All art is a product of its time. Whether all art is political is a question that cannot be definitively answered. However, it is clear that art inherently includes a history of resistance and struggle. Artists must recognize that everything they have believed to be true can be overturned and must continuously bring new winds to the world. Whether it's a political message, a creative image, or a new spirituality.
So what role should art play in today's society? Where is contemporary art heading? Can we confidently assert that we have a progressive and democratic aesthetic? Where does beauty reside? What can we, as art lovers, say is beautiful?
In this context, it is necessary to re-examine the artistic world of Kim Insoon (83), a Korean feminist artist who placed great importance on realist aesthetics and a realistic attitude that reflected society. She organized the second "October Gathering - From Half to One" (1986), which is recorded as the first feminist exhibition, and organized the Women's Art Research Society and the Painting Group Dongji, interacting with the Korean Women's Association to depict the reality faced by women in a patriarchal society through her works.
She was also a nationalist artist who participated as an initiator of the National Art Council (1985), which aimed to reflect the situation of the times through art. She was interested in the class reality of women and the people, as well as labor and childcare, and formed a labor art committee to create paintings that empathized with the lives of workers. An exhibition showcasing her artistic world, "A Life That Stands Up," will be held at the Seoul Museum of Art Seo So-mun Main Building until February 23, 2025. Visitors can view 20 of the artist's representative works, artist interviews, and over 150 archives that show the flow of women's art.
Born in 1941, Kim Insoon is an artist who has developed Korean feminist art based on a critical social consciousness. Referring to herself as an "art worker," she directly participated in society and revealed the absurdities of reality in a blatant and sometimes desperate manner.
In her paintings, she lays bare the unfair realities of the time and the situations women faced. From the lives of female workers who were exposed to poor low-wage and long working hours to the martyrs of the democratization movement, she testifies to the wrong aspects of society through her paintings, lending strength to their voices.
Kim Insoon presented a different aspect of women's lives compared to the feminist art we generally know because she developed socialist-based women's art. Since she emphasized nationality and motherhood, it is easy to think that her story does not align with the present, which aims for the liberation of motherhood and de-nationalization. However, her artistic world testifies to the lives of women who struggled fiercely at the center of the turbulent modern and contemporary history of Korea, the social, temporal, and historical context, and therefore deserves our attention at this moment.
"Painting is about creating in your mind how you want to make the world." (From an interview with Kim Insoon at the Seoul Museum of Art)
Not all art is political, nor is it wrong if it is not political. However, we, as democratic citizens of a democratic society, must constantly think and move forward towards a better direction. Without thinking, we cannot be human.
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