hankyoreh

in protest of fellow artist Hong Sung-dam’s work being censored from the exhibition

By Jung Dae-ha, Gwangju correspondent

“I thought it wouldn’t be good for an artist to simply do nothing. It’s shameful, you know?”

At around noon on Aug. 11, artist Lee Yun-yop, 47, began taking down the works he had hanging on the wall in the first-floor gallery of the Gwangju Museum of Art. Lee, whose work was there as part of the Gwangju Biennale special exhibition, had decided he simply could not stand by and watch the “censorship” of “Sewol May,” a collaboration between populist artist Hong Sung-dam, 59, and fellow artists. The biennial’s foundation had previously decided to indefinitely postpone exhibition of the piece, which originally depicted President Park Geun-hye as a scarecrow, then as a chicken.

One of the works dismantled by Lee was “From Daechu Village to the Sewol,” a 12 x 3 meter piece assembled from 200 illustrations and lithographs made while traveling around the sites of various historical events. Daechu Village was the site of protests in 2008 against a US military base.

“If they won’t put up Hong Sung-dam’s work, what does that make the rest of us artists?” he asked. “Did we pass the censors?”

The same day, Hong took down “Asian Forest,” a work of Korean painting in the same first-floor gallery, while Jeong Young-chang, a Korean artist living in Germany, had acquaintances remove four of his pieces.

A total of 49 artists from 17 countries took part in the special exhibition, which opened on Aug. 8 as part of the lead-up to the Gwangju Biennale’s opening on Sept. 5 as a “new spotlight on the zeitgeist of the thirty years since 1980.” Now, with one artist after another removing their work, the exhibition is being left with little to show.

The artists who took their pieces down on Aug. 11 were unanimous in opposing excessive administrative interference in art, including actions to prevent artists from lampooning the president.

“I’m not sure what kind of a ‘Gwangju spirit’ exhibition you can have when you won’t let someone put something up satirizing the president,” said Hong Sung-min, who collaborated with Hong Sung-dam on a hanging picture.

In its response, the foundation said it was “unfortunate that the artists did not notify the foundation beforehand that they were taking their work down.”

“But we will respect the artists’ decision to take down their work,” it continued.

Yun Beom-mo, the Gachon University of Medicine and Science professor who served as chief curator for the exhibition, previously announced on Aug. 10 that he was resigning the post because he could “not ignore moral responsibility for the exhibition’s problems.”

“The decision not to exhibit ‘Sewol May’ was made in the absence of the chief curator, who had announced his intent to resign and left the meeting room,” Yun added. “Guaranteeing artists’ freedom of expression and the ‘Gwangju spirit’ can’t be separated.”

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