Korean Art

The book "Undiscovered Art from the Korean War: Explorations in the Collection of Chester and Wanda Chang" is a richly illustrated survey of Korean art from the Korean War (1950-1953) that introduces a missing chapter in the history of Korean modern art through selected pieces from the collection of Chester and Wanda Chang. The authors, who are researchers within the Smithsonian's Asian Cultural History Program, carried out this study as a contribution to the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the Korean War armistice (2013-2014). They feature works produced by important artists such as Li Jung Seop (이중섭) and Byeon Kwan-Sik (변관식) as well as lesser known artisans and artists. Under the duress of war, these artists utilized new media including painting on scrap cardboard, or on decorative glazed ceramic plates to be fired then sold as souvenirs to foreign troops. Brass arts flourished amid a surplus of expended munitions. Works were commissioned for presentation as gifts of gratitude to foreign nationals. These early precursors to the internationalization of Korean art recount a forgotten aspect of the Korean War, the inspiring story of Koreans who overcame the most severe adversities to honor and transform their artistry and craft.

Published by: Asian Cultural History Program, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 2014.

This book examines the significance of adornment to the shaping of identity in mortuary contexts within Asia, and brings these perspectives into dialogue with current scholarship in other worldwide regions. The mortuary contexts of focus in this volume represent unique sites and events where identity was visualized, and often manipulated and negotiated, through material objects and their placement on and about the deceased body. In both breadth and depth, it will be of interest to students and scholars interested in the archaeology, art, and history of Central and East Asia, as well as anyone interested in the general study of dress and adornment.

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

Welcome to the debut issue of the Korean Art Society Journal. We hope you enjoy it and will share with us your thoughts on how we can improve it. With your help, we will promote appreciation of Korean Art and Culture and share ideas in pursuit of that mission.
My reasons for loving Korean art are its unaffected sincerity, earthy soulfulness, absence of artifice, energetic sense of humor, and effortless reverence for and affinity with nature. These are qualities that are well expressed in the folk art of Korea. Art that is by and for the people and that is not art for art’s sake. It’s the same qualities that draw me to early acoustic blues, tribal art, and any other unfiltered and unfettered expression of humankind’s common yearnings, fears, disappointments, and triumphs. Within the broad realm of Korean folk art, shaman art expresses the deepest desires of the Korean people. The shaman’s art and implements, such as paintings, masks, and costumes are a fundamental part of shaman rituals to protect the home, heal the sick, divine the future, communicate with the deceased, bless and protect the crop, wedding, family, and newborn baby, and provide the people with a sense of well-being and purpose. While the court ordained official theology and commissioned art supportive of it, the commoners, from a life really lived, created and through the centuries have held onto a most syncretic belief system that borrows from Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, ancient animism, and elsewhere, and that engenders a strong connection to nature and its energy. Korean shamanism encourages a healthy defiance against official dogma, and an open-mindedness and sincerity that guides the creators and commissioners of these powerful works of art. That is why these wonderful creations by and for the people speak so directly to persons of all persuasions even today.
So I am pleased to present the debut issue of the Korean Art Society Journal with the theme of Korean Shaman Art. The writers here are respected authorities in this field who bring passion and joy to the subject and a great desire to share their tremendous knowledge and experience with others. I hope you enjoy their writing and get a sense of the spirit of generosity, compassion and respect with which they approach this subject.
Thank you very much for joining us for this issue. Please write to us with your thoughts, ideas, and criticisms at robert@koreanartsociety.org. We will publish a Letters section beginning with the next issue. We look forward to hearing from you. We hope that the Korean Art Society Journal will brighten your day and stimulate your heart and mind.

Robert Turley, Publisher and Korean Art Society President
Style note: Instead of using the adjectives ‘shamanic’ or ‘shamanist’, I prefer to use ‘shaman’ as both an adjective and a noun, in the same way ‘folk’ is used as both noun and adjective, as in ‘folk art’ and ‘shaman art’.

For more than five hundred years, the Yi family ruled Korea through a bureaucracy that has come to be known as the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910). In the eighteenth century, a time of heightened tension in the social and political spheres, the monarchs of the Joseon dynasty used art, particularly the Five Peaks Screen, in order to construct political and cultural authority and national unity. Through a powerful and inclusive visual vocabulary, a landscape composition, and a ubiquitous display, the screen was able to embody the iconographies of shamanism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. By embracing Korean traditions as varied as scholarly painting and ancestor worship, the appearance and display of the Five Peaks Screen in the eighteenth century offers a powerful visual symbol of the culture of Korea in a formative period of its national identity.

This is the fourth volume in the ICOMOS series on the Thematic Studies on Rock Art. The three previous volumes have focused upon: Latin America and the Caribbean (2006); Rock Art of Sahara and North Africa (2007) and Rock Art in Central Asia (edited by Jean Clottes, 2011).

The idea behind the series was to provide an overall yet relatively precise view of what is known about the rock art of a wide geographical area. In the regions fortunate enough to have had a long tradition of research, in Western Europe for instance, this should not be too difficult. On the other hand, the situation is quite different in many parts of the world where such in-depth research has not (yet) taken place.

Many of the vast areas covered in this volume fall into this second category. The scope of the current volume is the Rock Art of East Asia, from Siberia in the north to Malaysia in the south and stretching as far west as needed to cover all regions lying to the east of the previous volume in this series that concerned the Rock Art of Central Asia. The countries covered by this volume are Far Eastern Russia, the Republic of Korea; Japan; Mongolia; China; Vietnam; Laos; Cambodia; Thailand and Malaysia.

The coverage of the individual countries covered in the volume is necessarily uneven because the amount of rock art and research in each country varies considerably. China, for example, has been subdivided into three different zones. This has allowed the authors to provide a wealth of details on the rock art of regions which up to now were all but unknown internationally.

ICOMOS provided each contributor with a Brief in which they were asked to cover the following topics:

Profile of Sub-Zone
Based on defined rock art traditions in relation to distribution in space and time and to archaeological context.
• Characteristic features of natural landscape and the geographical boundaries of the Sub-zone;
• Prevailing types of landscapes which are characteristic for rock art sites in this Sub-zone; types of bedrock for rock art;
• Number and extent of rock art sites in this Sub-zone;
• Dating of rock art objects;
• Rock art traditions identified;
• Archaeological context of the Sub-zone (brief description, state of knowledge on archaeological cultures relevant to the identified rock art traditions);
• Present ethno-cultural context of rock art sites; presence or absence of recorded traditions of respect and worship connected to the rock art sites. 1

Links with other Sub-zones
i.e. overlaps with rock art traditions in other zones.
• Extent, to which the identified rock art traditions go beyond the boundaries of this sub-zone;
• Similarities and differences in landscapes and bedrock types;
• Representativeness of these identified rock art traditions for the other sub-zones (number of images, repertoire, artistic features, similarity or exclusiveness).

Known sites
Including cultural and natural World Heritage Sites; sites on World Heritage Tentative Lists (all these already identified and listed by ICOMOS).

Significant Rock Art Sites
To include a description of each Site:
• Location (region, district, distance from the nearest villages and towns);
• Geographical area, coordinates and altitude;
• Main types of bedrock (type of rock, relief, physical qualities of surfaces);
• Characteristics of physical parameters of images (technique, dimensions, color of patina or paint, exposition);
• Total number of images;
• Area of distribution of images;
• Description of various rock art traditions identified within the site (techniques, repertoire, style), their dating and percentage;
• Archaeological context (other known archaeological objects found within the same territory, state of research and cultural-chronological attribution);
• Cultural context (absence or presence of any recorded traditions related to rock art performance and/or respect to rock art sites from the side of local communities).

Content and forms of Documentation available:
For instance:
• Archaeological maps (showing the location of rock art and other objects);
• Other special maps (geological, geo-morphological, tectonic, landscape, etc.);
• Topographic maps of separate localities of rock images;
• Indexed panoramas of separate localities of rock images (graphic and photographic);
• Photographs of individual surfaces with images;
• Rubbings of individual surfaces with images;
• Other types of documentation (aerial photos, video, 3D digital models, etc.);
• Types of inventory records;
• Location of documentation.

Research
How far have rock art sites been researched for their associations to societies both past and present, particularly significances which indigenous populations give (or have given) to the decorated sites.

Protection
• Existing laws and other official protection systems and mechanisms;
• Legal protection, protection zoning, safeguarding.

Conservation
As complete and as correct a picture as possible to include:
• Present state of conservation and affecting factors (rock art and other archaeological objects, and landscape);
• Methods and materials used in practical conservation;
• Preventative conservation methods.

Management:
To include:
• Management, maintenance, monitoring (including traditional forms of management and management of natural values);
• Main agencies involved in management;
• Whether Management plans exist;
• Links with, and involvement of, local communities;
• Modern use of the site (e.g. agriculture, pasture, hunting, recreation, etc.);
• Tourism and access;
• Limitations in resources.

Main threats
For instance:
• Changes to surrounding vegetation;
• Rock fissures/laminations/water ingress;
• Climate change;
• Limitations in funding;
• Lack of management;
• Inappropriate uses.

Conclusions for the Sub-zone
Conclusions on:
• Scope and extent of evidence;
• Documentation;
• Problems with management and conservation as well as good practice;
• Threats;
• What Pre-Nomination support might be needed;
• Potential of Zone to contribute sites to the World Heritage List;
• Recommendations for the future.
These recommendations are meant to cover all possible issues and to be useful for the contributors who are thus provided with a detailed framework. Not surprisingly, conservation problems are duly stressed, as rock art is vulnerable and more threatened than ever all over the world.

Der vorliegende Katalog ist die Begleitpublikation zur Ausstellung "Entdeckerlust - Burgdorfer in Ostasien" im Museum für Völkerkunde Burgdorf. Herausgegeben von der Abteilung für Kunstgeschichte Ostasiens der Universität Zürich, beinhaltet der Katalog Artikel zur ostasiatischen Sammlung des Museums, verfasst von Studierenden und Jungakademikern*innen.
Die präsentierten Objekte zeigen die Lebensweise und kulturellen Gegebenheiten weit entfernter Zivilisationen und führen komplexe Netzwerke vor Augen sowie den Regen Austausch nicht nur zwischen Ostasien und Europa, sondern zwischen Ostasien und der scheinbar kleinen Schweiz. Durch die Betrachtung japanischer, koreanischer und chinesischer Kunst, können wir in direkten Kontakt mit den fremden Kulturen treten und ein neues Verständnis für fremde Aspekte ostasiatischer Kultur, aber der eigenen Schweizer Geschichtsschreibung entwickeln.
Die Schätze in Burgdorf erzählen nicht nur die Geschichte von Kunst und Kultur, sondern auch vom regen Austausch zwischen der Schweiz und Ostasien sowie den vielen Reisenden - Männer wie Frauen! - die alleine, oftmals mit Kamera und leeren Koffern bepackt, die Welt auf Dampfschiffen umrundeten, um sich ein Stück der "Exotik" ins eigene Heim zu bringen.
Der Katalog zeigt die vielen Facetten künstlerischer Arbeit, das bürgerliche Interesse am Fremden und "Exotischen" und die globale Geschichte von Tourismus und Güteraustausch anhand Schweizer Sammler*innen und ihrer heimgeführten Objekte.