Publisher description: Introducing the major works and currents of Joseon painting, Pathways to Korean Culture explores the various social, cultural and political perspectives of this dynamic, dynastic era (1392–1910), uncovering the fascinating history of more than 500 years of Korean art and visual culture. In this book Burglind Jungmann examines an array of themes and aspects … [Read More]
Booklist: Art and Design (page 4)
Korean Art: The Power of Now
From the publisher’s website: Despite its small geographical size, Korea has perhaps the most sophisticated contemporary art scene in Asia. In recent years, its vibrancy has been lighting up the whole world, with artists such as Do Ho Suh, Kimsooja, Michael Joo, and Koo Jeong-A emerging as major players on the international art scene. This … [Read More]
Park Seo-bo: from Avant-Garde to Ecriture
The story of Park Seo-bo is not simply the biography of a unique, highly disciplined master whose work defies categorisation, it is the story of the evolution of modern art in South Korea – which need not imply that Park’s significance is confined by local parameters. Kate Lim shows how the artist’s development exemplifies the … [Read More]
Looking East: Rubens’s Encounter with Asia
From the publisher’s website: Peter Paul Rubens’s fascinating depiction of a man wearing Korean costume of around 1617, in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum, has been considered noteworthy since it was made. Published to accompany an exhibition of Rubens’s Man in Korean Costume at the J. Paul Getty Museum from March 5 to June … [Read More]
The Korean Popular Culture Reader
From the publisher’s website: Over the past decade, Korean popular culture has become a global phenomenon. The “Korean Wave” of music, film, television, sports, and cuisine generates significant revenues and cultural pride in South Korea. The Korean Popular Culture Reader provides a timely and essential foundation for the study of “K-pop,” relating the contemporary cultural landscape to … [Read More]
Highlights from the Korea collection of Rijksmuseum Volkenkunde
From the publisher’s website: Highlights from the Korea collection of Rijksmuseum Volkenkunde by Elmer Veldkamp is the first contemporary study that describes the history of and artifacts in the extensive Korea collection of the museum. Navigating its way through the oldest collection of Korean cultural artifacts in Europe, this book contains a selection of 137 … [Read More]
Architecture and Urbanism in Modern Korea
Although modernization in Korea started more than a century later than in the West, it has worked as a prominent ideology throughout the past century—in particular it has brought radical changes in Korean architecture and cities. Traditional structures and ways of life have been thoroughly uprooted in modernity’s continuous negation of the past. This book … [Read More]
Contemporary Korean Art: Tansaekhwa and the Urgency of Method
Starting in the mid-1960s, a group of Korean artists began to push paint, soak canvas, drag pencils, rip paper, and otherwise manipulate the materials of painting in ways that prompted critics to describe their actions as “methods” rather than artworks. A crucial artistic movement of twentieth-century Korea, Tansaekhwa (monochromatic painting) also became one of its … [Read More]
Korean Art in the Freer and Sackler Galleries
From the publisher’s website: With more than 200 color and archival images, this guidebook presents the full scope of the museums’ Korean art collections. It first traces the formation of the Freer Gallery’s collection of 540 Korean objects, reversing the usual chronological order by following the collecting path of museum founder Charles Lang Freer. The … [Read More]
Exploring the National Museum of Korea
From the publisher’s website: Exploring the National Museum of Korea is a personal museum guide with vivid pictures and enchanting stories. The National Museum of Korea is the sixth largest museum in the world. This carefully curated book introduces two hundred and fifty of the most important relics and artifacts representing Korea. Each artifact is presented with rich … [Read More]
De-Bordering Korea: Tangible and Intangible Legacies of the Sunshine Policy
From the publisher’s website: As tensions remain on the Korean peninsula, this book looks back on the decade of improved inter-Korean relations and engagement between 1998 and 2008, now known as the ‘Sunshine Policy’ era. Moving beyond traditional economic and political perspectives, it explores how this decade of intensified cooperation both affected and reshaped existing … [Read More]
Being Political Popular: South Korean Art at the Intersection of Popular Culture and Democracy, 1980-2010
From the distributor’s website: Many artworks from recent South Korean history are located in the nebulous but fertile contact zone between public/popular culture and democracy movements. Being Political Popular attempts a thematically focused and historically interventionist inquiry into the current status of South Korean contemporary art, exploring the work of 17 artists and art collectives. Being Political … [Read More]
Korean Abstract Painting: A Formation of Korean Avant-Garde
Creations or new movements come from criticism of convention such as the movements of the US and Europe in modern painting after World War II. In the West, with their remarkable advancements of knowledge and technology, the two world wars began. The artists who experienced the war began the avant-garde movement. This art was different … [Read More]
Coexisting Differences: Women Artists in Contemporary Korean Art
From the publisher’s website: Korea become one of the most exuberant and productive centers in the world art scene. A number of artists are actively participating in the renowned international art fairs, and numerous cities in Korea are hosting world-wide art biennales. In the meantime, Korean art has demonstrated a fast and wide range of … [Read More]
Missionary Photography in Korea: Encountering the West through Christianity
The written word, in Korean and English, constantly struggles to interpret and describe the remarkable period of Korean history from the late nineteenth century to 1945, generally considered as marking the watershed between pre-modernity and the beginning of modernity. This remarkable time saw the end of the 500-year-old Joseon dynasty, brutal colonial occupation by Japan … [Read More]
Korea: Caught in Time
Once known as the “Hermit Kingdom”, Korea was first prised open by Japan in 1876; it opened to the West in 1883, and even today it remains a little-known country. Yet its distinct culture and history could not be more colourful or fascinating. Famous as one of the Asian Dragon economies, Korea has risen to … [Read More]