Cho Duck Hyun: Re-collections (2008)

Korean Art Society Journal, 2011

On January 30, 2010, in a memorial service at the Samshin-Hoegwan Teaching Center (former Emille Museum) and the tomb of Dr. Zo Zayong (1925 – 2000) in Korea’s Sogni-san National Park, the Korean art world marked the tenth anniversary of the passing of one of the most important yet largely unsung figures in Korean art history. So many people are unknowingly indebted to this great pioneer of Korean folk art appreciation and champion of Korean folk culture, that we thought it necessary to create this special tribute issue of the Korean Art Society Journal. All over the world, for the last few decades we have seen a growing appreciation of indigenous culture and folk art. Many governments now spend large sums of money to preserve fast-disappearing heritage. There have been leaders with an unusual depth of understanding who have pioneered these movements of greater appreciation. But it is difficult to think of an example of one person alone who did so much and could make an almost sole claim to creating appreciation of his country’s folk art and culture like Zo Zayong. Before there was Zo Zayong, there was virtually no appreciation of or scholarship on Korean folk art. No auction houses and dealers were selling anonymous Korean folk tiger paintings and other Korean folk art for thousands of dollars. These beautiful works of art were sold for almost nothing, or just thrown in the trash. There were very few serious collections of Korean folk art. Many scholars and curators were dismissive of it, and many Koreans were embarrassed by it. You will learn in these pages, from the people who knew Zo Zayong, why he is deserving of so much credit and praise. He was a man who gave up a lucrative career as a renowned architect to pursue his financially unrewarding, but spiritually rewarding mission of promoting Korean folk art and culture to everyone, rich and poor, educated and uneducated, Korean and non-Korean. We hope you will not only learn more about him, but more importantly will be inspired to pursue your own selfless cause in the spirit of Zo Zayong. Thank you for joining us for another issue of the Korean Art Society Journal. We appreciate the great response we received to our debut issue, and we’re happy to see that you’re still here with us helping us in our mission to promote appreciation of Korean Art and Culture. As always, we hope the Korean Art Society Journal will brighten your day and stimulate your heart and mind. Robert Turley, Publisher and Korean Art Society President

2018

In 2019, The Dayton Art Institute (DAI) will celebrate its 100th anniversary, and from the earliest days Korean art has been a part of the collection. The first recorded artwork entered the collection in 1933, and today there are 64 objects, ranging from the 5th century to the 20th century, and there is a gallery in the Asian wing dedicated to the display of these objects. In this paper, I briefly outline the development of the collection considering how it grew over time, giving particular attention to the significant contribution of Virginia W. Kettering. Next, I delineate what the collection contains, both in terms of historical periods and types of artwork. Finally, I focus on a set of screen paintings that have been in the collection since 1941, but were first identified as Japanese and then as Chinese. I discuss how recent consultation with scholars suggests that these are Korean screens, and that based on their size, quality, and content, they may be an imperial commission from the late-19th or early-20th century. In these ways, I aim to contribute to our data set of Korean art held in overseas collections, and hopefully lead to its further preservation and presentation.

ArtAsiaPacific, 2022

Artist Organized Art (AOA) Non-Profit Works With Artists & Institutions To Support Artist Organized Media, Events & Cultural Education , 2012

Then, comes JULY. I’m teaching a course called “Art in Seoul: Research and Publishing for Artists and Culturalists” at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, Korea and joined by nine students from Ewha, Maryland Institute College of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, and Tunghai University of Taiwan. The course was offered through the global affairs office’s international school and through the painting major of the fine art department, where I am an alumni. As a research-based artist practicum course for national and international students of Ewha, the ten of us traversed the Seoul art scene and documented our responses on a blog. Mid-way through the course, a student who was the assistant, Sujung Chang, titles JULY as the on-line PDF magazine that would collect their writings from the blog more formalized, and JULY named as a spoof on the infamous OCTOBER art criticism journal. Obviously, the challenge of English being most students’ second language and for some, the first contact to the art scene, the writings came in everyday as short thought pieces and journal entries that later accumulated into more formal short essays. This was a huge feat for those non-English speaking students and the course had its many Konglish-Chinglishmoments. But, the students tried to make sense of the art scene in Seoul during July, and they bravely produced this on-line publication JULY for Artist Organized Art. Jennifer Byun, Sujung Chang, Yeeun Chung, Julia (Ju Young) Han, Chen-Chih Huang, Iuan-Ping Jau, Joowon Jeon, Yeojin Kim, and Hana Lee individually gravitated towards writing about one exhibition over another or focused on one artist versus another, and highlighted their own values as artists and non-artists, and included their cultural critique as a way to further their insight about the contemporary art scene of Seoul that reflects the staging of Seoul to the world. The major works we see in this month and that the students write about range from blockbuster international shows such as the first Asian exhibition “Double” by Felix Gonzalez-Torres at Plateau (June 21 – September 28) and the Nam June Paik’s 80th Anniversary exhibition “Nam June Paik Spectrum” at the Seoul Olympic Museum of Art (July 6 – September 16) to a more local and intimate Korean shows such as “Hidden Track” curated by Sung Won Kim at the Seoul Museum of Art and interactive art installation group show “Doing” at the Kumho Art Museum. As overarching themes that surrounded July’s art in Seoul, there seemed to be a great interest in the possibility of interactivity in art, curators working as the new artists of our time, and democratization of thought processes in art and culture. Certainly, the larger framing was that Seoul is at its height for being contemporaneous and leading in the global art scene, and that the general public likes art. Many people are attending exhibitions in Seoul. (Mina Cheon)

A syllabus of a graduate lecture titled, "Installation Art and Architectural Space" at the Department of Art History and Theory, Hongik University, Fall 2016

The Beauty of Old Korean Paintings A History and An Appreciation, 2005

The Beauty of Old Korean Paintings: A History and an Appreciation, by Lee Dongju 이동주 «李東洲» is an extraordinary gem of Korean art history, especially of painterly tradition in Korea and East Asia at large, writes Sajid Rizvi, commissioning editor of the volume and Editor of Saffron Books Korea Library Series. The Beauty of Old Korean Paintings: A History and an Appreciation (translated by Robert Carrubba and Kim Kyongsook, ISBN 9781872843896, 2005; revised 2007) began as an illustrated lecture by Lee Dongju (1917-1997), the eminent author and art historian and Professor Emeritus at the Seoul National University. Although the book follows the format of a long slide lecture it has been thoroughly edited and adapted to make the texts and images accessible to an international audience. Initial editing by Robert Carruba and Kim Kyongsook was augmented with further editorial research and work, with addition of new elements, by Sajid Rizvi. The Beauty of Old Korean Paintings originally was written in Korean under the subtitle A History and An Appreciation of Traditional Korean Paintings. As stated above the book began as an illustrated lecture by Lee Dongju 이동주 «李東洲», a self-trained art historian. The book evokes this passionate connoisseur’s acute, entertaining and at times uncomfortably frank observations on the subject of Korean art and artists. The Beauty of Old Korean Paintings offers a wealth of information readily cross-referenced to Korean, Chinese and Japanese sources while preserving Professor Lee’s authentic voice and the value of his original work as an authoritative text on Korean painting. As the book is about to go out of print, with only a limited number of copies available, a new edition is being prepared by Sajid Rizvi, with further additions to the subject matter of the book. True to Professor Lee’s intent, the book evokes interest in the whole gamut of Korean art as well as Korean artists, aesthetics and history. About Lee Dongju Lee Dongju 이동주 (李東洲), given name Lee Yonghui 이용희(李用熙˜), was born in Seoul, Korea, in 1917 and passed away in 1997. His father, Lee Gapseong, was one of thirty-three signatories to the declaration of independence issued during the March the 1st Movement of 1919. Lee Yonghui attended Yonhi College, now Yonsei University, majoring in political science. Initially more famous as a scholar of international political science than an aesthete he held positions as Professor of Political Science at Seoul National University, President of Aju University, Reunification Minister, and First Secretary to the President. Although Lee Dongju never received an advanced degree in the subject, from his undergraduate days had a love for Korean art and naturally became immersed in its study. For more than 60 years, he engaged himself in a comparative study of Korean, Chinese, and Japanese paintings while directly examining, researching, differentiating and systematising the specific character of traditional Korean works. Through his direct contact with these numerous paintings, Lee Dongju established his own aesthetic theory regarding Korean art, one that brought to light the error of narrow academic approaches and guided readers toward a more direct and proper appreciation. In this frame his aesthetic focused on appreciating individual paintings rather than judging works by the artist’s name or history. He asserted that a painting should be enjoyed for its intrinsic beauty. Lee Dongju is among the very few scholars who are universally acknowledged to have an authoritative grasp of the history and tradition of Korean painting, having encountered and critiqued a vast number of works. Lee Dongju was prolific, authoring and editing numerous articles and a number of books on Korean Art, including, Old Korean Paintings, Korean Paintings in Japan, A Short History of Korean Painting, and Theory of the History of Korean Painting. Later in life, he found his greatest pleasures in paintings rather than politics.

Asian Affairs, 2020

2011

Washington, D.C., is indebted to the Korean Cultural Center and to Korea's Ministry for Culture, Sports and Tourism, for bringing together the four artists whose works are shown together in this unique invitational exhibition. ln their juxtaposition, these diverse artworks speak strongly of the internationalization of Korean contemporary art. Examples of this globalization can surely be recognized in the works of Lee Han-woo and Kim Jung-taek, whose artworks are produced in Korea for a global audience. Yet like the art-forms of the hallyu or "Korean wave" (not only paintings but performances, animation, videogames, and music) that are so popular with younger audiences worldwide, their art is presented in an international (not traditional Korean) medium. In the case of Lee Han-woo's paintings, the cosmopolitan medium he uses is oil on canvas. and for Kim Jung-taek an intriguing new type of mixed medium which makes use of gold dust (which is one type of traditional Korean medium for painting on paper). Both these artists, using new media, are deeply inspired by Korea's own cultural past in subject-matter, technique, and choice of colors. Either of these artists would be appropriate in a gallery like the Smithsonian's own Korea Gallery (Taylor & Lotis 2008), where a section has been set aside for contemporary Korean art, with the idea that future rotations of artworks in that section will present a range of examples illustrating how Korea's rich cultural traditions of the past inspires its dynamic cultural production today. The heavy use of gold color in the artwork of Kim Jung-taek recalls the use of gold by the Jeju artist Byun Shi-ji, also referencing Korea's classical use of a gold mixture on paper. The calligraphic art of Kwon Myoung-won, produced entirely here in the Washington D.C. area where Mr. Kwon resides, shows that Korean diaspora artists do not just retain but actively innovate in the production of Korean art. Many of the works shown here seem selected to indicate the extent to which clusters of syllables or syllable-like forms can represent the world not only through language but also by become building blocks of visual as well as linguistic meaning - meaningful shapes, circles, even skyscrapers formed by the units of poetry and literature. Their use in these ways greatly expands, in twenty-first century directions, the classical use of calligraphic forms in this way. It is in such globalizing and expansive movements toward non-traditional arts of Korea that we find the works of the distinguished Washington, D.C.-area artist Tadeusz Lapinski at home in this Korean Cultural Center exhibition. Mr. Lapinski is an artist who has long been involved with the cultural scene of which this venue is an important part, and his position as a professor of Art at the University of Maryland, College Park, brings him in frequent contact with Korean artists, artworks, and students. His masterful color lithographs included in this show provide one representation of the welcoming international context within this city's fine art milieu, as a place in which the striking dynamism that has been inspired by Korea's rich past today finds expression, and finds a home.