[KS] Friday, September 6 at UC Berkeley Center for Korean Studies (Joan Kee)

[Center for Korean Studies]

 *The Center for Korean Studies*

*University of California, Berkeley*

* *

*Cordially invites you to the following colloquium*

*
*


Tansaekhwa and the Case for Abstraction in Postwar Korea

Colloquium: Center for Korean Studies | *September 6 | 4 p.m.* | Institute
of East Asian Studies (2223 Fulton, 6th
Floor)<http://www.berkeley.edu/map/3dmap/3dmap.shtml?b2223>


Speaker: *Joan Kee*<http://www.lsa.umich.edu/histart/people/faculty/ci.keejoan_ci.detail>,
Assistant Professor, History of Art, University of
Michigan<http://www.lsa.umich.edu/histart/people/faculty/ci.keejoan_ci.detail>

Sponsor: Center for Korean Studies (CKS) <http://ieas.berkeley.edu/cks/>


Starting in the mid-1960s, a group of Korean artists began to push paint,
soak canvas, drag pencils, rip paper, and otherwise manipulate the
materials of painting in ways that prompted critics to describe their
actions as “methods” rather than artworks. Later known as Tansaekhwa, or
Korean monochrome painting, this loose constellation of works became the
international face of contemporary Korean art and a basis for what later
came to be known as contemporary Asian art. Yet Tansaekhwa's significance
also lay in how its constituent artists offered another response to
abstraction. Artists like Park Seobo, Ha Chonghyun, Kwon Young-woo and Lee
Ufan considered the possibilities of ink painting as extrapolated from its
limitations, as well as questions of process that challenged the frontality
of painting. This talk introduces Tansaekhwa and how some of its
representative works made a case for abstraction as a way for viewers to
engage productively with the world and its systems.


______________________________________


*And other upcoming events...*


The Master Who Mistook Himself for a Monster: History as Artifice in Park
Chan-wook's Oldboy

Colloquium: Center for Korean Studies | *September 16 | 4 p.m.* |  Institute
of East Asian Studies (2223 Fulton, 6th
Floor)<http://www.berkeley.edu/map/3dmap/3dmap.shtml?b2223>


Speaker: *Peter Paik*
<http://www4.uwm.edu/letsci/ficl/faculty/paik.cfm>, Associate
Professor of Comparative Literature, University of Wisconsin,
Milwaukee<http://www4.uwm.edu/letsci/ficl/faculty/paik.cfm>


Park Chan-wook's most famous film, *Oldboy*, evokes polarized responses
among critics and film scholars alike. Its detractors dismiss the film as a
superficial exercise in stylized violence and gratuitous imagery. Film
scholars have used critical paradigms drawn from Marxism and
post-structuralism to interpret the film. This talk seeks to go beyond
these approaches to examine *Oldboy* as an allegory of the South Korean
experience of compressed modernity. It argues that the rapid development of
South Korea has enabled historical types to flourish that have become
unfamiliar in the affluent societies of the West, in particular the figure
of the master who can conquer his desires and overcome his fear of death.

Drawing on the theoretical work of Nietzsche, Alexandre Kojéve, and Alexis
de Tocqueville, this talk explores the question of what it means to create
and portray such a human type once a democratic consumer society has
emerged and closed off the possibility for any kind of authentic
difference, especially the aristocratic values that have to do with the
capacity to rise above oneself, one's physical appetites, and materialistic
desires.


Event Contact: cks at berkeley.edu, 510-642-5674


_______________________________________


*And other related events in the Bay Area...*

*Outside Looking In:* *Everyday Life in North Korea*

*Buy Tickets Online at AsiaSociety.org/ASNC/events*

*Tuesday, September 17, 2013 • 6:00 PM *

*5:30 – 6:00 p.m. Registration *

*6:00 – 7:30 p.m. Discussion/Audience Q&A *

*7:30 – 8:00 p.m. Reception*

*Location: Asia Society, Bechtel Conference Room, 500 Washington Street,
S.F. *

The North Korean people have endured poverty, malnutrition and famine, and
gross human rights violations, including forced labor camps, public
executions, and political repression. But our understanding of everyday
life in North Korea and how it is changing is extremely limited. Most of
the country is off limits to foreigners, and what coverage there is in
Western media is heavily focused on the vagaries of the regime’s ruling Kim
dynasty and its nuclear weapons program.

Join ASNC as we look into what life is really like inside North Korea. What
are work, school, and family-life like for its 24.5 million citizens? How
have social and human rights conditions changed under Kim Jong-un’s reign?
Who are the tens of thousands of North Korean defectors and what is life
like for them today in other countries? For those who remain, is
international aid reaching those who need it most?

*Speakers: *

*Sunghee Jo*, defector living in the U.S. since 2008; Founder, North Korean
Refugees in the United States (NKUS)

*Sandra Fahy, *Professor of Anthropology and North Korea expert, Sophia
University (Tokyo)

*Blaine Harden, *Author, *Escape from Camp 14; *Former correspondent,
*Washington
Post *

*Philip Yun *(moderator), Executive Director, Ploughshares Fund

Co-Sponsored by the Center for Korean Studies, UC Berkeley; Institute for
East Asian Studies, UC Berkeley


Event Contact: cks at berkeley.edu, 510-642-5674

For updates on upcoming events, please visit:

CKS Website: http://ieas.berkeley.edu/cks/ or follow us on [image:
cid:image013.png at 01CD9CBD.DAB6FDB0]<http://www.facebook.com/pages/UC-Berkeley-Center-for-Korean-Studies/136279193071270>

If you wish to be removed or would like to update your information in our
mailing system, please do so by visiting the following
link<http://ieas.berkeley.edu/cks/mailing.html>
.

**
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