Park Youngsook, Mad Women Project-Mad Women #1, 1999, C-print, 150×150cm. MMCA collection
Feminist art
* Source: Multilingual Glossary of Korean Art. Korea Arts Management Service
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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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Modern Women’s Eastern Paintings Exhibition
The Modern Women’s Eastern Paintings Exhibition was an invitational exhibition held from March 4 through 9, 1975 at Shinsegae Gallery. The Shinsagae Gallery stated that this exhibition was not just an exhibition simply intended to promote friendship among women artists, but an exhibition of selected female artists in their thirties who were active at the time, including three artists from each of the three art universities, namely, Seoul National University, Ewha Womans University, and Hongik University. The nine selected artists were Lee Insil, Hong Junghee, and Yang Jeongja from Seoul National University; Won Moonja, Oh Jungja, and Kim Jeonghui from Ewha Womans University; and Moon Eunhee, Kang Jaesun, and Lee Sookja from Hongik University. Except Kim Jeonghui, all the other artists had won multiple awards at the National Art Exhibition (Gukjeon). The displayed works were dominated by landscape paintings and bird-and-flower paintings, including Bird, A Cluster of Flowers, and Purple Flower by Kang Jaesun, Persimmon by Moon Eunhee, Sylvia and Riverside by Kim Jeonghui, Sunny Day and Lotus by Oh Jeongja, Afternoon and Monkey by Won Moonja, Mountain View from Suanbo, Rose, and Peacock by Hong Junghee. In the preface of the exhibition catalogue, Lee Kyungsung wrote that with the successive founding of women artists’ organizations, such as Woman Fine Arts Association [Yeoryu hwagahoe] in 1973 and Korean Sculptress Association in 1974, and the holding of a series of related exhibitions, “female artists, whose existence is faded or disconnected from dialogue by being sandwiched between male artists, have gathered and made their distinctive visual statements known to the world” and that the Modern Women’s Eastern Paintings Exhibition was designed in such an atmosphere. This exhibition is an example of how the art world still referred to women [yeoseong] artists as “yeoryu artists” in the 1970s.
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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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