[KS] Issue 27 of FIELD | A Journal of Socially Engaged Art Criticism

[Jae Hwan Lim]

FIELD | A Journal of Socially Engaged Art Criticism
https://field-journal.com/
Issue 27 / Spring 2025: Contemporary South Korean Socially Engaged Art
https://field-journal.com/category/issue-27
Edited by Jae Hwan Lim (University of California, San Diego)
jhl015 at ucsd.edu

- “Editorial | Spring 2024” by Grant H. Kester<https://field-journal.com/issue-27/field-issue-27-editorial>
- “Reciprocity Over Unilateralism: Introduction to Issue 27” by Jae Hwan Lim<https://field-journal.com/issue-27/reciprocity-over-unilateralism-introduction-to-issue-27>
- “Dispatch Art as Socially Engaged Radical Art in South Korea” by Hong Kal (York University)<https://field-journal.com/issue-27/dispatch-art-as-socially-engaged-radical-art-in-south-korea>
- “Listen to the City Contesting Urban Necropolitics Against Disability” by Jason Waite (Independent curator)<https://field-journal.com/issue-27/listen-to-the-city-contesting-urban-necropolitics-against-disability>
- “Remembering and Archiving Gijichon” by Vicki Kwon (Royal Ontario Museum)<https://field-journal.com/issue-27/remembering-and-archiving-gijichon-siren-eun-young-jungs-dongducheon-project-and-dalo-hyunjoo-kims-ppaeppeol-project>
- “Are You Real Men? Queering the Militarized Masculinity in South Korea” by Minji Chun (University of Oxford)<https://field-journal.com/issue-27/are-you-real-men-queering-the-militarized-masculinity-in-south-korea>
- “The Peril of Fetishizing Communication” by Jae Hwan Lim (University of California, San Diego)<https://field-journal.com/issue-27/the-peril-of-fetishizing-communication>

[cid:18789db7-87e7-4427-8cec-5a74078f5a59]

Issue 27 features five writings by scholars, researchers, curators, writers, artists, and activists on collective art activisms, social engagements in art, ethics in participatory practice, queer expressions, and the pitfalls of institutional fetishization. Hong Kal’s examination of the Korean artist collective Dispatch Art (파견 미술 pagyeon misul) underlines the artists’ cultural roles in four struggling sites impacted by neoliberalism that prioritizes economic capital over humans: The 2009 Yongsan disaster; the 2011 Hanjin Heavy Industries labor strike; the 2016–17 occupation of the Gwanghwamun Square; and the 2018 commemoration for a late young worker Kim Yong-kyun. Kal elaborates that the Dispatch Art artists inherited the legacy of reciprocity from the 1980s minjung movement’s cultural producers.

Jason Waite explores the Seoul-based artist collective Listen to the City’s (리슨투더시티) feminist insurgent planning methodology in conducting their project “No One Left Behind” (2018). Waite underscores the collective’s cooperation with people with disabilities, in order to develop resources for inclusive disaster management. Vicki Kwon shifts the direction to artists siren eun young jung (정은영) and collaborators Dalo Hyunjoo Kim (김현주) and Kwanghee Cho’s (조광희) practices that shed light on female sex workers and the US soldiers in the vicinity of the US military camps in South Korea. Kwon delineates the artists’ encounters with ethical issues while working with local communities and how they collaborated with the residents of respective camp towns in Dongducheon and Ppaeppeol.

Minji Chun extends the theme of state violence over gendered beings through three artworks critiquing South Korea’s anti-queer military milieu and related legislations, made by three openly gay artists: Nahwan Jeon (전나환), KyungMook Kim (김경묵), and Jeram Yunghun Kang (제람 강영훈). Korea’s forcible and rigid military services violently repudiate their queer identities, yet Chun’s writing illuminates Jeon, Kim, and Kang’s voices through their badge designs, virtual reality film, and installations. Lastly, Jae Hwan Lim's contribution scrutinizes the perils of fetishizing communication through museum presentations of socially engaged art by three Korean artist collectives: Listen to the City (리슨투더시티), Mixrice (믹스라이스), and Okin Collective (옥인콜렉티브). Through anthropologist William Pietz’s notion of fetish and fetishism, I elucidate the risks of institutionalizing human interactions inside art galleries.


Jae Hwan Lim
www.jaehwanlim.com<http://www.jaehwanlim.com>
jhl015 at ucsd.edu
Doctoral Student | Visual Arts Department
Art History, Theory, and Criticism/Art Practice <https://visarts.ucsd.edu/people/grad-students/jae-hwan-lim.html> Ph.D.<https://visarts.ucsd.edu/people/grad-students/jae-hwan-lim.html> Program<https://visarts.ucsd.edu/people/grad-students/jae-hwan-lim.html>
University of California, San Diego (UCSD)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://koreanstudies.com/pipermail/koreanstudies_koreanstudies.com/attachments/20240511/78b1f964/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Screenshot 2024-05-08 at 12.36.06?PM.png
Type: image/png
Size: 1340639 bytes
Desc: Screenshot 2024-05-08 at 12.36.06?PM.png
URL: <http://koreanstudies.com/pipermail/koreanstudies_koreanstudies.com/attachments/20240511/78b1f964/attachment.png>