The second Women and Reality Exhibition, Poster, Image provided by Kim Insoon
Women and Reality
* Source: Multilingual Glossary of Korean Art. Korea Arts Management Service
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National Art Association
An art association established in November 1985 by a collective of grassroots artists, and often also referred to as Minmihyeop. The association sought to organize artists and groups who represented the different movements within Minjung Art and to represent their varied ideas and interests. In 1995, the original association was reformed into the National Korean People’s Artists Association [Jeonguk minjok misurin yeonhap]. In turn, this was the predecessor of the Korean People’s Artists Association [Minjok misurin hyeophoe], a corporation founded in 2000.
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Feminism
Feminism can be defined as any activism or advocacy taken to challenge sexist inequality and the patriarchal formation of society. The notion of equal rights for men and women popularly emerged in Western culture during the 19th century, and feminism as a transnational political movement saw substantive legal breakthroughs with the rise of suffragism and the enfranchisement of women in various countries in the late 19th and early 20th century. Despite these legal gains women remained widely discriminated against, and in the 1950s and 1960s so-called second wave feminists in the West began to challenge the cultural conventions and institutional structural formations behind this continued inequality. Inspired by this approach within the cultural arena, a broad movement developed in the art world among artists, academics and organizers to challenge the patriarchal historical construction and institutional structure of art history. One of the most important works in this regard was Linda Nochlin’s text, Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? written in 1971. Since the 1970s, art world institutions have made various efforts to combat gender inequality in fields such as art criticism and exhibition planning. In addition the feminist approach to creating and curating art has created various discourses to present women’s experiences, perspectives, and challenges to the patriarchal art world establishment at a global level. The first feminist art movement in Korea started in 1986 with the October Gathering’s exhibition organized by Kim Insoon, Yun Suknam, and Kim Djin-suk and held in Min Art Gallery [Geurim Madang Min]. Advancing the cause of feminist art was a task also undertaken by the Women’s Art Research Society [Yeoseong misul yeonguhoe] under National Art Association [Minjok misul hyeopuihoe] in 1987.
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Feminist art
Feminist Art refers to any art practice conducted with a feminine consciousness and gender equality awareness. Emerging in the 1970s in the West and in the 1980s in South Korea, Feminist Art is mainly themed around awareness of gender-discriminatory culture, feminine sensibility, and femininity, all of which have been explored by feminist artists. Feminist Art has become a revolutionary force in expanding the definition of art by incorporating new media and perspectives into established art. It was also applied to a variety of fields, including painting, performance, photography, installation, new media, film, and craft. Korean Feminist Art came into being in the mid-1980s by female Minjung artists, such as Kim Insoon, Kim Djin-suk, Yun Suknam, Park Youngsook, and Jung Jungyeob. From the 1990s onward, it evolved with a new generation of artists, including Lee Bul, ium, and Ahn Pilyun, who were influenced by postmodern culture, as main figures. A curator and administrator, Kim Hong-hee organized several exhibitions such as Women, the Difference and Power held in 1994, provided direction for Feminist Art through her research publications including Women and Art (Seoul: Noonbit, 2003), and discovered young artists. The most prominent Feminist artists in the 1990s were Yun Suknam, Park Youngsook, and Lee Bul. Young Feminist artists, who have been leading Feminist Art since the 2000s, include Song Sanghee, Yang Haegue, Chang Jia, and siren eun young jung. Ipgim, a feminist art collective that has been committed to social activism and artistic practices, organized seven of its own projects from 2000 through 2006.
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