Sorry that I’ve been so neglectful and absent these past few weeks.
One excuse is just being very busy settling into the new semester.
The other is that I seem to be just inundated with interesting events to attend and people to meet these days.
For reasons, this is a very novel experience for me. So, lets just say the abstract concept of declining invitations, because it turns out I do still need to write, pay the bills, and sleep, has been slow to sink in.
Forced to be very selective from now on then, here are five events in Busan this month I’d still absolutely attend if I could. Unfortunately I’ll only manage three though, because two clash, and another is being held somewhere I already go to very often. For that one, I’m going to be a gentleman and leave a spot open for you instead!
First up, just yesterday I discovered Cacophony, the very sensual performer in the opening image (homepage, YouTube, Instagram), who’s having a concert on Friday the 26th at Ovantgarde, in the Kyungsung University–Pukyong National University neighborhood. Still very much in the totally smitten and infatuated phase, I’ve only just begun processing her work frankly, and haven’t seen anything about her in English yet sorry. But, based just on that MV alone, I had no hesitation in dropping 30,000 won on a prepaid ticket!
Next, at the Art Lee Chae Gallery Cafe, located between exits 2 & 4 of my old neighborhood of Namcheon subway station (one stop over from Ovantgarde), local artist Jemma Pallett is currently holding an exhibition of her work until April 23. Open from 9am to 6:30pm every day, Jemma herself will be there to meet and talk about her paintings on Wednesday the 10th and 17th from 11 to 11:30am. (I’ll attend at least one of those sessions.)
Next, this Saturday, April 13 from 2-4pm, Union Station, in collaboration with Tell Me Busan, is having a traditional Korean alcohol tasting event. Union Station, one of my favorite places in Busan, is a recently opened makgeolli bar in Millak-dong, just an easy 5 minute walk from the North/top/far end of Gwangalli beach. Perfect for a quiet, intimate, and easily accessible alternative to the crowded restaurants and and bars on the beach, it’s owned and operated by the incredibly smart and sophisticated Michelle Lee, who has a PhD in Psychology in addition to brewing her own makgeolli. In other words, the perfect host!
Honestly, I don’t even particularly like makgeolli. Despite that, I will happily drink hers, and those she suggests—it’s that good a place (her anju are great too).
Alas, I won’t be attending this particular event sorry. Partially, because I already attend the Busan Chess Club there once a week, and partially because I already drag friends and dates there on top of that. (To the bar I mean—not to the chess club.) But mainly, because of a clash:
Hosted by one of my other favorite places in Busan, Naughty Muse Studios in Songjeong Beach, which is owned and operated by the incredibly smart and sophisticated Anna Bodorenko (yes, I’m beginning to notice a certain theme too), I can not stress just how much amazing art is continually going on there, what a creative community is centered around it, and how many talented people I’ve met through Anna. While I sadly had to give up on attending classes there myself, never being able to find the time to work on my skills in between sessions, I still try to attend as many events there as I can (especially the movie nights):
Finally, great minds thinking alike, Michelle from Union Station and Anna from Naughty Muse Studios are collaborating on a combined watercolor painting and makgeolli-tasting event at the former, at 7pm on Friday April 19. Only just finishing work about then and already spending too much time at Union Station though, this is the event I’ll step aside from for the sake of any interested readers securing a spot. Not at all because I used to win prizes for my sketches as a teenager, only to completely ruin them whenever I tried to combine them with watercolor painting…
If you can make any of these events, then Yay! And please say hi!^^
Less than 20 years ago, Korean women could get assaulted for publicly smoking. Less than 2 days ago, a short-haired woman in Jinju did get assaulted for the same, real reason—openly defying restrictive gender norms.
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes. Image sources (adapted): @TheKpopProf on X/Twitter and @cottonbro at Pexels.
An academic friend has asked for help for her students, who are having trouble finding participants for surveys they need to conduct as part of their coursework.
If you’re eligible, both surveys are completely anonymous, and each should just take just a few minutes to complete.
The first is about how women feel about the way women and young girls are portrayed in anime/hentai. Your nationality is not important, but it is open to women and non-binary participants only.
The second is about smoking habits and perceptions of men and women smoking in Korea, and is open to all Korean smokers, although Korean ability is not required.
Alas, I don’t think I’ve written anything much at all about anime. But back between 2010-2013, I did write the long series below about the gender politics of smoking in Korea, prompted by an incident in the news about a young woman getting physically attacked on the street for openly doing so. So I can certainly understand what prompted the line of questioning in that survey, and am very interested in learning from the students about how much things have changed in the last 10 years.
Fortunately, cases of women getting assaulted in Korea for smoking now seem like ancient history. But then it was never really about smoking, was it? The real reason female smokers were assaulted back then was for openly defying restrictive gender norms and roles. And, sadly, as more and more women are brave enough to do so in other aspects of Korean social life, it seems the rates of assault against them are only increasing in response. Most recently, with a woman in Jinju this week being attacked for having short hair.
I really didn’t intend to sound so cynical. And I’m not—preventing such crimes starts with undermining the attitudes behind them, and determining how prevalent they are helps towards that. So, thanks in advance for your help with the surveys, and please feel free to share them with your networks!
It has, after all, only happened to me once in 21 years in Korea.
To fully celebrate my moment then, let me open above with my favorite of Jung Hun-sung’s (정훈성) watercolors, before showing you the specific work of his I saw in a moment. Alternatively, your sudden own new favorite Korean artwork may be his portrait of V (Kim Tae-hyung) from BTS instead:
If his style appeals to you, there are hundreds more portraits like those available at his various social media links (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Naver blog, Pinterest, Behance). While it’s a little frustrating that he doesn’t also provide the original pictures of the unnamed models and celebrities from the internet that he bases them on, I do like that he also has a YouTube channel where he posts relaxing videos of his creation process:
Which I instantly recognized when I passed SLIC (Instagram), a specialty ceramic tableware workshop and store in Gwangallli Beach in Busan (photo taken with permission):
Undeniably a portrait of the same (unnamed) model, nonetheless I struggled afterwards to find Jung Hun-sung’s additional black-and-white version. Rather than pausing to wonder why it was a sketch and not a painting though, or taking a closer look at the signature like any normal person would, only after several frustrating hours did I learn it wasn’t by Jung Hun-sung at all, but by SLIC’s own ceramic artist Park Ji-hoon (박지훈):
Clearly a talented artist in more ways than one, I make no apologies for my post title(!), and encourage fans of ceramic art to check out SLIC’s website, and to visit their store offline the next time you’re in Gwangalli Beach.
If you reside in South Korea, you can donate via wire transfer: Turnbull James Edward (Kookmin Bank/국민은행, 563401-01-214324)
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes. Images, L-R: a “Gangnam beauty”; the original “Mi-in-do/Portrait of a Beauty” by Sin Yun-bok; and a poster of the 2008 movie of the same name. Sources: Awesome Pick, 기냥 보는 재미…원미동통신, and 연예계 뒷담화.
Or so I thought, until I learned that controversy was actually about the “Gosan (고산) Portrait of a Beauty,” which looks very similar and often has the “Gosan” omitted from its title (sigh).
Either way, Google perused my complicated browsing history, put two and two together, and alerted me to this news video about a week-long exhibition of it going on at the National Museum of Korea at the moment:
Apologies that I’m only just finding out about it now, and that this provincial Busanite has no information about how to book tickets to Seoul museums. But for the determined, hopefully there’s still some spaces available for the remaining three days of the exhibition.
다시 문 연 박물관…’미인도’ 내일부터 연장 전시 Museum Reopens Its Doors, “Portrait of a Beauty” Extended Exhibition Begins Tomorrow
Saturday October 3
[앵커] 한국의 모나리자로 불리는 ‘미인도’가 내일(5일)부터 국립중앙박물관에서 다시 관람객들을 맞이합니다.
Anchor: Called the Korean Mona Lisa, “Portrait of a Beauty” welcomes visitors again at the National Museum of Korea from Monday the 5th. [James—Not technically “tomorrow”; YTN got its dates wrong!]
코로나19 여파로 닫혔던 박물관이 다시 문을 열면서 특별전시회 기간도 조금 연장했습니다.
As the original exhibition ended prematurely when the museum was closed in the summer due to the Corona-19 pandemic, this special exhibition was slightly extended.
김혜은 기자가 보도합니다.
Reporter Kim Hye-eun reports.
[기자] 구름 같은 가체 머리에 둥글고 앳된 얼굴, 살포시 아래를 향한 얇고 긴 눈매.
Reporter Kim: A cloud-like gachae [traditional Korean wig] with a round and youthful face, and thin, long eyes looking gently downwards.
웃는 듯 아닌 듯 속내를 알 수 없는 표정이 백미입니다.
The viewer not being able to tell is she is smiling or not, her impenetrable expression is one of the highlights of the painting.
목 뒤의 잔머리나 붉은 삼작노리개를 매만지는 섬세한 손 등 세밀한 묘사가 돋보입니다.
The extraordinary detail of the depiction stands out, such as in the fine hair at the back of the neck, and in the delicacy of the hand with which she’s tying the red three-piece norigae [a traditional ornament worn by women].
조선 후기 고관대작들의 초상화에나 사용했던 세밀화 기법이 여인의 초상화에 등장한 겁니다.
In the late Joseon Dynasty, this technique of incorporating small details was used in portraits of high-ranking women.
[강경남 / 국립중앙박물관 학예사: 머리털 한 올 한 올, 한복의 깃까지 굉장히 아름다운 색을 쓰고 세필로 정성스럽게 그려 넣은 것을 알 수 있습니다.]
Gang Gyeong-nam, National Museum of Korea Curator: “You can see that each hair and the collar of the hanbok were carefully drawn, and painted in beautiful colors. Great attention was paid to the fine writing too.”
The woman in the picture is presumed to be a gisaeng, but no information has ever emerged about her.
간송문화재단에서 보관하던 ‘미인도’는 지난 8월 국립중앙박물관에 3주 일정으로 특별 전시됐지만, 코로나19 탓에 나흘 만에 볼 수 없었습니다.
“Portrait of a Beauty,” which was kept by the Kansong Art and Culture Foundation, was to be specially exhibited at the National Museum of Korea last August for three weeks, but the exhibition had to close after just four days due to the Corona-19 pandemic.
지난주부터 박물관이 다시 문을 열면서 ‘미인도’는 11일까지 1주일 동안 다시 전시됩니다.
With the museum reopening last week, “Portrait of a Beauty” will be exhibited again for a week until Sunday the 11th.
박물관 측은 국보와 보물 83건을 볼 수 있는 큰 전시인 만큼 특별전 기간을 오는 11일까지로 연장해놓았습니다.
The museum has extended the exhibition due to its large size, with 83 national treasures on display.
긴장감이 감도는 투전판, 옷섶을 풀어헤친 채 장기 두는 승려를 그린 김득신의 풍속화와, 지금의 청운동인 인왕산 기슭 청풍계를 담은 정선의 작품도 만날 수 있습니다.
Spring Girls, by singer-songwriter SunwooJung-a, is literally dripping with sex.
For starters, take the word cheonyeo (처녀) in its Korean title. Many sources do give “young unmarried woman” as one meaning, so “girls” seems fine for the English. (When they’re obvious, Korean usually omits plurals.) But most translate it as “virgin” first.
Why would Sunwoo choose something so loaded? The neutral term agasshi (아가씨) is far more common.
Possibly, she simply hoped to capitalize on the name-recognition, as she acknowledges being inspired by a well-known folk song of the same title. It’s also true that the lyrics are really quite chaste.
Possibly, I just have a dirty mind.
But then there’s the MV. Watch it, and by its end you’ll have a dirty mind too. Add that there’s no connection to the folk-song whatsoever, and it’s difficult not to think that Sunwoo deliberately primed Korean listeners with a blatant double entendre:
In that vein, I’m tempted to describe the MV as a continuation of this cultivated ambiguity. But that would be to underplay its sheer spunk, and to detract from how refreshing that feels compared to the bland, repetitive, profoundly unarousing “sexy concepts” of most K-pop. For suggestive and full of symbolism it is, but “ambiguous” those symbols are not. Add the frequent shots of partially-exposed breasts, the luscious lips, and the hands pulling up skirts and dresses, then I’d be hard-pressed to think of such a striking and shocking depiction of female bodies and sexuality since Bloomby Ga-in (2012).
To pretend otherwise is to willingly ignore the obvious. Like Arirang TV once did for instance, with hilarious results:
But audacity aside, are scenes like that something to celebrate? Perhaps as much as a third of the MV is of headless women (especially if you count scenes that only go up to models’ mouths), the camera by definition focusing on their body parts. Which, you don’t need me to explain, is widelyconsideredone of the most basic and common forms of dehumanizing, sexual objectification.
On the face of it then, shouldn’t it be criticized, rather than applauded?
미국 코미디언 벨스키는 SNS 프로젝트 ‘할리우드의 머리 없는 여성들’을 시작했다. “얼굴이 잘린 채 등장한 여성은 남성의 시선에서 수동적인 대상, 익명의 존재가 돼버리고 남성에 대한 성적 어필만으로 표현된다”https://t.co/JQKrZLibQB
각색각양 다가오는 몸짓 Gestures are coming in all kinds of colors and shapes
가지가지 처치곤란한 밤 Nights are hard in so many ways
뒤죽박죽 도시의 봄이라 This city’s spring is so mixed
(hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm)
(0:49)
볼엔 진달래 An azalea on the cheek
눈은 민들레 A dandelion on the eye
입술은 쭉 철쭉 A rhododendron on the lips
(hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm)
목련 파우더 Magnolia powder
라일락 칙칙 A spray of lilac
마무리는 에이취 Rounding off with “H”~ [I don’t get this part sorry!]
(hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm)
속눈썹 위로 봄바람 A spring wind over eyelashes
머리카락에 봄바람 A spring wind in your hair
옷깃을 펼쳐 봄바람 A spring wind with collars opening
걸음은 좀 더 가볍게 (x3) Our steps become lighter
(3:11)
Chorus (x2)
♥
Next, another crucial part of that context would be some background provided by its songwriter, lyricist, arranger, guitarist, and mixer Sunwoo Jung-a, who very much owns the room in the MV too. But very few interviewers ever ask her about Spring Girls specifically. In fact, surprisingly little about it has been said about it at all, in Korean let alone in English, and much of what does exist only focuses on the fact of Sandara Park’sparticipation inthe MV.
That said, there is one more common theme to what I have found. That is, whenever it is featured or discussed, it seems to gets stripped of all meaning:
For non-Korean speakers, what Sunwoo was actually doing there was promoting Earth Day last spring, as well as an environmentally-themed music event she was to perform in. But the only connection whatsoever was the song title. And, perhaps learning from Arirang’s mistake three weeks earlier, KTV made sure to avoid showing the naughty bits of the MV too.
I don’t bemoan Sunwoo taking advantage of the opportunity for more publicity. Yet even in her very own self-interview, featured on her YouTube channel and Facebook page, she only really discusses the lyrics to the song. Which as you’ve already seen, are quite chaste compared to the MV:
Apologies for lacking the time to provide and translate a transcript, but I find she adds little there to, say, Rachel’s brief description of the song already at Seoulbeats:
Spring Girls is just a cool song, plain and simple. It’s got sass, a little jazz, and a dash of funk thrown in, feeling both old and new at the same time…The lyrics talk about seeing and being seen as the girls of spring come out “dressed in fresh new clothes.” Variety is really emphasized in the lyrics, with four Korean synonyms for “all kinds” being used to describe the flood of different spring girls in the “mixed-up” city. Each girl has her own charm which can light a spark. Like the song, the video also feels old yet new at the same time. It has some different spring girls, each with her own style, personality, and flower.
“BUT WHAT ABOUT ALL THE TITS??” I want to tweet at Sunwoo, but wisely I started by asking her if she has a link to an interview about the MV instead, and I’ll update you if she responds. In the meantime, my eyes briefly lit up at the “instinctive” in the (awkward) title of this Genie article—”Sunwoo Jung-a’s Spring Girls Taps the Beat of Women’s Instinctive Spring” (여자들의 본능적인 봄을 두드리는, 선우정아 ‘봄처녀’)—but it too waxes lyrical about banalities. Desperate, I turned to Sportsworld, a tabloid that is not exactly shy about discussing female body parts, and indeed it did prove to have the most substantial interview of her I’ve found so far. Alas, yet again with no real mention of the MV.
Still, it does give some extra background. She at least hints at the tone of the MV. And frankly, it’s only through this interview at all that I learned there’s a very well-known folk song of the same name:
…현대적이라고 표현하는, 그런 봄의 여자들을 보이고 싶었다. 이 노래는 되게 현대적이다. 비트나 사운드도 일렉의 느낌이 느껴진다. 시종일관 여기 저기서 ‘모던’을 찾았다. 자칫 방심하면 구수해질 수 있어서 회의 때도, 편곡 때도 계속 ‘모던’ 타령을 했다. 정말 세련된 한국팝의 느낌을 보여드리고 싶었다.
…I wanted to show spring women who express modernity. This song is very modern. You can really feel that the beat and sounds are electronic. In every aspect of it, I tried to insert an element of modernity. If we hadn’t taken great care with it, it could have sounded old, so I made sure to mention the “modern” constantly while we were working on it. I really wanted to show a new, very sophisticated version of K-pop.
Q) ‘봄처녀’를 만들게 된 계기가 있나? What was your motive in making the song?
A) 어린 시절부터 좋아하는 곡이었다. 그때부터 클래식 피아노를 쳤는데 악보 보는 걸 좋아했다. 남들이 만화책 볼 때 나는 악보를 보면서 곡을 재생해보는 취미가 있었던 것 같다. 그러던 중 어머니의 가곡집을 보게 됐다. 클래식보다 간단한데 가사가 있어서 재밌었다. 특히 ‘봄처녀’는 가사가 정말 예뻤다. 그러다 어른이 되고 기타치고 놀다가 비트를 만들고 ‘음음’ 까지 붙인 곡이 만들어졌다. 야하기도 하고 귀엽기도 하고 여자의 걸음걸이가 생각나면서 문득 ‘봄처녀’ 가사가 생각이 났다. 다행히 써도 된다고 허락을 해주셔서 ‘봄처녀’가 탄생됐다.
This is an old folk song that I’ve liked ever since my childhood. That’s when I started learning to play the piano and read music. When other children were reading comic books, I read music—that was my hobby. During that time, I once find my mother’s book of folk songs. Compared to learning classic music, the songs in it were much more fun because they had lyrics. In particular, Spring Girls had pretty ones.
Later, when I grew up, one day I just sort of played with the beat of the song on my guitar; as I did, I added some “hmmm”s as I did, and one thing led to another. Later still, I got thinking about women walking in a sexy and cute style, and that’s what led to the lyrics. Fortunately, the composer of the original song said it was okay to use the same title [and a couple of words in the lyrics]
If readers scoff at my perennial struggles with searching for substantive Korean articles about the MV, and can instantly provide a dozen to show just how pathetic my skills are, then nothing could make me happier. Until then though, or until Sunwoo replies to my tweet, we’ll just have to settle for the further context of the rest of the MV.
♥
Let’s start with a collage of the models’ faces and names, to make scenes easier to discuss:
(Women appearing in the MV, clockwise from top-left: Model Lee-seon/이선, Model Su-hyeon/수현, Tattooist Nini/니니, 2NE1 Member Sandara Park/산다라박, Model Ji-eun/지은, Model Jaejae/제제. Not shown: Sonwoo Jung-a. Source of names: By. Yeees.)
But really, most of that context is obvious, and already semi-covered through the numerous screenshots provided above. So I’ll just provide highlights here, as well as point out some things that readers with less dirty minds who haven’t watched the MV 30 times may have missed:
(0.01)
1) First, the identity of this model stumped me for a looong time. I thought it might even be a secret cameo of half African-American Insooni, known for looking much more youthful than her age.
It turns out to be Jaejae, seen wearing that black mesh top and gold earrings for just for a (very easily-missed) split second later:
(0.49)
2) Poor Ji-eun barely appears, literally getting no facetime at all:
(1.58)
3) This flower is a vulva, and gets ejaculated on. What, you didn’t see that? Don’t worry, you will now. Like I said, literally dripping with sex:
(0:45)
4) This flower though, almost seeming to pulse when shown, doesn’t look all that yonic…
(2:01)
Especially in light of all those bowling pins earlier, standing tall and proud…
(1:02)
As well as the phallic-looking, rapidly-engorging shadow of a statue of a (headless!) nude woman, with the breasts conveniently highlighted:
(1:42)
(1:43)
Not to mention that Su-hyeon gets her mouth covered in white icing sugar or flour in between those shots (and don’t forget Nini’s lollipop-sucking either):
(1:42)
5) I’ll address a potential criticism of that in #7. But, not unrelated, a potential criticism of all of the skin-exposure in the MV is qualified by the fact that almost all of it is actually done by just one person:
(One NSFW image appearing after this one.)
(1:30)
Certainly, you could argue that Nini has been brainwashed, and internalized the values of the patriarchy. You could also argue that she wears so little in the MV simply because she has the largest breasts of all the models, just like what happened with Yang Ji-won of Spica in their MV for Tonight.
But you shouldn’t, because Nini is atattoo artist who dresses much the same way in real life, and especially in all her magazine photoshoots. Her tattoo designs tend towards the revealing too:
By all means, her brand may just be a persona, carefully-crafted on Instagram. But it’s a much more consistent, much more convincing one than that of the K-pop stars usually presented as girl-power icons. It’s also very, very difficult to believe that Sunwoo or MV director Lee Sang-deok is forcing her to wear clothes that are more revealing that she’d like, which is something that happens to girl-group members all the time.
6) Yet while Nini stands out, that is not to say that the other models aren’t just as haughty in the MV. Jaejae for example:
(1:05)
7) Finally, whether in defiance, whether they’re caught up in the joy of spring, and/or whether they’re relishing the attention, crucially all the models (but Ji-eun) return the gaze at many points:
(3:18)
Lee-seon in particular, seems determined to confront the viewer (again, there’s many more examples above):
(1:22)
(2:05)
(2:08)
I’m so impressed, I’m tempted to veer into hyperbole and cliches at this point—that these models “own the gaze,” and so on. (Although they totally do.)
But I want to avoid that, because we all bring a lot of baggage to the concept of the male gaze, which can make for a lot of misunderstandings and talking past each other.
Instead, let me be very specific with my praise, and why.
Whenever *I* talk about the male gaze, I simply mean the way heterosexual men tend to look at women. That way is, of course, vastly overrepresented in just about all forms of media, and those representations of the male gaze usually degrade and diminish the sexualities of both the viewer and the viewed—let alone vastly underrepesent people of different body types, ethnicities, sexual orientations, and ages. And, because of those problems, for many commentators the term “male gaze” has become a pejorative for all sexism and objectification in the media.
But the mere act of heterosexual men looking at women is not responsible for those problems—the people in those industries are. Rather, it is a integral feature of human (hetero)sexuality, and one that can be represented while retaining complete respect for the viewed, recognizing them as sexual subjects just as much as objects.
Spring Girls does that.
♥
And, to reinforce that point, but also raise some uncomfortable and inconvenient questions, let me conclude by briefly contrasting the MV with the similar “Double Exposure” series of paintings by Korean artist Horyon Lee (이호련):
Originally, my intention for this post was to give equal attention to Sunwoo and Lee. But Spring Girls rapidly proved to be a more deserving subject, and not just because Lee’s work has had enough written about it to fill volumes, both in English (#1, #2, #3, #4), and in Korean (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9). Rather, it’s because whereas individual paintings of his may strongly resemble some screenshots from the MV, a crucial difference is that Lee has made a whole series (NSFW) of almost nothing but such headless images of women, most of which are much more sexually explicit than the examples given here. Whats more, and very unusually for an artist, Lee provides no titles or descriptions of those paintings either, as if to even further stress the dehumanization and objectification of the women in his work.
Fred McCoy, a rare critic of Lee’s, has written at CF Magazine about the artificial andharmful distinctions the art world maintains between erotica and pornography that he feels Lee exploits, which I recommend reading. Especially damming is his discussion of the similarities between one of Lee’s painting and one of American Apparel’s (many) notorious ads:
What stands out is the purposeful removal of the female’s face in both the advertisements and paintings. If you were to include the face, you would then place the viewer in a precarious spot where they would have to make a conscious decision as to whether or not they wanted to objectify the woman. By removing the face, as well as any emotion it might carry, objectification becomes easy. We are simply looking at a dressed up piece of flesh and bear no responsibility in how we choose to engage it.
Yet without disagreeing with the sentiment, it is more correct to say it is easier. As I discussed at length in my review of Tonight, removing a face does not make negative objectification and disrespect of that person inevitable, nor does including a face automatically ward off both. In Spring Girls, objectification is certainly occurring, but it is not negative objectification because of the context of the rest of the MV. And, because so many screenshots from that MV so closely resemble Lee’s paintings, I can’t prima facie proclaim all the latter to be “disgusting,” as McCoy and his colleague do:
“[His Work] is dirty and uncomfortable [as well as] is grotesque and demeaning. I think what makes it worse than just portraying women as a piece of meat is that he felt the need to make an entire series out of it.”
(Zola Paulse)
“Dirty”? “Grotesque”? “Piece of Meat”? This too is hyperbole. His work is repetitive, certainly. It is baffling that he never paints pictures of women with faces, and he may well do so because he really does think of women as sex objects.
Yet compare that painting of a woman in red above for example, with this (NSFW) photograph of a real woman in a very similar pose. Evidently, the latter is very happy with her sexualization.
I don’t need to ask which one you prefer, whatever your sex or sexuality. You don’t need to hear about why I love it so much either.
But to dismiss the other one as disgusting, because it lacks a face? That feels much too simplistic.
On the other hand, perhaps I’m just creating strawmen here. Also, if I’m arguing that we can judge similar screenshots from Spring Girls by looking at the context of the rest of the MV, then surely we can judge a painting of Lee’s by the context provided by his series as a whole. In which case, he abjectly fails his test.
So far so good. Yet still, somehow I can’t bring myself to outrage.
How about you? If you can, why?
I admit I feel hypocritical. And I do find it troubling that Lee’s received so many accolades, and so many invitations to exhibit. Again, McCoy is a good read on what that implies about the art world.
I’m strongly reminded of my series and lectures on GenderAdvertisements too, in which I’ve often pointed out that it’s the trends towards sexism and gender stereotyping in advertising that are problematic. Those trends should be called out. With individual ads though? Unless they’re really egregious examples, especially of unnecessary (and negative) sexual objectification, often it’s simply incorrect to label them as sexist, and unhelpful to do so.
(It is harmful that men tend to be depicted more actively than women in advertisements, and that Caucasians are given such prominence over POC. But it’s implausible to describe these individual examples as sexist and racist respectively.)
But I’ve spent many years on Gender Advertisements. Perhaps too long, and it’s high time I learned more about other conceptual approaches, especially of different media like music videos and art (I’d appreciate suggestions and recommendations). Alternatively, perhaps I’m untroubled by Lee because it’s “just” esoteric art we’re talking about, so a painting of his would never have the impact that a similar ad would.
What do you think? Of my dilemma, or about any other interesting questions raised by Sunwoo and Lee? Please let me know in the comments!
♥
Song Credits
Songwriter, Lyricist, Arranger: Sunwoo Jung-a; Guitar: Sunwoo Jung-a; Bass: Baek Gyeong-jin; Mixing: Brad Wheeler, Sunwoo Jung-a @ Union studio; Mastering: bk! of Astro Bits @ AB room; Special thanks to: The Barberettes, realmeee, chch.
Music Video Credits
Director: Lee Sang-deok; Assistant Director: Kim Hoon; Director of Cinematography: Lee Han-gyeol; Cinematography Team: Park Chi-hwa, Oh Min-shik, Im Hee-joo; Lighting Director: Lee Jung-ook; Lighting Team: Lee Ji-min, Ji Hyeon-jong; Colorist: Jo Hye-rim; 2D: Lee Sung-hoon; Art Directing/styling: Gu Song-ee; Photography: Rie; Design: Seo-ro; Marketing: Jo Eun-bi, An Seong-moon.
Sorry for the slow posting everyone, admittedly somewhat ironic during the semester break. I’ve just been busy with a lot of offline work recently, and unfortunately for you readers it’s still ongoing.
Also, I’ve been fulfilling a New Years’ resolution to spend much more time in the bedroom with my wife. As in, I’ll turn off my computer at 10pm and lie in bed reading books, while she calls English teachers from her desk alongside me (she’s a recruiter). Now four weeks into 2014, she only occasionally tells me to fuck off back to my study and make more money from writing, so all is good.
One of those books is Seeing Through Clothes by Anne Hollander (1980 ed.), picked up in NampoBookAlley. Bursting with revelations for — ahem — complete beginners to art-history, I was especially surprised to learn that the woman in Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait above-right isn’t pregnant, despite the strong impression of that I’ve had for a good quarter-century or so. So, with apologies for not reading something more Korea-related on this occasion, please allow me to pass on what I’ve learned, starting with pages 109-110 (my emphasis):
Because of the desirable quality of a big female stomach for so many centuries [James — The shift in emphasis to the bosom would come in the late-seventeenth century], pregnancy was not represented in art by showing a distended belly, even in genre scenes. If an unmistakable indication of pregnancy were intended, it seems to have been customary to show an otherwise unwarranted disarrangement of clothing: stays unlaced a little from the bottom for example, or corsets left off entirely and extra loose folds of smock noticeable in front….The swelling abdomen was too conventional a female attribute to be useful for specific references to pregnancy. Giovanna Arnolfini, in Van Eyck’s famous double portrait, often thought to be pregnant, is in fact demonstrating how a young bride’s fashionable slim soldiers and chest might be set off by an equally chic abdominal swell, exaggerated on purpose to display the fur-lined green excesses of her gown. Her own desirability and her husband’s riches both show; a well-known mode of bourgeois female self-presentation.
In this particular style of dress, a woman’s belly provided the central accent point of her costume. It was the place where the balance was struck between elaborate headdresses and dragging skirt — or, for virgins, between a dragging skirt and a long mane of hair [James — Compare the right panel of the Dresden Triptych, by the same painter; source]. The domelike belly was not only erotically pleasing but elegant; it connoted elegance rather than fruitfulness. In the nude art that corresponds to this kind of fashion, it would also have done so.
More on those last points in a moment. First, given the common false conception (no pun intended) of a pregnant wife, again I was surprised that greater attention wasn’t given to that in the voluminous Wikipedia entry on the painting:
Although many viewers assume the wife to be pregnant, this is not believed to be so. Art historians point to numerous paintings of female virgin saints similarly dressed, and believe that this look was fashionable for women’s dresses at the time.[32] Fashion would have been important to Arnolfini, especially since he was a cloth merchant. The more cloth a person wore, the more wealthy he or she was assumed to be. Another indication that the woman is not pregnant is that Giovanna Cenami (the identification of the woman according to most earlier scholars) died childless,[33] as did Costanza Trenta (a possible identification according to recent archival evidence);[16] whether a hypothetical unsuccessful pregnancy would have been left recorded in a portrait is questionable. As mentioned above, some viewers have argued that the woman in the portrait is already pregnant, thus the protruding belly. Harbison, however, maintains her gesture is merely an indication of the extreme desire of the couple shown for fertility and progeny.[34]
The comparative approach I advocate for elucidating the meaning of the London panel is readily exemplified with reference to the female figure’s supposedly pregnant state. Documented as early as the Spanish royal inventory of 1700, this mistaken inference continues to be drawn by modern viewers seeing the picture for the first time. But among those familiar with Franco-Flemish works of the fifteenth century a consensus has developed that this is not the case, for virgin saints, who obviously cannot be pregnant, also appear gravid in many contemporary representations. The woman in the London panel has thus often been compared with the Saint Catherine in the right wing of Van Eyck’s Dresden Triptych, who is similarly portrayed (Fig. 48), as is the bride in the marriage vignette of Rogier’s Seven Sacraments Altarpiece (see Fig. 21) as well as the Virgin and one of her attendants in Israhel van Meckenem’s Marriage of the Virgin (see Fig. 50). And a protruding belly is seen in many female nudes, including again virgin saints, as in a depiction of the martyrdom of Saint Catherine in the Belles Heures (Fig. 49).[25] Whether or not this feature is explained by fifteenth-century perceptions of idealized feminine beauty, these images clearly reflect some contemporary Flemish convention whose precise meaning is no longer readily apparent.
Another revelation from Hollander is that nudes tend to be posed and/or presented as if they were still wearing the fashions of their era, which incorporated sexual standards and symbolism which may no longer apply today (e.g., those “erotically pleasing domelike bellies”). One consequence is that we “may even mistake an erotically intended image [of the past] for an idealized one — if it lacks the shapes, proportions, and details we are accustomed to responding to in contemporary life” (p. 88; this is given as an example). Another is the gravity-defying breasts of the Nude Maja on the cover I scanned; ironically, again something I’m only noticing for the first time (my emphasis; p. 91):
One of the most telling features on the nude maja’s body is that it seems to show the effect of corseting without the corset — which, on the other hand, is very definitely present in the dressed version. The high, widely separated breasts and rigid spine of the recumbent nude lady are as erotic as her pubic hair fuzz or sexy smile. Her breasts indeed defy the law of gravity; and her legs, accustomed to appearing through the lightweight and rather narrow skirts of the day [James — It was painted circa 1797-1800], are self-consciously disposed for effect, like those of a twentieth-century woman. It is the emphatic effect of her absent modish costume that makes her a deliberately sexual image.
And on that note, thank you for the indulgence of any art-history majors still reading, and I’d really appreciate any suggestions for further, much more recent reading on the links between historical and contemporary ideals of body image — or rather, the representations in popular-culture thereof (Ways of Seeing by John Berger {1972} is good of course, but frankly I found the final chapter on that to be its weakest, and of course it’s also old). Naturally, anything on Korea in particular, and for one I’d be interested in hearing if Visualizing Beauty: Gender and Ideology in Modern East Asia edited by Aida Yuen Wong (2012; source) is worth buying for instance, which I’ve been wavering about because it only has two chapterson Korea. Or are there any other possibilities, in Korean (but not this one!) or in English? Thanks!
(This Must be the Place, Roy Lichtenstein, 1965. Source)
— First, the next 2 weekends are just jam-packed with V-day related events, culminating in the Vagina Monologues performances. See Busan Haps for those happening in Busan, and KoreaMaria for Gwangju.And if anyone knows of any more events being held in different cities, please let me know!
— Next, a request from Arianna Casarini (almostelse@gmail.com), who is looking for Korean or East Asian artists that reflect on cosmetic surgery and/or body-image. Unfortunately, I don’t know of any myself, so (with permission) I’m reprinting her email here:
I’m an Italian student of the University of Bologna, close to get my first degree.
Very little after I started getting deeper in the study of Korean culture, I discovered your blog and your illuminating articles, and thanks to it I became especially interested in the problem of the pervasiveness of cosmetic surgery in the South Korean reality.
Since I found the subject really deep and stimulating, I decided to make it the subject of my graduation thesis.
In my thesis, I want to focus on the connection between Art (especially Contemporary Art) and cosmetic surgery, both in Eastern and Western countries. I wish to focus on inspecting the interpretations and criticisms that Contemporary Art gives on the problem of cosmetic surgery, and on the mutual influence that Art and aesthetic plastic surgery have on each other, paying attention to all the psychological and sociological matters implied.
Even though I’m quite well informed on the side of contemporary Western artists whose artworks dwell on cosmetic surgery, I lack a deep knowledge of East Asian artists and I wondered if you could help me on this matter.
Could you indicate me Korean/East Asian artists that reflect on cosmetic surgery/body problems or some essay that treats this subjects?
Sadly I can’t read Korean, so I must specifically look for English sources.
I’m really glad I found your blog and that, thanks to it, I have been able to get to know your interesting work.
I thank you in advance for your attention,
— Finally, Ashley Turner is looking looking for people with experience in web design, visual/graphic arts and audio/video editing who may interested in assisting with a Hallyu project:
Our vision is to help bridge the cultural gap between America (and other Western countries) and Korea by bringing all enthusiasts of Korean culture in a social project that encourages cultural exchange between all fans; as well as making conversation about it accessible to everyone by integrating and welcoming international fans. It is about proving the power of cultural exchange to balance the connection between Korean and international fans and bringing culture outside the context of K-pop, as well as using K-pop as gateway to the rest of culture. The project will serve as a casual learning entry point that makes the Hallyu wave accessible, and allows people reflect on their own culture in relation to Korea’s….
….This project is a social media website being funded by the Korean Cultural Center Washington D.C. and KOFICE (Korea Foundation for International Culture Exchange).
The corresponding proposal [ask Ashley for a copy] has further information concerning the individual aspects of the project. Those with experience in web design, graphic arts, and audio/video editing are being actively scouted. This is primarily a volunteer opportunity with potential for compensation later in development. If you are interested in participating, please contact Ashley at ashley.trnr@gmail.com.
Any readers who also have requests and/or would like events publicized, please just email me and I’d be happy to post them on the blog (and apologies for the slight delays with these ones). To make it easier for me though, when you do please just send something I can quickly copy and paste. Thanks!
Apologies for the off-topic post, but I thought my more artistic readers would appreciate a heads-up about this. Unfortunately, there’s no English information available on either its homepage, blog, or Facebook page, but I’m sure everyone can find COEX for themselves, and I can at least tell you that tickets are 10,000 won each. Also, see The Constant Crafter and Alien’s Day Out for write-ups about last year’s fair, here for an extensive Flickr gallery of it, and finally below for a quick video:
If anyone does go, please let me know what you thought!^^
Update: Note that the 2nd Seoul Slutwalk is also next week, on Saturday the 28th. I’ll put up a separate post about that tomorrow.
Update 2: See here for Foreigner Joy’s report on the fair.
Just something that really got me thinking about fertility, body-labelling, and hourglass figures (or indeed, cola bottle ones). Normally I’d simply post it to the blog’s Facebook page, but unfortunately artist Lee Boo-rok doesn’t appear to have been very active in the past few years, and I could only find a handful of small, poor-quality pictures of this and his other works. Here’s another good copy of this one then, just in case the original link at the Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art is ever taken down! :)
(p.s. For anyone that doesn’t know, that’s the Venus of Willendorf on the left)
Update: By coincidence, just after writing this post I discovered the pop-artist Mel Ramos, who’s done a lot of paintings of voluptuous female nudes alongside commercial products. Two — Lola Cola (1972) and Lola Cola #2 (2004) — feature cola bottles, and I also like Photoshop CS (2008).
“…[I]n the worldwide retro trend, where is the Korean culture located? Most of the cases, instead of original Korean culture, foreign vintage culture and goods are imported. It is because of the ’70s and ’80s fever for the Westernization then it is hard to find original Korean retro. So you find that only unidentified mixture of retro cultures have mushroomed in Korea without its own color.”
So lamented the Design Journal (디자인저널) back in November 2008. But as it turns out, a veritable treasure-trove of Korean retro has long been available in the Museum of Modern History of Korea (한국 근현대사 박물관) in Paju, just 30km north of Seoul. See here, here, here, and here for some high-definition photos of the exhibits, and here (a PDF) and here for information about the museum in English.
Combined with the Heyri Artist’s Village, and/or the Paju Book City, then you have the makings of a perfect day trip from Seoul, and a very educational and cultured one at that. Any takers?^^
But please note that it’s much more than just an exhibition(!):
From December 10 through December 16, 2011, the House of Sharing’s International Outreach Team will host a week-long art exhibition called Liberating Herstories: Art Celebration of Survivors on the issues of sexual slavery, trafficking and violence against women at Cafe Anthracite, Hapjeong-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul (near Sangsu Station). Over the course of the week we will be displaying art submitted from around the world and hosting educational workshops, film screenings and musical performances on these topics. While entry to the exhibition and all events is free, we will accept donations throughout the week as will be auctioning off donated art works. All proceeds will be evenly divided and donated to the House of Sharing, The Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan and Durebang.
See here for a press release, schedule, and map (all as one MS Word file), and here for the Facebook event page. Or just click on the image above!
What comes to mind when you hear that Korean(?) cosmetic brand Clio (클리오) hosts a biennial Clio Cosmetic Art exhibition? That it sounds more like a brand tie-in than a genuine attempt to encourage original and thought-provoking art? The purist in me couldn’t agree more, especially when you consider that some works in the 4th (2009) and 5th (2011) exhibitions were not just inspired by, but use the very same photos as Clio’s own advertisements, prominently featuring brand endorsers Kim Ha Neul (김하늘) and Lee Hyori (이효리) respectively.
When its at the behest of the advertiser itself, arguably the ensuing pop-art loses its edginess.
But art doesn’t have to be radical to look good. What’s more, when you combine the images with the women themselves, then the juxtapositions are like an intellectual wet dream, the afterglow of which has had me buzzing for the last week.
For which are the more real? The flesh-and-blood women in the Insa Art Center (인사아트센터) in Seoul’s Insa-dong district? Or Ha Neul and Hyori the mass-produced visual commodities, with which we are much more familiar?
But although the pictures did indeed persuade me to take down my handful of books on hyperreality and postmodernism, yet again I rejected them as unnecessarily abstruse, even for a geek like me. Also, Lee Hyori in particular (I’m less familiar with Ha Neul) is actually so down-to-earth and accessible that arguments that she’s merely a media creation can’t be sustained, one positive of Korean celebrity culture that I’ll be discussing in a lengthy post next week soon.
Until then, let me just pass on the art itself here, hoping to inspire more aficionados amongst you.
First, see here for a brief English introduction to the 5th exhibition, then the following graphic about it for a quick snapshot. If there’s anything on it you particularly like, click on the graphic itself to go to the Clio website, then on the specific artwork on the graphic there to get a quick (Korean) bio of the artist.
To any K-pop fans, see if you guess where you’ve seen Mari Kim’s work before:
For many more large and/or high-definition pictures of the art and exhibition hall itself, see here, here, here, or here (beware the automatic music in the last one). My favorite work is easily The Magic (also known as Masic) by Park Dae Cho (박대조) below (the one using the same photo as a Clio advertisement), which you can see a zoomable version of here:
Note though, that it’s actually a color-changing transparency in a light box rather than a static image, like most of Park Dae Cho’s works (which you can see more of on his blog):
That video doesn’t really do justice to it though, as it must really have been quite mesmerizing when viewed close-up. For the best equivalent, click on the following image:
As for those of you that share my love of juxtapositions, alas, there seems to be a conspiracy of exhibition-goers to avoid taking decent pictures of Lee Hyori standing next to this particular artwork in particular, this one always cutting it in half for example, or this one being so much more interested in the contents of Lee Hyori’s dress that he ruined the contrast. But decent, albeit smaller and/or watermarked versions can be seen here, here, or on Park Dae Cho’s blog itself.
Meanwhile, if you haven’t guessed already, Mari Kim (blog; Facebook; Twitter), not to confused with (the also – quite literally – cool) Miru Kim, is the artist behind 2NE1’s (투애니원) I am the Best (내가 제일 잘 나가) album cover, and the Hate Youmusic video:
Finally, unfortunately there was much less interest in the 4th exhibition with Kim Ha Nuel, but Dramabeans does have a good English introduction to it, and again Clio has a snapshot image, although without links to the artists this time:
See here, and here for more pictures of the exhibition, and here and here for more shots of juxtapositions.
What do you think? Please let me know, and I’d very much appreciate it if readers could pass on any more examples of interesting juxtapositions and/or celebrity-related Korean pop-art. I’d be especially interested in anything featuring men, as I’m curious if I’m only interested in the Clio exhibitions because they’re centered around two attractive women. I’m sure that’s not the only reason I like them (what do female readers think of them?), but probably it’s much more important than I’d like to admit!
Update – Sorry for forgetting to mention it in case you wanted to go, but unfortunately the 5th exhibition ended back in May. But see you at the 6th one in 2013! :D
Actually, the brief 2011 Chinese Film Festival itself finished nearly two weeks ago sorry. But I’m much more concerned with the poster, one of the best I’ve ever seen.
I’d really like to know who designed it, but unfortunately all I can make of that name in the bottom-right corner is “환영” – not the last syllable, and searches of my various guesses have come to naught, Indeed, it actually might not be a name at all, as “환영” by itself means both “illusion” and “welcome”.
Can anybody can make out the full name, and/or clarify? Any help would be much appreciated!^^
Update – With thanks to Paul Carver for passing the links on, the illustrator’s name is 윤환영 (I guess the last syllable was actually a sort of symbol or signature?), and an interview of him and more of his works can be seen here and here respectively.
Apologies for the slow posting everyone: it’s been a very busy end to the semester, and then I caught a bad cold over the long weekend. Hopefully I should be writing again by tomorrow, but in the meantime I thought readers might be interested in a book I’ve just ordered: Cinderella Ate My Daughter, by Peggy Orenstein.
Like Reading the Lolita Effect by M. Gigi Durham, intellectually-speaking it’s going to very interesting applying it to the Korean context. But with my 5 year-old daughter expressing a desire to be a princess literally every day though, and having constant fights because she always wants to wear her most “princessy” clothes, then this time round I have much more practical and immediate concerns that I hope the book can help me with!
Anybody else read it, and/or have similar problems with their aspiring little princesses? So far, my wife and I have had the most success with persuading her to become a strong confident queen instead!
I don’t often post Chinese art on this blog, but still: there needs to be more acknowledgment of AXA Direct’s (AXA 다이렉트) debt to Chinese artist Liu Bolin for their recent ad. Hell, it even has old-style British telephone boxes too:
Update: see here for the making-of an upcoming female version of the ad, and this next picture probably gives a much better impression of Liu Bolin’s skills:
Despite everything I’ve said about Girls’ Generation (소녀시대) over the years, I’m really liking this retro look for their new mini-album Hoot (훗), to be released later this week. Heck, along with Eccentric Yoruba, I’m even liking the title track too, whereas I needed to hear DJ Areia’s trance remix before I could even begin to listen to Oh! (오!).
But I’ve actually liked Korean retro itself for a long time now, and the posters reminded me of a brief article on that from the November 2008 edition of Design Journal (디자인저널), which I thought readers may also be interested in. And in the magazine itself of course, which — although its English could be much improved as you’ll soon see — is very rare in that it has both English and Korean versions of each article, helping to open up an entire creative side of Korean life that would normally be relatively inaccessible to expats.
Alas, unfortunately I’ve just learned that there were no more issues published after July 2009. But I do hope you still enjoy the article though, and if so then you may also like the So Much Pileup blog that I subscribe to, which has examples of retro graphic design from around the world. Personally, I was hooked on it as soon as I read the following about the logotype on the right:
The way that A and the S form together as one. It’s like they’re having an incredibly intimate moment that I happened to stumble upon. Where as the r-a ligature seems a little forced. That lowercase a will undoubtedly wake up feeling used and perhaps will regret the whole experience.
And in that same spirit of turning what was once considered dull and ordinary into something fun and sexy, let me leave you with all the great examples of Korean retro mentioned below:
Any other aficionados out there?^^
Update: More retro-themed pictures of Girls’ Generation are available here:
Update 2, July 2012:Here’s a post on the “fashion police” of the 1970s who would check women’s skirt lengths, which emerged in the discussion in the comments.
On the one hand, it is by no means considered feminine on adults, nor has it ever been historically. Indeed, far from rejecting it, these days many young men positively embrace pink as a sign of rebellion against the gruff, dull rural roots of their parents. As The Joshing Gnome puts it:
Many young guys who grew up in this world find that it’s just not them. What recourse do they have but to declare loudly and pinkly to the world ‘I am not what my parents are.’ They’re showing people they’re young, they’re modern, they’re not dissolute drunken bums (and how would one know if not for their outfits?) and they’re urbane. If my two choices of apparel are white pants, a pink shirt, and ‘wax’ in my hair or slippers, track pants, a motorcycle and a case of the soju rosies, then I have to say I would be right there with these preening young men foppin’ it up.
And lest that sound like exaggeration, bear in mind that most Koreans lived in villages until the late-1970s. Hence I’ve also made a similar argument for their wearing of (usually pink or pastel) “couple clothes” myself, such a visible sign of affection possibly being a stark rejection of the model of their own parents’ often arranged marriages.
But I haven’t been married for so long though, that I don’t realize that it could just as easily be because men will simply do anything to get laid.
And if that requires caving in to their partners’ wishes to both look cute together and show off their status as a couple, then why not? After all, cuteness is already a strong cultural prerogative in Korea, much like the equivalent in many Western countries is to be ‘Xtreme’ and too cool for school.
But for every 5 male university students I see wearing pink clothes, I might see 1 or 2 men in their 30s, 40s or even older also doing so. How then, could pink ever be considered intrinsically cute here?
Probably because, on the other hand, Koreans do maintain a pink/blue divide for children. And while this is by no means a phenomenon confined to Korea of course, that they do so despite all the above is a telling demonstration of the points made by Korean artist JeongMee Yoon (윤정미) through her Pink and Blue Projects like the above, which were:
…initiated by my five-year-old daughter, who loves the color pink so much that she wanted to wear only pink clothes and play with only pink toys and objects. I discovered that my daughter’s case was not unusual. In the United States, South Korea and elsewhere, most young girls love pink clothing, accessories and toys. This phenomenon is widespread among children of various ethnic groups regardless of their cultural backgrounds. Perhaps it is the influence of pervasive commercial advertisements aimed at little girls and their parents, such as the universally popular Barbie and Hello Kitty merchandise that has developed into a modern trend. Girls train subconsciously and unconsciously to wear the color pink in order to look feminine…
…Today, with the effects of advertising on consumer preferences, these color customs are a worldwide standard…The saccharine, confectionery pink objects that fill my images of little girls and their accessories reveal a pervasive and culturally manipulated expression of femininity” and a desire to be seen.
Currently, her work is being exhibited at The Santa Barbara Museum of Art, which is hosting “the first major American showing by contemporary Korean artists living in Korea”: see the Los Angeles Timesfor more details (via KoreAm). Also, you can see her own website for more examples (and a fuller explanation) of her work.
But does the pink/blue divide largely come from overseas, as Yoon implies? And if so, how and why exactly?
Unfortunately, I don’t personally know enough about Korean fashion history to answer. My gut instinct though, is to reject the notion of cultural imperialism: in my post Giving the Consumer What She Wants? for instance, I demonstrate that far from the plucky Korean magazine industry being at the mercy of evil multinational companies, in fact Korean consumers were very active and willing agents in its Westernization.
But on the other hand, this wouldn’t be the first time Koreans have wholeheartedly – and rather unthinkingly – adopted some aspect of Western culture despite local tradition. Male circumcision for instance, was virtually unknown in Korea before the Korean War, but now it probably has the highest rate of it in the non-Muslim and non-Jewish world. And yet despite being world leaders, both doctors and the general public display a profound ignorance of the practice, most simply associating circumcision with industrialization and improved living standards.
What do you think is responsible?
Meanwhile, please see my post Sex and the Red Blooded Woman for the sake of comparison, in which I discuss how the general redness of most cosmetics at least do have definite biological bases, unlike our clearly heavily socialized ones for clothing!
Apropos of nothing more than my mellow mood this Sunday, two time-lapse videos of Tokyo by photographer Samuel Cockedey for you to enjoy.
And see Pink Tentaclefor his latest entitled Floating Point, and the video and/or landscape links there for many more like them.
But it’s both curious and a pity though, that there are so many high quality landscape time-lapse videos of Tokyo out there, whereas I can’t find a single comparable one of Seoul. Why do you think that is? After all, clearly Seoul is equally germane:
( Source: unknown )
To help you ponder the attraction of Tokyo at least, here’s some quick thoughts from an old Wired article entitled “Is Japan Still The Future?“. Written in 2001, it seems just as – even more – relevant today:
…Even in the splatter of America’s own burst bubble, Japan’s bottomless reservoir of bad news seems too dark a model for all but the most dyspeptic futurist.
But there is another Japan: Japan-as-metaphor. This is the Japan that represents hypermodernism in all its dimensions, from advanced technology to individual alienation to urbanization run amok. This stylized notion took root in the ’80s amid the country’s economic boom. It was a time when Japanese business models, money, and products seemed like irresistible forces. Neuromancer launched cyberpunk onto the streets of a future Japan “where you couldn’t see the lights of Tokyo for the glare of the television sky, not even the towering hologram logo of the Fuji Electric Company.” William Gibson’s imagined Japan was not the shiny future-perfect of yesterday’s world fairs, but instead a hard-edged tomorrow where giant conglomerates ruled and silico-, nano-, and bio- were the main denominations of value. Gibson’s message was that disruptive technology would bring with it disruptive social change. And it read like prophecy.
And on a similar theme, check out “The Future Perfect” from TIME magazine also. Meanwhile, of course please do pass on any videos of Seoul if you’re aware of them, and if all that hasn’t already made you look at Korean urban life in a new light, then let me finish by passing on bhophoto’s Korean photos which will do precisely that!
Unfortunately, my two young daughters have never really granted me the spare weekends, money, or energy required to pursue my fledgling interest in creative Korean art, but I still subscribe to the odd art and/or photography blog, and am particularly interested in the theme of juxtapositions. Still, I’ve never really seen anything quite like this “Real World” series by Back Seung Woo though, in which the juxtapositions are so subtle and so well blended together that they can take a few seconds to register, however glaring they may be in hindsight. Someone unfamiliar with Korean-style apartments for instance, and/or the area around the base of the Eiffel Tower, could well take some convincing that that’s not the real thing above…let alone that it’s actually a 50cm high model.
For more images and information about his work, see the Asian Photography Blog here (image source: Gana Art).
While it’s been a long time since I’ve translated “articles” about photoshoots of Korean women in bikinis for the purposes of learning Korean, I’m still always on the lookout for more stimulating study material than the temple tours, making kimchi, and the joys of wearing a hanbok that are the normal fare for Korean textbooks. I’ve also long lamented that comic books known as manhwa are largely considered a child’s pursuit in Korea, whereas tens of millions of Japanese adults from all walks of life read manga daily (it would be interesting to learn why), and so I am happy to report that I have finally found poptoon (팝툰), a bi-weekly, book-like collection of over a dozen comics (plus columns and articles) for only 3300 won, in its own words “full of things that children don’t know are fun for adults” (“아이들은 모르는 어르의 재미 팝툰”), and which I’ve been happily getting stuck into on my daily commute for the past month or so now.
Don’t be misled by the attention-grabbing image above though, not actually from one of the comics but merely the artwork that accompanies a regular column called “pop-ing city,” albeit a spunky one that in the first edition I bought happened to be about one-night stands. In fact, although most of their female characters do tend to be on the voluptuous side (not that there’s anything “wrong” with that), most of the comics in it—ranging from Korean-style slapstick comedy, critiques of Lee Myung-bak, and gangster stories to science-fiction, and with very different artistic styles—barely so much as mention any sexual subject at all, let alone have any risqué pictures in them, and in fact I’ve only ever come across one panel that I’d rather the halmoni sitting next to me on the bus hadn’t had seen, and even that one simply of a nude woman (albeit spreadeagled) being painted by an artist. But once you know which regular cartoons with the rare *cough* naughty bits are, then it’s a simple matter to avoid brazenly sharing them with your fellow commuters (source, right: dableman).
The downside of that variety is that there’ll undoubtedly be some comics among them that you simply don’t like, and I’d have to admit that at the moment at least there’s about half that I’d happily have removed for the sake of having something less tiring to hold. But still, there’s plenty in each edition to keep me occupied for two weeks, and my own personal favorite cartoonist in it is 하혜연, whose comics seem to have a focus on early 20-somethings pondering their pretentiousness and angst, something which I still happen to be rather good at. Regardless of what particular comic does it for you though, naturally the language used in all is very contemporary, with slang that you won’t find in any textbooks but which you’ll be very likely to encounter in your daily life.
To see what it actually looks like, and get a little more information about its contents (albeit all in Korean), go to its homepage here. I’d be surprised if your local bookstore didn’t stock them, but the ones in mine do seem to disappear pretty quickly!
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes. Source: iamcacophony.
The Grand Narrative 
