Abstract
On May 30, 1968, at a popular music cafe in downtown Seoul, South Korea, a young woman artist named Kang-ja Jung stood wearing only her underpants encouraging the shocked audience to press liquid bubble balloons they blew all over her partially naked body; she was later awarded “This Year’s Insanity Prize” by a major South Korean newspaper. In subsequent years, she participated in other provocative art “Happenings,” along with a handful of avant-garde South Korean artists, challenging the moral norms in conservative, neo-Confucian South Korean society during the authoritarian and patriarchal-minded regimes of the 1960s to the 1990s. This chapter traces and analyses the work of Jung as she navigated the changing legal, social, political, and economic positions of women in South Korea, as well as in comparison to major feminist art in other parts of the globe. It focuses on the ways in which she used her own body as her primary artistic medium of political and social activism. The distinctly South Korean version of Feminist art will be discussed to broaden our understanding of the global feminist movements.
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Notes
- 1.
Theodore Roszak, The Making of an Elder Culture: Reflections on the Future of America’s Most Audacious Generation (British Columbia, Canada: New Society Publishers, 2009), 22.
- 2.
Although organizations in South Korea from the 1970s focused on improving women’s employment issues and working conditions, issues regarding female workers were suppressed under the authoritarian regime. Only after the democratic transition in the 1980s did these issues become the subject of public debate, with the participation of women’s organizations, which led to a series of legislative actions in the late 1980s, e.g., a new provision on gender equality in the Constitution and the Equal Act (EEOA) was legislated in 1987. For further details, see Aie-Rie Lee and Mi-kyung Chin, “The Women’s Movement in South Korea,” Social Science Quarterly, Vol. 88, No. 5 (December 2007): 1209–1210.
- 3.
For detailed discussions of feminist art in Korea in the first half of the twentieth century, see Charlotte Horlyck, Korean Art: From the 19th Century to the Present (London: Reaktion Books, Ltd., 2017).
- 4.
Feminist art containing nudity and sexuality, such as Jung’s performance, had been marginalized within the South Korea feminist rhetoric. As Koh pointed out, the preferred and dominant feminist art is more conceptual and subdued, possibly due to South Korean women’s subconscious internalization of the overall conservative milieu based on neo-Confucian ethics. For further discussion on the distinctive elements of South Korean feminist art, see Dong-yeon Koh, “The Paradoxical Place of the Female Body in Korean Feminist Art,” in Korean Art from 1953: Collision, Innovation, Interaction, eds. Syon Shim Chun, Sun-jung Kim, et al. (New York: Phaidon Press Inc., 2020), 248.
- 5.
In South Korea, there was this adhesive glue-like material that was sold in a small tube which one could blow to create bubbles in the shape of balloons. The Korean title of the performance contains the word “balloon,” to refer to it, while what they blew during the performance were transparent bubbles of sticky glue material that could be attached to objects.
- 6.
Established in 1951, the music hall and café C’est Si Bon lasted for seventeen years, until November 1968. It was one of the major cultural spots in which the South Korean public was able to listen to contemporary music of different cultures, from pop to jazz. It also functioned as a place for interdisciplinary collaboration, discussion among artists, intellectuals, literary figures, and politicians. “Ganpannaerin eumaksil sesibong 17 nyeon” [Closed Music Cafe, the 17 years of C’est Si Bon: Everyone’s Frequent Place], Sunday Seoul, May 11, 1969, n.p., re-published online on the website of Seoul Daily, December 27, 2005, http://www.seoul.co.kr/news/newsView.php?id=20051227550004, accessed October 6, 2015.
- 7.
Kang-ja Jung, phone interview with the author, September 7, 2015; media and press censorship was intense in South Korea from the 1960s to ‘80s. Censors were directed by a government bureau whose function was to prosecute any media which was considered morally decadent, pornographic, or erotic. The Korean Public Performance Ethics Committee (KPPEC) was an example of a governmental agency that had the power to censor art, culture, and media/press in South Korea.
- 8.
Jung, interview with author, September 7, 2015. Because her nudity was partially covered with translucent balloons, and because it was framed as a form of art called a “Happening,” police allowed it to continue without further interference.
- 9.
“Bitgwa soriwa gongganui gyeolhap cheongnyeonjakga yeollipoeui hwangyeongmisurui gongdongsilhyeoneseo” [Joint Realization of Environmental Art of the Union: The Combination of Light, Sound, and Space], Korea Daily, June 2, 1968, 4.
- 10.
“Geugeul geonneun jeonwimisul, seourui haepeuning syo” [Extreme Avant-garde Art, Seoul’s Happening Show], Joongang Daily, June 1, 1968, 5.
- 11.
Under the military regime (1961–1989), performance art such as Happenings was considered “immoral” and “decadent.” Mi-kyung Kim, “Hangugui 1960 nyeondae 70 nyeondaeui haengwiyesul” [Performance Art of Korea, 1960–1970] in Kyoung-woon Kim, ed. Hangugui haengwiyesul: 1967–2007 [Performance Art of Korea: 1967–2007] exh. cat. (Seoul: National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, 2007), 33.
- 12.
Sohn, a graduate of the International Apparel Institute in South Korea, was the first male fashion designer of note in South Korea. In 1968, he won the first prize in a fashion contest. In the same year, he opened a boutique in Seoul named “Salon Avant-garde.” His innovative designs redefined the basic elements of fashion in South Korea. Soo-jin Cho, “Je 4 jipdanui jeonmal: hangug haepeuningui dojeongwa jwajeol” [The Whole Story of the ‘Fourth Group’: The Challenge and Frustration of Korean Happening], Misulsahakpo, vol. 33, no. 6 (June 2013): 147. After opening his shop, Sohn became well known, and was introduced as “a celebrity who emerged like a comet in a female driven clothing fashion field and makes lots of money and became a star in media.” “Namja dijaineo geugeo gwaenchanayo” [It is Good to be a Male Fashion Designer!], Sunday Seoul, January 26, 1969, 14.
- 13.
Jung, interview with the author, July 6, 2016.
- 14.
For a more detailed account and analysis of this performance, see Sooran Choi, “Never a Failed Avant-Garde,” Interpreting Modernism in Korean Art: Fluidity and Fragmentation, eds. Kyunghee Pyun and Jung-Ah Woo (New York: Routledge, 2021), 171–172.
- 15.
For a detailed account of the Festival and South Korean Fluxus, see Sooran Choi, “The S(e)oul of Fluxus in South Korea: 1961, 1969, and 1993,” The South Korean “Meta-Avant-Garde,” 1961–1993: Subterfuge as Radical Agency, PhD dissertation (New York: CUNY Graduate Center, 2018), 75–119. Paik was husband and collaborator of Shigeko Kubota who, while better known than Jung (perhaps due to her relationship with Paik), was largely overshadowed by her husband.
- 16.
Jung, interview with the author, July 6, 2016.
- 17.
Suk-hee Kang, Segye eumagui hyeonjangeul chajaseo [Searching for Places of World Music] (Seoul: Goryeowon, 1979), 178; and author’s interview with Kang, August 1, 2014.
- 18.
Petra Stegmann, “The Lunatics on the Loose…”: European Fluxus Festivals 1962–1977 exh. cat. (Rüss, Potsdam: Down with Art! 2012), 5.
- 19.
John Cage, Silence: Lectures and Writings (Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1961), 7–11.
- 20.
In a notorious 1967 incident, Paik’s collaborator, musician Charlotte Moorman, was arrested for performing topless in his Opera Sextronique. Two years later, in 1969, Paik and Moorman performed TV Bra for Living Sculpture, in which Moorman wore a bra with small TV screens over her breasts. Throughout this period, Paik’s goal was to bring music in line with art and literature and allow eroticism as an acceptable theme. Michael Nyman, Experimental Music (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 99.
- 21.
Chan-seung Chung, “Hangugui haepeuning” [Happenings in South Korea], Hong-ik University Gazette, December 1, 1969, 4.
- 22.
Kang, Searching for Places of World Music, 178.
- 23.
Kang, interview with the author, August 1, 2014.
- 24.
Kang, interview with the author, August 1, 2014; and Lee, A Conversation with Composer Suk-hi Kang, 84–85.
- 25.
“Nudeu atiseuteu jeonggangja, haepeuning pawa gutbair yubangeseo hangmunkkajiui libido!” [Nude Artist Kang-ja Jung, Farewell to the Happening School: Female Libido from Breast to Butt!], Jugan Kyunghyang, August 27, 1969, 11.
- 26.
Sex on a Piano was an exception in the artistic career of Myung-hee Cha. After the event, she quickly returned to painting, thus it was her first and last performance work. To this day, she refuses to comment on her involvement and avoids being identified with Sex on a Piano.
- 27.
Unidentified magazine scraps stored in the personal archive of theater director Tae-soo Bang (a colleague of Jung) in Seoul, South Korea, accessed July 14, 2016.
- 28.
“Jangbaljog geomgeoro molgoon yeoja” [The Woman Who Caused the Persecution of Longhairs: How the Curtain Came Down on The Avant-garde, Muche Exhibition by Kang-ja Jung], Chogan shimin [Morning Citizen], September 1, 1970, n.p., newspaper clip from Jung’s personal archive, accessed July 9, 2016.
- 29.
Jung, interview with the author, July 9, 2016.
- 30.
Gu-yeol Lee, “Jopgo pyeswaejeogin balpyogigwan” [Narrow-minded and Close-minded Performance Organizations], Misulsegye [Art World] 4 (October 1970): 126–131.
- 31.
“The Woman Who Caused the Persecution of Longhairs,” n.p.
- 32.
Kang-Ja Jung, JUNG KANGJA 1942~ (Seoul: Sodam, 2007), 171.
- 33.
“What is Avant-garde about a Naked Man and Woman?” Sunday Seoul, August 23, 1970, 13.
- 34.
“Haepeuning-hipijog iljedansok” [The Persecution of the Happening-Hippie Tribes], Joseon Daily, August 29, 1970, 3.
- 35.
“The Persecution of the Happening-Hippie Tribes,” 3.
- 36.
“The Persecution of the Happening-Hippie Tribes,” 3.
- 37.
“The Persecution of the Happening-Hippie Tribes,” 3.
- 38.
“75 nyeonmane dasion danballyeong” [After 75 Years, An Ordinance Prohibiting the Hairstyle Topknots, Reinstated], Weekly Trends, September 9, 1970, 16–17.
- 39.
The South Korean government’s censorship continued until 1988 when the newly formed more democratic Tae-woo Noh administration ended this policy. Although Noh came from a military background, censorship loosened, possibly coinciding with the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games and the government’s views on allowing their citizens more freedom. National Archives of Korea, http://theme.archives.go.kr/next/tabooAutonomy/kindOfTaboo02.do, accessed May 2, 2018.
- 40.
Sang-gil Oh, and Mi-kyong Kim, ed. Rereading of Korean art history II: Sourcebook for Art Movements in the 1960s and ‘70s, Vol. 2 (ICAS: Seoul, South Korea, 2001), 231.
- 41.
Kang, interview with the author, August 1, 2014.
- 42.
Kyung-il Kim, “1920–30 nyeondae hangugui sinyeoseonggwa sahoejuui” [Korean New Woman and Socialism in the 1920s–‘30s], Hanguk Munwha [Korean Culture] vol. 36 (March 2005): 249–255; for further discussions on the South Korean government’s control over women’s bodies and reproductivity, as well as neo-Confucian social pressure on women’s roles as “good wives and wise mothers” in East Asia, see Kyunghee Pyun, “Political Engagement of Korean Women Artists on Body Politics.” Journal of Korean and Asian Arts 2 (2021): 57–84.
- 43.
Elizabeth Wilson, The Sphinx in the City: Urban Life, the Control of Disorder, and Women (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 6.
- 44.
Sang-gil Oh, and Mi-kyong Kim, ed. Rereading of Korean art history II, 231.
- 45.
The miniskirts worn by women and men’s long hairstyles during the 1960s–‘70s were good examples of such an attempt for the liberation of South Korean youth in popular culture. Another example was the rise of unisex fashion in the same period. Young women were also wearing pants, as well as the unisex jeans and T-shirts introduced in the 1970s, which was seen as threatening to social norms and the standards of gendered behavior. For further discussions on this topic, see Kyunghee Pyun, “Rise of Unisex in Korean Fashion,” Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, Berg Fashion Library edited by Joanna Eicher (digital database), Ox: East Asia, Berg Fashion Library edited by Joanna Eicher (digital database), Oxford: Berg Publishers Bloomsbury, 2021 (DOI: 10.5040/9781847888556.EDch062020); and Pyun, “Body Autonomy and Miniskirt Controversy in South Korea.” Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, ford: Berg Publishers Bloomsbury, 2021 (DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781847888556.EDch062019).
- 46.
Hiroshima by John Hirshey recounts the horror and suffering upon the innocent Japanese population and earned him a Nobel Prize. See also the film Hiroshima, mon amour (1959), written by Marguerite Duras.
- 47.
“Give Peace a Chance” was a song written by John Lennon and Yoko Ono in 1969 during their “Bed-in” honeymoon in Montreal, Quebec, Canada in protest against the Vietnam War; it became an anthem of the American ant-war movement during the 1970s.
- 48.
“Make love, not war” was a popular slogan during the countercultural revolution in the 1960s in the United States, as noted by Theodore Roszak in his book The Making of Counter-culture: Reflections of the Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1968, 1969, and 1995), xxv; Timothy Leary used the slogan during a press conference in New York City on September 19, 1966; “The War Machine” was a term used to describe the combined entities of the US government, the Pentagon, and the US military by university students, intellectuals, and those who were opposed to the war in Vietnam, which they considered to be illegitimate and brutal.
- 49.
Elizabeth S. Hawley, Introduction to Shigeko Kubota, Museum of Modern Art, 2016, https://www.moma.org/artists/3277, accessed October 29, 202.
- 50.
Although Shigeko Kubota was active in New York as an artist and educator, her artistic contributions to the global avant-garde art scenes from her early involvement with Fluxus in the 1960s to the formation of video art have only recently been recognized in mainstream art institutions in the United States. The solo exhibition mounted at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Shigeko Kubota: Liquid Reality (August 21, 2021 to January 1, 2022) was the first retrospective on her artistic oeuvre and took place twenty-five years after her last solo exhibition, My Life with Nam June Paik at Tendhal Gallery in New York in 2007, a year after her husband Nam June Paik’s death.
- 51.
Il-gwang Sohn, interview with the author, July 12, 2016.
- 52.
For recent scholarship on Kang-ja Jung, see Sooran Choi, “Camouflaged Dissent—A Plastic Umbrella and Transparent Balloons: ‘Happenings’ in South Korea, 1967–1968,” in Kristian Handberg and Flavia Frigeri, eds. Multiple Modernisms: New Histories of Art in the Global Postwar Era (New York and London: Routledge, 2021), 138–148; Sooran Choi, “Never A Failed Avant-Garde, Interdisciplinary Strategy of The Fourth Group 1969–1970,” in Kyunghee Pyun and Jung-Ah Woo, eds. Fluidity and Fragmentation: Interpreting Modernism in Korean Art and Design (New York and London: Routledge, 2021), 166–177; and Sooran Choi, “Manifestations of a Zombie Avant-garde: South Korean Performance and Conceptual Art in the 1970s” in Alison Barker and Ana Varas Ibarra, eds., Rebus: Mobility, Movement and Medium: Crossing Borders in Art, Issue 9, London: Essex University (Spring 2020): 74–108.
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Choi, S. (2023). Spanking Confucius: The Feminist Protest Art of Kang-ja Jung. In: Hannum, G., Pyun, K. (eds) Expanding the Parameters of Feminist Artivism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09378-4_4
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