Korean Identity

8/12/2019 Korean Identity

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KOREANIDENTITYSIMON MORLEY

Simon Morley. November 2013.


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1. Identity and World-View

! As members of society we adopt world-views . A world-view is the larger point of view we have, and from where weinterpret the world. It is a collection of beliefs about life and the universe held by us and the groups to which webelong. World-views are usually limited to readily identifiable historical, geographical, ethnic and other groupings.Considerable pressure is exerted to ensure that members of society conform to the dominant world-view.

! World-views depend as much on what they do not include as what they do. They are exclusionary.

! In a contemporary global culture of multiple meeting-places, cultural distinctions have become blurred and confused.However, some clear differences between world-views remain. The following observations are some generalizations.


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! The most important characteristics of contemporary Korean society are sharedby Koreas immediate north-east Asian neighbours. They are inherited from theregions traditional world-view founded on Confucianism. The two keycharacteristics of this shared world-view are patriarchy and collectivism.


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Patriarchy

! Patriarchy the institutionalization of elder male-dominated power and the exclusionof women from such power.


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Intimacy

! As a result of patriarchy and collectivism, Koreans prioritize intimacy - the sense ofbelonging to a family group where everyone knows their place and role.


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Holism

Koreans also value holism - the ability to pay broad attention to contextand relationships, categorizing objects, and explaining behaviour. Thewhole is perceived in every part (as in the concept of yinyang ).

Koreans prioritize the experience of an embodied relationship to timeand space, which exposes the impermanence of things. They are morecomfortable with flux, indeterminacy, ambiguity and process thanWesterners.


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! In a patriarchal and collectivist society there is great social homogeneity, consistency and stability.However, there is also a tendency to place excessive power in the hands of an older male eliteand to disregard the rights of women, children, young people, and all those who are considered tobe outside the family.

! There is also tendency for individuals to lack initiative, to follow time-honoured patterns and toresist innovation.

! Mindless obedience to authority and conformity to the official line, even by the so-calledintelligentsia may be another negative consequence.


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Cultural identity based on patriarchy and collectivism is shared with South Koreasneighbours, especially with China. But Japan has experienced a much longerperiod during which these traditional values have been challenged by Westernmodels.

Over the last sixty years South Korea has also absorbed many Western ideasabout identity.

North Korea, on the other hand, displays exaggerated - even pathological - traits

of patriarchy and collectivism..


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Individualism

The most important new conceptimported from the West isIndividualism.

Individualism means thatemphasis is put on self-relianceand the independence of each

member of society. The desiresand rights of the individual insome circumstances overridethose of the group.

Individualism suggests thatencouraging and protectingpersonal liberty and exploringdifference are important for socialwell-being, and permit greaterpossibilities for economic, socialand cultural progress.


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Contemporary individualismhas three characteristics. It is:

1) Competitive! - each individual is a rival, competing for a limited

number of rewards.


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! 2) Commodified

! - each individual has a tendency to define him or herself in relation to thepossession of desirable consumer commodities, and they are themselvesdefined as commodities.


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! 3) Networked

! - each individual can now be connected to others via cyberspace. A new kind ofindividualism has emerged that is mixed with digitally-produced collectivism.


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As a result of individualism Westerners value self-integrity rather thanintimacy. They believe it is more important to display self-reliance andindependence, and to determine their own position in relation to othersthrough maintaining a strong sense of independent autonomy.

Self-Integrity


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As opposed to holism, Westernersemphasise analysis the ability tofocus on a single dimension oraspect, whether in categorizingobjects or evaluating arguments.

They therefore value the ability todisentangle phenomena from thecontexts in which they areembedded.

Westerners separate mind frombody, and see things in relation to adetached essence or transcendentunity. They emphasise and valueclarity and permanence.

Analysis


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Contemporary individualism produces manynegative side-effects. By focusing attention onthe individual rather than the community, itencourages selfishness and self-centered

behaviour, forcing people apart and intoisolation. It destroys social cohesion and asense of social purpose. By fostering the ideathat the self is autonomous, it encourages thebelief that society is an obstacle to self-fulfillment, and that it is there to serve theindividual.

Competitive individualism means compassionand empathy are rejected in favour of asurvival of the fittest mentality.Commodified individualism leads to anattitude in which the self is treated as an

object amongst other objects. Networkedindividualism means that the self is defined inrelation to an artificial, virtual reality rather thanto physical reality.


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2. Korean Cultural Identity

As in China and Japan, culture in Korea has its root inTaoism, Buddhism and Confucianism. But shamanismis also important, and this is more uniquely Korean.


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Generally speaking, Chinese art is typically grandiose anddecorative.


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while Japanese is art sentimental and formal.


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It is said that when a Chinese person admires a mountain he will have it re-built,full size, near his house. When a Japanese person admires a mountain he willmake a miniature version for his garden. When a Korean admires a mountain hewill build his house near the mountain and make sure theres a window with agood view.


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The Korean artist Lee Ufan saysKoreans love in-between-ness, whichis a characteristic of the hazymountainous landscape of Korea, and

is also evident in the half-closed eyesof their Buddhas in postures ofmediation.


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- the mystery and sophistication of celadon


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the formless form of white porcelain


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the raw modesty of buncheong ware


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Literati Painting

! Korean elite art - Literati Painting ( ) of the Joseon period wasdominated by Chinese influences.

! Unlike Western art which was usually painted in oil paint on wood orcanvas and stretched on a wooden frame, Korean paintings were usuallypainted with water-based colours or ink on paper or silk, and mounted onpaper so that they could be rolled up.


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! Western painting from the Renaissance until the Modernist period constructs an illusion ofthree-dimensional space using fixed-point perspective, with one vanishing-point. North-east

Asian art uses multiple viewing points.


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! In north-east Asian art, empty space or void - was used far moreconsciously than in the West in order to create harmony betweenspace and person, regulating the passage of energy.


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! In the True-View Landscape ( ) paintings of Gyeomjae Jeong Seon (1676-1759), a specifically Korean style emerged, characterised by the

direct and spontaneous response to particular locations rather than depictionsof generic and ideal scenes.


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! Korean art also focused ongenre scenes scenes ofevery-day life.


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Folk Art

! Korean traditional folkart, including folkpainting ( ), royalartifacts, clothing, ladiescraft ( ),

architecture, musicalinstruments, householdeffects, pottery,embroidery, lacquer-ware, and mother-of-pearl decorations tend tobe more independentfrom Chinese influencethan literati paintings,and so can claim to bethe most Koreanexpression of culturalidentity.

!


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Patchwork

One important characteristic of Koreanart and design is patchwork ( ).This was work that women traditionallycarried out without a sense of aestheticform and as a natural part of everydaylife. This work was carefree,disinterested, and non-standardized.

Some people have interpreted jogakbo , the Korean patchworkwrapping cloth, as embodyingcharacteristics of the modern theaesthetic. Patching together otherwiseuseless and meaningless pieces ofleftover cloth is more than re-cyclingthem, it is recreating something entirelydifferent out of ready-mades.


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What is Korean beauty?

The first attempt by a Westerner to produce an art historical overview of Koreanart was made by Andr Eckhardt, who in Geschichte der Koreanischen Kunst(1929) claimed that classicism is the dominant intrinsic characteristic of Koreantraditional art - by which he meant symmetrical structure, balance, simplicity,serenity and impartiality.

The Japanese scholar Yanagi Muneyoshi focused on an aesthetics of sorrowin his influential study from 1920; in comparison with Chinese and Japaneseaesthetics, he declared that Korean art displayed an aesthetics of autonomy.

Korean scholars, most notably Ko Yu-seop writing in the 1940s and Choe Sun-u in the 1960s, emphasised disinterestedness, imperfection, naivet andnaturalness: Kwon Young-Pil discusses the influence of shamanism and theimportance of humour, and writes that the Korean aesthetic is characterised bythe classical concept of unification in diversity.


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Korean art and artefacts are often characterisedby the following traits:

1) the employment of the technique of no-technique, or the design of no-design


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! 2) disinterestedness, or detachment


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! 3) magnanimity and pleasantness in aesthetic sensibility


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! 4) irregularity of form and proportion that emphasizes the primacy of naturalform rather than artificial design and planning


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5) a pronounced feeling for spontaneity in design and expressionthat allows artists and artisans to re-structure, exaggerate, anddistort patterns and designs


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! 6) graceful humour


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! 7) modesty and a sense of intimacy


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! 8) the spirit of ecstasy, or dynamism


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The Korean artist Kimsooja was asked whether she thoughtOriental thinking has a real impact on the contemporary art world,or whether it risks being merely a postmodern exoticism, a dcorfor western aesthetic investigations. She said:


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Eastern thought often functions in a passive andreserved way of expression, usually invisible,

nonverbal, indirect, disguised, and immaterial.Western thought functions more with identity,controversy, gravity, construction in generalrather than deconstruction, and material ratherthan immaterial, compared to Eastern thought.The process finally becomes the awareness andnecessity of the presence of both incontemporary art. It is the Yin and Yang, a co-existence that endlessly transforms andenriches.


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But it is possible for East Asian artists to considerthe values espoused by the ideas and aestheticsof traditional culture in a more negative light.

To the young South Korean painter Lee Seahyun,the three viewpoint method characteristic oftraditional East Asian landscape painting, does not

offer a more flexible and dynamic alternative toWestern fixed-point perspective. In his opinion it isa repressive and egocentric approach to nature; avisual and perceptual violence, because itinvolves arbitrarily cutting and pasting the front,rear, and the upper part side as a man wishes.


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! After having experienced Japanese colonial rule and theKorean War, Koreans believed everything of value camefrom outside their tradition, and failed to treasure what isprecious in their own. Their world-view was in crisis.

4 .Korean Identity Today


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But today this is changing, and concertedefforts are being made in many fields to re-discover, re-invent and define Koreancultural identity.


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As Koreans embrace consumercapitalism they are becomingless patriarchal and collectivistand more egalitarian andindividualistic.


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Koreas patriarchy is weakening..


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.but slowly.


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! .

Young Korean are highly adaptable, and they are willing to embracechange. For them, Korean identity is a work-in-progress - not something

fixed and unchanging.


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Today in Korea we see strange hybrid cultural and social forms fusions of collectivism and individualism.


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Conclusion In a contemporary global culture traditional world-views arechallenged by the speed of change, and in multi-ethnic societiespreviously separate and unique world-views are contested from bothwithin and without.

Ideas clash, meet and overlap. Obscure and fluid forms of hybridityoccur where cultures meet and merge, and different world-views arebecoming more permeable to each other.


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But Korea still remains ethnically and culturally homogeneous and therefore insular.


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Art Star Korea is a laboratory withinwhich traditional Korean patriarchyand collectivism are challenge by newways of being and thinking.

In Korea, unlike in Western countrieswhere such programmes have alreadyaired, reality tv and tv survivalcompetitions explores new Koreanidentities based on the importedvalues of competitive, commodified,

and networked individualism.

By focusing on the artist this show hasidentified the most extreme symptomof such contemporary individualism.Within a Korean context this musttherefore be understood as presentingthe emergence of a new social typewho is exploring new possibilities ofKorean identity.

Conclusion

Korean Identity

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