a two-way trip. You are included in neither America nor Korea, but included in both America and Korea. Living and working in New York, I feel we are all connected. My role as an artist is a connector between Korean culture and Western culture. I also want to be a contributor, since my audience does not simply look at and react to my work, but interacts with my work. I want to interact with the audience as “the part of the process.” I want to make my work not reaction, but interaction, where the audience’s ideas are contributing to my work and I become a connector. I consider my work like “weaving a fishnet.” Now when I make my artwork, I think about the

global community, since I collect children’s or communities’ paintings from all over the world and arrange them with my themes.

23. Pick your works; tell what it means to you? Why is it meaningful?

Happy World (2005) in the Princeton Public Library, New Jersey. It was a collaboration between artist and community. The mural featured thousands of objects, most of which were donated by local residents who brought historical mementoes, poetry, drawing, sculptures, and even doorknobs. The Library became a place of gathering and sharing of stories from everyone, from the child next door to the world-famous professors at Princeton.

Participation and contribution was the main idea of Happy World, and I believed by making a wall of art, we could break down the walls separating each other.

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Esther Eunsil Kho was born in Seoul, South Korea, on January 2, 1979. She studied Western Painting at Seoul Arts High School, Korea. As an undergraduate at Korea University, she studied Western Painting in Art Education (B.F.A.) and in French Language and Literature (B.A.) until 2001. She earned a M.A. in Art Education from New York University (2003) with an emphasis on contemporary art and art exhibition issues. Her master’s thesis was titled: “Examining Socially-Engaged and Community- Based Art through Site-Specific Art Projects of the Gwangju Biennale” (2003). She also attended several study abroad programs in Paris and London. Kho has participated in group art exhibitions in Seoul, New York, Columbus, and Florida. Much of her work was painting, specifically women figures. While studying for her Ph.D. at Florida State University, Kho worked as a research assistant for Dr. Dorn in the Department of Art Education (2005). She also worked as a research assistant in the Education Department for Adult Public Programs at the Whitney Museum of American Art (2002), and worked briefly as an art teacher in a middle school in Seoul. Kho also taught Sunday school in Seoul, and taught fine art to K-12 Korean-American second-generation students in Columbus, Ohio.