Breaking Through:
A Right of Passage for Feminist Artists in Korea
By Linda Inson Choy

"Until he extends his circle of compassion to all living things,
man will not find peace."
- Albert Schweitzer -

Introduction:

It was a perfect September morning in Korea. Serene breezes gently stirred the still lush green leaves in Jongmyo Civic Park near downtown Seoul. Appearing on this idyllic scene, a small group of women in twos and threes began with deliberate movements the preparation for a day of art festival. It was early morning as they unloaded colorful bags of art props and materials from their cars. In their ready smiles there was a betrayal of nervous anticipation as they granted interviews to the assembled TV reporters and their own videographer, Kim Mjungjin (in Korea, last names come first). Despite the early hour, there were a few curious passers-by and groups of elderly men who had already gathered to enjoy their ritual morning stroll through their favorite park. It had taken the artists months to prepare for this day, which manifested their hopes for furthering their causes. The final outcome of the day was completely unexpected. No one predicted the outbreak of violence. The politics of feminism and the antithetical patriarchy would converge to alter the landscape of Korean art.

During the months preceding September 29, 2000, the feminist group had met several times a week in preparation for their Jongmyo Project. These meetings took place in popular artists' haunts scattered throughout the twisty narrow alleys of Insadong, an area of Seoul which attracts many artists with its funky, energetic, trendy restaurants and cafes and hundreds of private art galleries, small and large. The meetings epitomized collaboration among conscious women whose mission it was to bring art out of a traditional institutional setting and make it more accessible to the public. In an atmosphere of amiable friendship and raucous debates, they supported each other's ideas and developed their themes. Their chosen name would be Feminist Art Group, Ip-gim. The word Ip-gim has no direct English translation. Loosely, it means "the exhaled air." Symbolically the name articulated the group's philosophy: that it is possible to dissolve the ice wall separating the art worlds of Korea along lines of gender and social class. Ip-gim was intent on transcending cultural obstacles established by five hundred years of Confucian dogma. Their first target was the Jongmyo ancestor shrine, the repository of Confucian values. Jongmyo shrine is the physical relic of Korea's male-dominated society and culture.

I Meet Ip-Gim

My contact with Ip-gim came through a series of serendipitous meetings. I met Kim, a multimedia specialist and Ip-gim's official videographer, in San Francisco in May of 2000 when she briefly visited the city. Our meeting resulted from an introduction by art history professor Kathleen Cohen, who thought we could collaborate on Korean art projects. Our meeting over a quick lunch did not result in an immediate friendship. I felt she was a bit radical, too feminist! Kim's aggressiveness intimidated me. I had begun to be intrigued with issues of femininity in Confucian society and the manifestations of these issues in the art of Korean women. But I had not been aware of the women's movement in Korea; only a few handfuls of articles on the subject have appeared in scholarly magazines. I became very interested in Ip-gim; the idea of a feminist art group in Korea seemed novel. I was impressed by their exhibition, "A Housekeeper's House." In Korean the exhibition title "Jipsaram ui Jip" does not mean the person who cleans and keeps the house. It is a euphemism for "wife used by husband," which I thought was insightful and progressive. I was delighted with the notion of Korean feminist artists working as a group to change the social condition for women in Confucian culture. 

For several months Kim and I e-mailed back and forth. When I traveled to Korea a few months later, in September 2000, we spent a quiet afternoon strolling through the Gilsangsa Buddhist temple in the outskirts of Seoul. Our conversation included our experiences of living abroad, education, art, and our personal lives in general. Kim promised to organize a meeting with Ip-gim sometime during my stay in Korea. That meeting would determine whether Ip-gim would participate in an exhibition I was organizing in California on the theme of femininity and Confucianism. (The exhibition, "Reconciling Femininity and Confucianism: Expressions of Contemporary Korean Women," was presented March 10 - May 31, 2001 at Villa Montalvo, in Saratoga, California). 

My expectation was more than fulfilled when I at last met with the group, just two weeks prior to the Seoul New City Millennia Art Festival and their Jongmyo Project. There was instant recognition of a kindred spirit shared among us. These were not typical Korean women; they were not afraid to deal with issues that many shy away from, and were perceived as being too "in your face" for the general public. They smoked openly, drank, and sported sunglasses on sunny days. Smoking is against civic law for women; drinking and sunglasses are thought to be insolent and unbecoming. Their projects often explored female sexuality as a major theme, as the Jongmyo Project would exemplify.

On the night of my meeting with Ip-gim the weather in Seoul was stiflingly hot and sticky, not at all as it should be in September. In the deliberately rustic and aromatic courtyard café of an art gallery I met the eight artists: Jung Jungyup, Jae Miran, Yoon Heesu, Kim Myungjin, Kwak Eunsook, Ha Insun, Rhu Junhwa, and Woo Shinwee. At a "hole in the wall" Chinese restaurant nearby, the group peppered me with questions about my work as an art historian and curator in the United States. They were curious to know the most current information on the activities of their fellow feminist artists in the United States. To my amazement, I had little to add to their already superior knowledge. We discussed the work of the Guerrilla Girls and the success and validity of their activist antics and messages. It was clear that Ip-gim saw themselves as an Asiatic branch of the rambunctious grassroots (now mainstream) group, determined to carry on the work of their American counterparts in this far corner of Asia. Ip-gim's self-proclaimed feminist label impressed me since there didn't seem to be a cohesive women's movement in Korea; proclaiming themselves left them vulnerable to criticism from the mainstream art community, which has only recently acknowledged the existence of feminist artists. 


Their chosen project, infiltrating the spaces of the Jongmyo shrine with images of women's bodies, seemed risky and controversial. This type of expression is considered avant-garde in Korea, and the prospect of their planned confrontation filled me with trepidation. I wondered how the patriarchs would respond to the concept of their festival, in which female sexuality would clash with the traditional idea of women's art: sublime paintings of beautiful landscapes, pretty birds and flowers. With mischievous glee the women artists described how they were going to include a corner in their festival for making caramel candy in the shape of both male and female genitalia. The evening was spent in comfortable camaraderie and excellent conversation into the late hours of the night. As the excitement of meeting them began to wear off after the discussion of their various projects, I worried about their safety. They didn't seem to grasp the potential impact of the upcoming Jongmyo Project. I suffered from a vague premonition of trouble, but as we parted I was unable to articulate my sense of foreboding to the enthusiastic group. A few days after that memorable meeting I returned home to San Francisco with my own exhibit to organize and to my work at the Asian Art Museum, and I thought little about the impending art festival in Seoul. At the time, I could not have imagined the magnitude of the events that exploded on a beautiful September day two weeks later. It was to be a catalytic event that would elicit a rallying cry from various women's groups who would unite, to the utter amazement of the patriarchs of Korea, who never suspected that so large a number of Koreans would protest against their oppressive behavior toward women.
Click to continue...