KOREAN ART AND THE AVANT-GARDE DILEMMA KI-WOONG PARK A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of Nottingham Trent University for the degree of Doctor of Fine Arts July 2012 1 KOREAN ART AND THE AVANT-GARDE DILEMMA KI-WOONG PARK A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of Nottingham Trent University for the degree of Doctor of Fine Arts July 2012 2 This work is the intellectual property of the author. You may copy up to 5% of this work for private study, or personal, non-commercial research. Any re-use of the information contained within this document should be fully referenced, quoting the author, title, university, degree level and pagination. Queries or requests for any other use, or if a more substantial copy is required, should be directed in the owner (s) of the Intellectual Property Rights. 3 Abstract The thesis covers Korean avant-garde art history and the dilemma that faced Korean artists at the end of the Japanese Colonial Period (1910-1945). Current literature adequately details avant-garde as progressive fine arts; however, there is limited literature on Korean art in this period. This thesis suggests the term avant-garde dilemma to indicate Korean artists‘ difficulty in style selection to follow a traditional aesthetical trend or progressive socio-political attitude for the foundation of Korean post-modernism. A salient démarche is found when Korean political avant-garde artists meet this dilemma in the midst of the Korean Demonstration Era (1976-1989) that initiates the decline of aesthetical activism and Demonstrative Art. Several styles of avant-garde dilemma after the Korea War are critiqued in the avant-garde evolution; subsequently, there arise hybrid styles between socio-political avant-garde and aesthetical avant-garde styles in Contemporary Korean Art. The examples included are Nam-Jun Baik‘s Video Art (a combination of art and technology), Do-Ho Suh‘s combination of meticulous sculpture with installation to satire Korean neo-capitalist society, Doo-Shik Lee‘s combination of oriental color with western gesture, and Suk-Chang Hong‘s free calligraphy to combine still-life, landscape, calligraphy, and scribbling. Related artistic, political, and social developments since 2000, illustrate the climax of the Korean avant-garde dilemma and my artistic motivation to create Iron Age through a medium of stainless steel & plastic with polyurethane pigments. Iron Age exemplifies the development of a new hybrid style (painting and sculpture) to resolve the ideological avant-garde dilemma. This thesis develops the hybrid term Aesthetical and Socio-political Avant-garde Art to satisfy two aesthetical and socio-political ideologies. For aesthetical development, we consider Clive Bell‘s philosophy to create ‗significant form‘. Iron Age combines theories of Italian Arte-Povera, French Nouveau Realism (Fire Painting), German Neo-Expressionism, post-structural Conceptualism with free expression and varieties of composition. Iron Age that develops from Adorno‘s socio-critical expression to describe a dystopia through Material Language, Destroy Structure, Dissipative Void, Metamorphosed Texture, Letters and Personages, Smoke and Shade, and Symbolic Coloring. A visual Socio-political message is developed through metamorphosis and deconstruction skills under Iron Age that form a core motif of Scrooge Repent as the mirror image of Scrooge‘s redemption of in A Christmas Carol to show a futuristic material paradise destroyed through war, terrorism, and spiritual desolateness. 4 Contents Abstract .................................................................................................................................... 4 Contents ................................................................................................................................... 5 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 7 Chapter 1 Avant-garde and Relative Terms ......................................................... 10 1.1 Avant-garde ..................................................................................................................... 11 A. Avant-garde, antithesis term of mimesis .................................................................. 11 B. Two avant-gardes and Two Modernities ................................................................. 13 C. Terminological development of aesthetic avant-garde ............................................ 15 D. Deconstructed meaning of avant-garde in postmodern Arts ................................... 17 1.2 Relative terms of Avant-garde in Art Practice .................................................................. 19 A. Critical Arts ............................................................................................................... 19 B. Activism ................................................................................................................... 20 C. Antagonism .............................................................................................................. 23 D. Structuralism and Semiotics .................................................................................... 24 Chapter Review ....................................................................................................................... 26 Chapter 2 Development of Korean Avant-garde (1930s-1980s) .................... 27 2.1 Socio-political (Socio-critical) Avant-garde ..................................................................... 28 A. Sang-Bum Lee: activism towards Japanese colonial government: (1936-1945) ...... 28 B. Que-Dae Lee: Socio-political avant-garde (1946-1955) ........................................... 29 C. Korean Mass Art: activism towards the Korean Military Government (1980s) ...... 31 2.2 Aesthetical Avant-garde .................................................................................................... 33 A. Joong-Seop Lee: Cathartic Avant-garde (1953-1960) .............................................. 33 B. Seo-Bo Park‘s Korean Informel: Anti-academism (1957-1965) ............................... 34 C. Korean Monochrome Art: Color of Nature (1966-1975) ............................................ 36 D. U-Fan Lee‘s Monoha: Antagonism against Materialism (1970-Present) ................... 38 E. Korean Hyperrealism (1975-Present) ........................................................................ 40 2.3 Hybrid Avant-garde ........................................................................................................... 41 A. Soo-Keun Park‘s hybrid avant-garde (1960-1975) ................................................... 41 B. My Aim: A hybrid, aesthetical and socio-political avant-garde ................................. 43 Chapter Review ....................................................................................................................... 46 Chapter 3 Resolving the Korean Avant-garde Dilemma ................................... 47 3.1 The First Korean post-modern avant-garde dilemma ....................................................... 48 A. Rethink Korean Mass Art‘s Short Life ....................................................................... 48 3.2 Avant-garde Dilemma ....................................................................................................... 49 A. What is the Dilemma? ................................................................................................ 49 B. The Avant-garde Artist dilemma................................................................................. 50 C. Definition of Avant-garde dilemma ............................................................................ 51 3.3 The Korean Avant-garde Dilemma in the Globalism Era ............................................... 54 5 A. Difficulties in taste control .......................................................................................... 54 B. Difficulties to Criticize the Aesthetics of a Global society ......................................... 55 C. Difficulty to retain Korean originality in post-modernity ........................................... 57 D. Difficulty to be unique ................................................................................................ 60 3.4 Several Cases of Resolving Avant-garde Dilemma .......................................................... 60 A. Chase the Trends of Avant-garde ................................................................................ 61 Case 1 Contextualizing art with science: Nam-Jun Paik .......................................... 61 Case 2. Combination of Meticulousness: Do-Ho Suh .............................................. 62 B. Create Hybrid Style between Traditional and International Idioms ........................... 64 Case 3. Combine Oriental Colors and Western Gestures: Doo-Shik Lee ............... 64 Case 4. From Boisterous Dance to Nirvana: Suk-Chang Hong ............................... 67 Chapter Review ..................................................................................................................... 72 Chapter 4 A Subjective View of the Dilemma: The case of Ki-Woong Park ........... 73 4.1 My Avant-garde Dilemma: To Create a Hybrid Style....................................................... 74 A. Infamous Artist Dilemma Era 1986-1992 .................................................................. 74 B. Early Avant-garde