Forgotten Legacy of Minjung Art Movement in Korea May 24, 2007

Exhibiting Korea
A New, Monthly Series of Gallery Talk Programs at The Korea Society

The Forgotten Legacy of the Minjung Art Movement in South Korea

with

Soyang Park
Post-Doctoral Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University

Thursday, May 24 at 6:30 PM

The 1980s were a turbulent period in South Korean politics, with society rebelling against the military government and demanding democratic reform. But the pro-democracy movement wasn't limited to politics. South Korea in the 1980s also saw the rise of the minjung (grassroots) movement in the arts.

Throughout the decade, and into the early ‘90s, leading minjung artists worked around the theme of han (a uniquely Korean sense of lingering grievance) to create pieces which critically examined deep, often unpleasant, cultural realities and echoed the political calls for change.

At a powerful gallery talk, Soyang Park, a post-doctoral fellow at the Center for the Arts in Society at Carnegie Mellon University, will explore the minjung movement and the accomplishments of its leading artists, such as Lim Ok Sang and Oh Yoon, as they materialized the ghosts of contemporary Korean society.

About the Presenter

Soyang Park received her doctoral degree in Art History (visual) in 2004, from Goldsmiths College at the University of London. Park is currently teaching at Carnegie Mellon University as a post-doctoral fellow in the Center for the Arts in Society. Her scholarly work has been published in the Journal for Cultural Research, Third Text and Korean Art. She will join the faculty at the Ontario College of Arts and Design in Toronto as an assistant professor in July 2007.

Exhibiting Korea
A New, Monthly Series of Gallery Talk Programs at The Korea Society

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

This is #2 in a series of 7, part of the Exhibiting Korea program.

Registration Fee:
Single-Program Ticket: $5 (members) / $10 (non-members)
Series Pass (for all seven monthly gallery talks available at a discount on website)

Official Website: http://www.koreasociety.org/arts/gallery/the_forgotten_legacy_of_the_minjung_art_movement_in_south_korea.html