AHL Foundation Public Lecture Series 2013, In Collaboration with Korean Cultural Service NY                   


KOREAN ART IN GLOBAL CONTEXTS: FROM THE JOSEON DYNASTY TO THE COLD WAR 



Korea has made an effort to present a “global” image so that artists from Korea or of Korean heritage are now significant part of Contemporary art affairs. Yet in the beginning of the twentieth century much attempt had been made out of an urgent internal need or fabricated by an external force. A series of three lectures will examine diverse contexts of globalization and internationality surrounding Korean art of the past and the present.

Kim Hongdo and Eighteenth-Century East Asian Painting

• Lecturer:  Dr. Chin-Sung Chang, Andrew W. Mellon Fellow of Asian Art 2013-2014, Metropolitan Museum of Art; Associate Professor of Art History, Seoul National University
• Date: Wednesday, November 20, 6:00-7:30 pm
• Place: Korean Cultural Service New York, 460 Park Avenue (57th Street), 6th fl. New York
  

Kim Hongdo and Eighteenth-Century East Asian Painting
The World of a Master: The Myth and Reality of Kim Hongdo (1745-after 1806)

Chin-Sung Chang  (Seoul National University)

Kim Hongdo has long been acclaimed as the master of Korean genre painting. His Album of Genre Paintings in the National Museum of Korea depicting the life of the common people, now in the National Museum of Korea, has been celebrated as a treasure illuminating the distinctive Korean characteristics. The 25 album leaves represent everyday activities such as washing clothes, eating, tiling a house roof, and people such as wrestlers, entertainers, schoolboys, peddlers, musicians, and farmers. In almost every book on Korean history, art, and culture, the album is featured for illustrating pre-modern Korean people and customs. Advocators of Korean ethnic nationalism have made collective efforts to enhance the status of Kim Hong-do as the most distinguished national painter and that of the album as a timeless masterpiece. In this way, the album has been known to the general public as the best work of Kim Hong-do. Furthermore, the album has been one of the most internationally publicized Korean paintings.