• The Korean Journal of Archival Studies
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• no.82
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• pp.275-309
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• 2024

This study examines artists' acts of resistance in the turbulent social climate of the 1960s and beyond, and considers the meaning of these documents in a contemporary context. It focuses on the Art Workers' Coalition, organised in 1969 by artists, writers, filmmakers and critics. Art Workers' Coalition demanded basic rights for artists in the art world and challenged war, discrimination, and injustice in society at large. Not only did they actively intervene in the structural problems of society through collective actions, protests, and statements, as seen in other acts of resistance, but they also expanded their reach through the medium of art. Studies of the Art Workers' Coalition, which can be considered as activist art of the late 1960s, have mainly chronicled their actions in the context of art history, without paying particular attention to the nature and value of the documentation produced in the process of resistance. However, the archives of Art Workers' Coalition have an informational and evidential value, which is a key value of archives, as they provide information not only about the activities of the organisation, but also about the activities of the individuals who comprised the unions, their intricate connections, and the social climate. In addition to the basic function of proving the activities of a group of artists, the archives of Art Workers' Coalition are also significant as a medium for providing information on people and events that have been marginalised in mainstream studies of artworks and artists, and for incorporating them into historical memory. Therefore, this study aims to identify the current status of Art Workers' Coalition-related archives as a medium to prove the activities of artists of the time, and to propose a different way of reading history through the contextual information of archives.