This book examines the development of national emblems, photographic portraiture, oil painting, world expositions, modern spaces for art exhibitions, university programs of visual arts, and other agencies of modern art in Korea. With few books on modern art in Korea available in English, this book is an authoritative volume on the topic and provides a comparative perspective on Asian modernism including Japan, China, and India. In turn, these essays also shed a light on Asian reception of and response to the Orientalism and exoticism popular in Europe and North America in the early twentieth century. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, the history of Asia, Asian studies, colonialism, nationalism, and cultural identity.

Over the past decades, Korea has gradually risen to become one of the global representatives of Asian culture. Korean artists have been increasingly active at an international level, with many being invited for residencies and exhibitions all over the world. Nonetheless, for various reasons, the general understanding of Korean contemporary art remains insufficient. Although a few overviews of Korean contemporary art do exist, they typically focus on the history of art groups and movements. In addition, several anthologies have been published with articles on a range of topics, offering multiple perspectives. However, there have been few attempts to provide a unified synopsis of Korean contemporary art. Presenting a comprehensive, engaging survey that covers the full spectrum of Korean contemporary art, Korean Art since 1945: Challenges and Changes seeks to fill this lacuna. Drawing on primary sources, it discusses the main issues, including the ideological stakes that affected the art world, modernist art vs. political art, and the fluidity of concepts such as tradition and national identity. Moreover, the book also has a chapter on the art of North Korea. Korean Art since 1945: Challenges and Changes is an invaluable tool for those intent on grasping the entire scope of modern art in Asia.

In celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Arts of Korea Gallery, this issue of the Bulletin invites us to reflect on the past while embracing the future. Featuring objects from the Bronze Age to the present, Lineages: Korean Art at The Met illustrates both the continuities and ruptures of style, form, and medium that have defined the dynamic terrain of Korean art. The 47 works included—from lacquer and ceramics to paintings and collage—express Korean tradition, history, and socio-cultural change over more than three centuries of creativity. This volume honors one of the first museum galleries in the United States dedicated to Korean art by offering readers a greater understanding of the nation's aesthetic past and future.

Bringing together a wealth of primary sources and with contributions from leading experts, Dress History of Korea presents the most recent approaches to the interpretation of dress and fashion of Korea. Through close analysis of visual, written, and material sources-some newly excavated or recently re-discovered in global museums-the book reveals how dress and adornment evolved from the period of state formation to the modern era. Authors with a range of academic and curatorial experience discuss the close relation of dress and adornments to the socio-political and cultural history of Korea and place the dress history of Korea within broader contexts in studies of fashion, material culture, museology, and costume design. As in other cultures, modern Korean fashion owes many of its styles to historic dress and this process of adaptation is explored within high fashion and popular culture contexts in ways that benefit historians, curators, and designers alike. With key materials newly available to global readers, Dress History of Korea is the indispensable guide to the study of Korean dress and fashion.

This book explores the work and careers of women, trans, and third-gender artists engaged in political activism. While some artists negotiated their own political status in their indigenous communities, others responded to global issues of military dictatorship, racial discrimination, or masculine privilege in regions other than their own. Women, trans, and third-gender artists continue to highlight and challenge the disturbing legacies of colonialism, imperialism, capitalism, communism, and other political ideologies that are correlated with patriarchy, primogeniture, sexism, or misogyny. The book argues that solidarity among such artists remains valuable and empowering for those who still seek legitimate recognition in art schools, cultural institutions, and the history curriculum.

Welches Bild von China hatten japanische Künstler vom späten 17. Jahrhundert, als ihr Land sich gegen die Welt abschottete, bis zur Öffnung im Zuge der Modernisierung ab der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts? Der Band untersucht vorrangig Darstellungen in der japanischen Malerei vom späten 17. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert, die China als realen Ort ebenso wie als imaginäres gelobtes Land zeigen. In drei Essays renommierter japanischer Kunsthistoriker*innen und über fünfzig Katalogeinträgen zu außergewöhnlichen Werken werden die komplexen Reaktionen der Kunst Japans auf die chinesische Kunst, Geschichte und Kultur offenbar. Eine Handvoll wissenschaftlicher Studien hinterfragt in jüngerer Zeit das etablierte Narrativ, das moderne Japan habe sich allein am Westen orientiert. Diese verbreitete Vorstellung von einem ausschließlich westlich inspirierten heutigen Japan thematisiert "Imagined Neighbors". Mit einem nuancierteren Ansatz bemüht sich der Band, die schwierige Aussöhnung zwischen Alt und Neu im Zuge der Neuerfindung des modernen Nationalstaats Japan zu verstehen.

This book challenges existing notions of what is "American" and/or "Asian" art, moving beyond the identity issues that have dominated art-world conversations of the 1980s and the 1990s and aligning with new trends and issues in contemporary art today, e.g. the Global South, labor, environment, and gender identity. Contributors examine both historical and contemporary instances in art practices and exhibition-making under the rubric of "American art in Asia." The book complicates existing notions of what constitutes American art, Asian American (and American Asian) art. As today’s production and display of contemporary art takes place across diffused borders, under the fluid conditions of a globalized art world since transformed by the COVID-19 pandemic, new contexts and art historical narratives are forming that upend traditional Euro-American mappings of center-margins, migratory patterns and community engagement. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, American studies, Asian studies and visual culture.