The Shape of Time: Korean Art after 1989 gives a glimpse at Minneapolis Institute of Arts | By Jennifer Arndt-Johns (Spring 2024)
While many may be familiar with the popular culture products of the “Korean wave” (hallyu) such as K-pop, K-dramas, Korean beauty products and cuisine sweeping the globe, the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) is making its own waves presenting The Shape of Time: Korean Art after 1989, a bold exhibition of contemporary Korean art on view through June 23.
The exhibition encompasses the artwork of 25 artists of Korean descent working in various mediums; the theme is based on exploring how Korea’s tumultuous history has shaped them in their own lives. As a cohort born between 1960 and 1986, the experiences of these artists, as manifested through their contemporary art, are testaments to a time when Korea emerged from war and transitioned from authoritarian rule to a new democracy.
Originally organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the exhibition debuted October 21, 2023 and was on display through February 11 in Philadelphia. This marked a significant milestone, since no major exhibition of Korean contemporary art has been in the U.S. since 2009. The exhibition at Mia is its second stop.
According to Leslie Ureña, Mia’s associate curator of global contemporary art and curator for the Minneapolis exhibition, the first gallery at Mia devoted to Korean arts was opened in 1998 as part of the permanent collection. Overall, the Institute’s collections represent 17 cultures that collectively span 5,000 years. The Mia’ permanent collection of Korean art is, at best, limited, so exhibiting The Shape of Time is a significant accomplishment.
Ureña said, “The artworks in this exhibition respond to South Korea’s complex history and culture, which have been marked by the division of a country, political upheaval, and economic growth, all within a few short decades, [and] has gathered artists who have made dynamic works that are deeply imbued with their shared artistic and social contexts. They invite us to consider the experience of exploring the past, present, and potential future.”
The curators of the exhibition in Philadelphia, Hyun Soo Woo and Elisabeth Agro said that it was one of their dreams to bring the exhibition to the Minneapolis Institute of Art back in 2018. Unfortunately, that did not work out. After that, the COVID epidemic emerged, changing the world considerably. The curators received a call from Matthew Welch, curator of Asian art at Mia, who told them that one scheduled exhibition had fallen through, and that there was an opportunity to get the exhibit to Mia. So began the ultimately successful effort to get The Shape of Time to Minneapolis.
Opportunities to see Korean contemporary art in the U.S. are rare. In fact, Woo said The Shape of Time is the first major exhibition on this subject in nearly 15 years, in North America. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston hosted the first major exhibition of Korean contemporary art in the U.S. in 2009, entitled Your Bright Future: 12 Contemporary Artists from Korea.
The Shape of Time installation in Minneapolis is a smaller rendering of the original exhibition in Philadelphia. Katie Luber, Mia president said that “The works in this [exhibition] serve as a snapshot of an important moment in Korean history, and global history… the diversity of feelings and experiences shared by these artists is profound. I hope that visitors will leave the exhibition with new insights into the ways this historical moment echoes today.”
The exhibition is curated into five themes: Dissonance, Reinvention, Coexistence, Being Seen, and Portraying Anxiety. In Dissonance, the artists explore the tense and fraught time in Korea’s history, beginning in 1945 just after World War II, when the nation was divided into north and south, first as geographical regions, and then as separate states that were plunged into a war. In a technical and diplomatic sense, that war continues today, since no peace treaty has officially brought an end to the war, and formal diplomatic relations are still suspended between North and South. The artists included in this section probe the nature of the tensions that have persisted between North and South, while South Korea has developed rapidly.
Forgetting Machines by Suntag Noh (노순택) is a visceral awakening and consists of a series of portrait photos that he re-photographed from the tombs of innocent people gunned down and killed by the South Korean military during the May 18 Gwangju Uprising Democratization Movement in 1980. The movement, which reflected the South Korean people’s desire for political freedom and democracy, rather than military authoritarian rule, was met with vicious violence towards its civilians and it is “estimated 4,634 people died, were injured or disappeared,” according to the artist’s statement.
Each photograph documents the name, age, date of birth and death, as well as cause of death of the individual and serves as a present-day memorial. The installation invites viewers to remember, honor and consider the lives lost during efforts to democratize and modernize South Korea. It is a stark reminder that freedom does not emerge without sacrifice.
The work of Kyungah Ham (함경아) in What you see is the unseen/Chandeliers for Five Cities SK 01-06 is an unprecedented collaborative effort between the artist and anonymous North Korean embroidery artists. Working through intermediaries in China and Russia, the designs created by Ham via computer renderings were smuggled into North Korea, where embroidery artists transformed them into remarkable works of art. Upon first glance, the artwork appears to be a photograph on canvas, but upon closer examination, one realizes that the image is composed of intricate, meticulous, hand-stitched threads. It is a mesmerizing example of a traditional Korean craft being carried forward into a contemporary work that weaves together an embroidered tapestry, the making of which is a remarkable artistic collaboration and a testament to reconnection and re-cultivation of relationships, albeit secretly, between the people of both North and South.
In 489 Years by Hayoun Kwon (권하윤), viewers are taken on a solitary meditative journey to experience the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) via virtual reality as they listen to the memories of Mr. Kim, who served as a former South Korean soldier whose duty was to patrol along the DMZ.
Kwon addresses both the terror and the irony that this space embodies as soldiers whose relatives were once members of one country are called upon to defend their respective military boundaries. He also comments upon the paradox that the DMZ is portrayed as being “demilitarized,” yet it has more than one million anti-personnel landmines that were dropped by the U.S. government in the buffer zone between the two borders. The selection of the title 489 Years is a reference to the amount of time stated by experts that it would take to remove the landmines.
For more than four decades of the 20th century, Korean traditional practices were not possible due to the Japanese occupation, the country’s division, and the subsequent war. As the country moved towards development and modernization, many aspects and practices of traditional Korean culture waned as Western practices took root in society. But the opportunity to host the 1988 Summer Olympics inspired a renewed sense of pride and national identity that resulted in a return to traditions and traditional arts in a new era. This era is reflected in the works of the artists represented in Reinvention.
Artist Se-kyun Ju (주세굔) utilizes video and a cabinet of traditional dishes in his work Dinner to explore and represent how behavior and traditional values are imparted and transferred by sharing a family meal. The video depicts a mother preparing an ordinary dinner, while subtitles appear, noting the values bestowed with each action: “Mother shares diligence with me… Mother shares diligence with father… Mother sprinkles truthfulness on top and mixes… Diligence from effort is added in.” The process is meditative and methodical, capturing the essence of traditional Korean culture. The ritual is concluded in observing a mother, father and son sitting at the table to eat together.
Unfired clay is the medium of choice for Juree Kim (김주리) in her work Evanescent Landscape-Hwigyeong: Philadelphia, 2023; Minneapolis, 2024. The piece was created intentionally to be destroyed over time. It was transported from the original Philadelphia exhibition where, over the course of 16-weeks, it was gradually dissolved by water. The partially dissolved installation in Minneapolis is presented dry.
Through this work, Kim processed the experience of witnessing the destruction of her own studio in the neighborhood of Hwigyeong-dong. The area was zoned for urban development by the government, and many buildings were demolished. The artist’s commentary questions the impact of South Korea’s rapid development in destroying entire neighborhoods to build concrete high-rise buildings. In many cases, previous residents were displaced by the process and unable to return due to being priced out of their own neighborhood.
The Shape of Time references 1989 as a pivotal turning point in both Korean and world history, as South Korea engaged in democratic reforms, and as “global connectivity,” propelled by the emergence of the World Wide Web, began to change how we communicate and relate to one another. These rapid changes created a complicated balancing act in Korea between the collective consciousness of the past as embodied in Confucian values, and the emerging western value of individuality. The work of the artists in Coexistence honor and merge the conflict of collective vs. individual and allow both to share space.
For example, the work of Michael Joo (마이클 주) in Headless (mfg portrait) is a juxtaposition of ancient vs. modern, as well as a commentary about the complexity of identity. Joo is a Korean American who navigates through two cultures. He grew up in upstate New York in a Christian and traditionally Korean household. The artist has stated, “Christianity pushed Buddhism out, so it seemed to be something that was lost.” In reference to his work, he stated “I always see them as sculpture that has been desecrated, so there is always something that signals incompletion, as well as a sort of misleading stereotypical profile of identity.” The bodies of headless seated Buddhas shaped from NERF foam sit with the heads of classic American toys suspended over each body in air via neodymium magnets. The installation at Mia has 16 of the original 64 figures created by Joo as “self-portraits of 100 years of American manufacturing.” The toy heads were all designed in the U.S., sent for manufacturing in Asia, then shipped back to the U.S. for market.
Observing the headless Buddhas with their disembodied plastic American toy heads, one cannot help but feel a discordant sense of whimsy, as well as shock. It is an interesting commentary upon what is lost in the transition and translation in navigating between two cultures.
Respect, homogeneity and conformity are deeply embedded in Korean society. Confucianism put in place limitations on one’s social and economic opportunities, rigid social rules including maintenance of strict gender stereotypes, and a de-emphasis on individuality. The work of the artists in Being Seen clearly challenge the traditional cultural system of patriarchy and the oppression of communities who refuse to conform, while attempting to envision a different future.
Artist Yuni Kim Lang (유니 김랑) challenges the historical oppression women of Korean ancestry have experienced for centuries with her piece Comfort Hair. Working with mixed fiber textiles, she re-presents a Korean fashion of women wearing a traditional Korean wig called ga-chae that was popular during the Joseon dynasty. The wigs were worn both by women of elite status, as well as by the kisaeng, women who were trained to provide entertainment and socializing to upper class men. The kisaeng were often from families who were either outcast or enslaved. The ga-chae was a symbol of status and beauty, but the artist portrays it as a representation of the heavy burdens and expectations literally carried by women throughout time.
Lang said, “I was born wearing a metaphoric ga-chae on my head. It didn’t matter how much I didn’t identify with the previous generation of women; it was my destiny.” The title of the piece is a historical reference to the (so-called) comfort women, the military sexual slaves who were forcibly conscripted by the Imperial Japanese military before and during World War II. Adjacent to the wig is a companion piece, a photograph with a stark white background and three generations of women, dressed in white, lying in a postmortem position with the ga-chae connecting all three through space and time.
Eun Young Jung (정은영) uses video to both educate and challenge notions of socially constructed conventions around gender identity. The piece Deferral Theatre is part of a larger body of work, in progress since 2008, entitled the Yeoseong Gukgeuk Project; it is a research, analysis and archival project. Yeoseong Gukgeuk (Korean women’s theater) as an art form is nearly extinct. It shares roots with changgeuk (traditional Korean opera) where women play the roles of men.
Yeoseong Gukgeuk started in 1948 and was a pioneering effort to break free from the patriarchal Confucian mores in society that divided all things by gender. In Deferral Theatre, Jung questions standard conventions in society and the “fluidity” of gender identity through conversations with three performers: Eunjin Nam, the last remaining male-role actor of Yeoseong Gukgeuk; Minhee Park, a performer of gagok (traditional lyric songs with orchestral accompaniment); and Azangman, a drag king performer. With these examples, the artist invites the viewer to evaluate how gender has a skewed history in society.
The energy of conflict is resonant when one attempts to assert individuality, while also attempting to remain a part of the collective. Art offers a way to explore this conflict by cultivating a space within which one can meaningfully integrate two disparate value systems.
The artists included in Portraying Anxiety invite viewers to contemplate the outcomes of group participation and the experiences of “looking and being looked at” which have challenging ripple effects in Korean society and around the world.
The portrait series by Heinkuhn Oh (하인쿤오) entitled Left Face utilizes traditional portrait photography as a means to explore “what lies beneath the facade” of his subjects. His intent is to “interrogate” what is seen on the surface but to “record” the fear and anxiety that exists in his subjects.
The artist states, “I’ve always believed that the human face is full of complex stories. Portraits are like nautical charts: Little islands of anxiety dot the vast landscape of the subject’s face.” Oh captures this energy in his subjects by presenting his portraits as a series. The repetition creates a microcosm of Korean society. Oh points to 1989, the year when Korean society opened up to the world, as the year when everything shifted for Koreans in how they socially dealt with their apprehension. He observed that suddenly Koreans were able to reveal their “true selves.”
The collective works exhibited in The Shape of Time invite viewers to deeply contemplate our places in space and time related to identity, gender, geography, belonging, connection and disconnection. It also beckons us to consider the violent energy embodied in modernization, the challenges of finding balance between honoring traditions steeped in collectivism, while respecting one’s own need to discover new ways of being in a rapidly changing world.
Curator Elisabeth Agro said that “art is an agent of change.” Certainly, those who authentically engage with the exhibition will be benefit from of absorbing this collection of work by artists who portray how their experiences as Korean people have been shaped by a complicated history that continues to transform and carry forward into the present day.
The Shape of Time: Korean Art after 1989 is on view through June 23 at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Advance tickets are available at Mia’s website HERE. While viewing and experiencing art in-person offers the richest experience, the Mia has a curated audio-tour accessible online via the museum’s website HERE. Additionally, teachers may access a teachers’ guide for students in grades 6-12 HERE.
A companion book, also entitled The Shape of Time: Korean Art After 1989, was published to coincide with the Philadelphia exhibit opening. Some factual information for the review was taken from the book.
