• The Journal of Art Theory & Practice
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• no.9
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• pp.171-193
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• 2010

This paper examines Fernand Khnopff's Symbolism, focusing on the I Lock My Door upon Myself as a manifesto of his artistic credo in style and theme. Its title was originally in English, originating from the poem "Who Shall Deliver Me?" by Dante Gabriel Rossetti's sister Christina Rossetti. I use the term "Social Symbolism" which combines a nationalist perspective with traditional French Symbolism, in order to explain how the image of Bruges is represented in his oeuvre. Symbolism calls for psychological introspection evoking death, love, silence, and solitude and recluse from realty in pursuit of the Unknown and the Ideal. Although Khnopff shared this idea, he departed from symbolist tradition by incorporating a political milieu in his paintings. First, I discuss Khnopff's early stage in the formation of his artistic concept, including his family background as well as his early opportunity to visit the Exposition Universelle in Paris where he formed his early interests in aesthetics, philosophy, literature, mythology and Egyptian art. His early works, La Painture, la Musique, la Poesie(1880-1881), Le Crise(1881), and En ecoutant Schuman(1883) reveal his favorite subjects which were quite prevalent in the symbolist traditions of both Belgium and France. By looking at Khnopff's paintings, I endeavor to situate his Symbolism in the context of the development of Belgian modernity and cultural nationalism. Second, my analysis of Khnopff creates a new overview of Symbolism in Europe, especially in Belgium. In the absence of socio-political integration, the Symbolist painter adds nostalgic meaning to the landscape of Bruges. The scene of Bruges illuminates the social atmosphere in Belgium at that time. Since Belgium became an independent country, it tried to differentiate its own cultural and national identity from France. There was a powerful social movement for Belgium to claim its own identity, language, and culture. Bruges was, for Symbolists, the epitome of Belgium's past glory. This encouraged the formation of Belgian nationalism centering on Brussels, as I demonstrate in Khnopff's Bruges-la-Morte(1892). The relationship between Symbolist artist and writers is crucial for understanding this development. Khnopff, for instance, illustrated or provided frontispieces for many Symbolist writers such as Rodenbach, Peladan, Spencer and Le Roy. Khnopff did not objectify the exact meaning, but rather provided his own subjective interpretation. In this respect, I Lock My Door, inspired by Rossetti, started from the same motif, but Khnopff seeked escape into silence and death while Rossetti searched for Christian salvation. Finally my paper deals with the social context in which Khnopff worked. He was a founding member of Les XX in 1883 and later La Libre Esthethetique he also participated in the exhibition of le Salon de la Rose + Croix. Les XX was not a particular school of art and did not have a uniform manifesto, but its exhibitions focused on decorative arts by encompassing art for all people via common, everyday objects. The Periodical, L'art moderne was founded to support this ideal by Edmond Picard and Maux. Les XX declared art as independent art, detached from all official connections. Khnopff designed the 1890 catalogue cover of Les XX and the 1891 cover. These designs show decorative element of Art Nouveau in an early example of "modern poster." Les XX pursued all art including graphic arts, prints, placard, posters and book illustrations and design. These forms of art were l'art social and this movement was formed by the social atmosphere in Belgium in terms of social reforms and strikes by working class. Khnopff designed the book cover for la Maison du Peuple. The artist, however, did not share the ideal egalitarianism of the working class to a certain degree, while he was working in his villa he designed under the ideal motto, "on n'a pas que," he expressed the nihilistic emotions toward society by the theme of interiority such as solitude, silence, narcissism, introspection, and introversion. In the middle of his Symbolism, we find the "cultural nostalgia" or longing that the artist develops in the I Lock My Door upon Myself. Khnopff's longing toward the lost city of "Bruges" form the crux of his "Social Symbolism."

• The Journal of Art Theory & Practice
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• no.2
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• pp.27-48
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• 2004

Robert Rauschenberg's artistic career has often been regarded as having reached its culmination when the artist won the first prize at the 1964 Venice Biennale. With this victory, Rauschenberg triumphantly entered the pantheon of all-American artists and firmly secured his position in the history of American art. On the other hand, despite the artist's ongoing new experiments in his art, the seemingly precocious ripeness in his career has led the critical discourses on Rauschenberg's art to the artist's early works, most of which were done in the mid-1950s and the 1960s. The crux of Rauschenberg criticism lies not only in focusing on the artist's 50's and 60's works, but also in its large dismissal of the significance of the imagery that the artist employed in his works. As art historians Roger Cranshaw and Adrian Lewis point out, the critical discourse of Rauschenberg either focuses on the formalist concerns on the picture plane, or relies on the "culturalist" interpretation of Rauschenberg's imagery which emphasizes the artist's "Americanness." Recently, a group of art historians centered around October has applied Charles Sanders Peirce's semiotics as art historical methodology and illuminated the indexical aspects of Rauschenberg's work. The semantic inquiry into Rauschenberg's imagery has also been launched by some art historians who seek the clues in the artist's personal context. The first half of this essay will examine the previous criticism on Rauschenberg's art and the other half will discuss the artist's 1955 work Rebus, which I think intersects various critical concerns of Rauschenberg's work, and yet defies the closure of discourses in one direction. The categories of signs in the semiotics of Charles Sanders Peirce and the discourse of Jean-Francois Lyotard will be used in discussing the meanings of Rebus, not to search for the semantic readings of the work, hut to make an analogy in terms of the paradoxical structures of both the work and the theory. The definitions of rebus is as follows: Rebus 1. a representation or words or syllables by pictures of object or by symbols whose names resemble the intended words or syllables in sound; also: a riddle made up wholly or in part of such pictures or symbols. 2. a badge that suggests the name of the person to whom it belongs. Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged. Since its creation in 1955, Robert Rauschenberg's Rebus has been one of the most intriguing works in the artist's oeuvre. This monumental 'combine' painting($6feet{\times}10feet$ 10.5 inches) consists of three panels covered with fabric, paper, newspaper, and printed reproductions. On top of these, oil paints, pencil and crayon drawings connect each section into a whole. The layout of the images is overall horizontal. Starting from a torn election poster, which is partially read as "THAT REPRE," on the far left side of the painting. Rebus leads us to proceed from the left to the right, the typical direction of reading in a Western context. Along with its seemingly proper title. Rebus, the painting has triggered many art historians to seek some semantic readings of it. These art historians painstakingly reconstruct the iconography based on the artist's interviews, (auto)biography, and artistic context of his works. The interpretation of Rebus varies from a 'image-by-image' collation with a word to a more general commentary on Rauschenberg's work overall, such as a work that "bridges between art and life." Despite the title's allusion to the legitimate purpose of the painting as a decoding of the imagery into sound, Rebus, I argue, actually hinders a reading of it. By reading through Peirce to Rauschenberg, I will delve into the subtle anxiety between words and images in their works. And on this basis, I suggest Rauschenberg's strategy in playing Rebus is to hide the meaning of the imagery rather than to disclose it.

• The Journal of Art Theory & Practice
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• no.14
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• pp.53-83
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• 2012

This thesis is a study of artistic measures and climate refugees, based on Hack's World Climate Refugee Camp project. According to Hack, climate refugees appeared with the process of globalization. Hack claimed that the people who put climate refugees in danger are the industrialized nations, and therefore, their rejection of refugees is nonsense. He also stated that the fundamental solution would be the active participation of such nations. Thus, he travels around the world, encouraging participants and globalizing his project. Interestingly, the practical participation method of his climate calamity project is divided into four methods, which are all related to realizing the danger and presenting various solutions. First, the aesthetic of survival: the reason Hack focused on the warming trend and claimed that we have to accept the climate refugees as refugees comes from the thought that we are all potential refugees, and the anxiety that climate refugees may cause war in the end. The solution Hack found for surviving in such a world is to create "refugee camps" to notify people about the seriousness of climate change, and to put the "aesthetic for survival" in action. Second, a relation-oriented relationship: communication between Hack and the participants was done in various ways. They are experiencing a bond and emotions of an interrelationship through their actions in the experimental field, experiencing a new form of art, which they were not able to experience in a museum. Third, a utopian measure: Hack's utopian measure started from the fear of dystopia but Hack still believes that it is not only a dream, but that it can be realized. He claims that even though the start may be feeble, it is possible to rescue children from starvation and to treat climate refugees as proper human in the end, when communication and cooperation is done the right way and properly. Fourth, the aesthetic of global relation, the internet: the new solution Hack is trying on the internet is to make more people participate in his project. It is fate that "human are the wrongdoer and the victim at the same time", but according to Hack's opinion, social disaster can be avoided through effort and it is optimistic that we can give form to the culture revolution we are experiencing now. Hack's project illustrated the importance of daily life, compared to art inside a museum, through active participation of the people and opened up a new method of art through realistic responses to disasters. This is distinctive from the past exhibitions, where artists gave shape and form to ideals and an imaginary world, in that it shows that the artist and audience aim for creating a community-like structure, just like Bourriaud's art method. Hack's project of climate calamity illustrates that installation and action art is not only an art genre which shows installation and activities, but that it can include social and political issues and that it can be completed with the help of participants, consequently becoming a genre of modern art. Hack raises a question about art's identity through various descriptions. Artists as planners, who base their artworks on their subjectivity or the characteristics of a specific period, the people as participants, the duet of art work and play, human and human, and further, human and nature. The practical participation method, as a measure for "disaster", reveals the new art of the 21st century within Hack's artworks. Even though there are several problems with Hack's usage of art as a measure for disaster, it will actively open up a new page for the 21st century's art with the theme of disaster.

• Journal of Science of Art and Design
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• v.1
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• pp.125-164
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• 1999

The Grid, a lattice structure adapted in paintings, is one of thesimplest plastic structures based on the intersection of horizontal and perpendicular lines. Though mankind has, from the pre-history to the present day, put it to good use in everyday life as a traditional practice or a magical, esoteric, religious emblem in the case of the teciform of primitve art, it was in the paintings of Piet Mondrian that the Grid showed its modern, artistic transformation. As we suggest in the title, before I state the Grid as a plastic construction of modern painting, this dissertation inquires the Grid structure that extends over paintings through the ages as a painterly conept, especially focused on their formation and deconstruction. To begin with, my dissertation investigates, as a historical background, a general idea of the geometrical structure and phases of its transition in art, prior to dealing with the Grids as plastic strures in modern painting. the core of my study on formal Grids is permeated through the third chapter. The first chapter concentrates on, firstly, difining the notion of the Grid and geometrical structure, secondly, searching for a historical backgrounb with whict the so- called modern Grid-paintings come in, inquiring into the formation of the illusion-Grid as aresult of discovering the linear perpective and the situation of the conflict and reconciliaton between reality and illusion. Based on these considerations, the second cecond chapter will examine the various sitations of formation and adaptation of the paintery Grids in the Literalism-Grid, as we have already seen in the chapter one. And the cardinal third chapter devotes itself to the process of the formation of the so-called Object-Grid and Literal-Grid in the Literalism or Minimalism as its logical extension of the Painterly Grid. With it we can get to an interpretation and understanding of the meaning and qualites of Grid dwelt in Modernism thst transformed the structure of Painterly Grid originally as a plane concept to the third dimentionl structure. And then, the fourth chapter, we try to draw a new meaning andre-interpretation of the Formal-Grid as a representatuinnal structure appeared in the post-modernist paintings, going with its deconstructional situation. Therefore, we can, in our study on Grids, see the various points of view in the interpretation of them as illusion-structure, as plane-structure, and as cubic-structure; its concept differs form times, oscillating between its formation and deconstruction. The Grid, as we have seen in my dissertation, contains various problems and significations in art that deserve to investigate throughly, including some important plastic problem such as space and plane, and, in the case of do-grid, time. We may expect new concepts of it that will have difference meanings. 1 hope my study makes some contributions to understanding the coordination of the abstruse modern and contemporary art.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.34 no.2 s.115
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• pp.80-98
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• 2006

This study originated from following questions. What can we understand the conception of deconstruction, which has been the core idea of new discourses developed in various ways since modernism? How can this question be interpreted in landscape design? What is the conceptional frame of integration the prominent hybrid post-genre movements and phenomena? The frame can be epitomized with the deconstruction phenomenon. 'Deconstruction' is the core conception appeared in late or post-modern ages in the embodiment of modernity and can be viewed as an integrating or a hybrid phenomenon between areas or genres in formative arts. Therefore, the author regards the hybrid movements widely witnessed in the post contemporary formative arts as one of the most important indicators of de-constructive signs. It is safe to say that the phenomenon of this integration or hybridism, of course, does not threaten the identity of landscape design but serves as an opportunity to extend the areas of landscape design. One of the consequences of this integration or hybridism is the voluntary participation of users who have been alienated in the production of the meanings of design works and hybrid landscape design with the hybridization of genres that is characterized with transformation in forms. This view is based on the distinction between hybridization of interactions between the designer (the subject) and the user (the object), and hybridization of synesthesia. Generally speaking, this is an act of destroying boundaries of the daily life and arts. At the same time, it corresponds to vanishing of modern aesthetics and emerging of post-contemporary aesthetics which is a new aesthetic category like sublimeness. This types of landscape design tries to restore humans' sensibility and perceptions restrained by rationality and recognition in previous approach and to express non-materialistic characteristics with precaution against excessive materialism in the modern era. In light of these backgrounds, the study aims to suggest the hybrid concept and to explorer a new landscape design approach with this concept, in order to change the design structure from 'completed' or 'closed' toward 'opened' and to understand the characteristics of interactions between users and designs. This new approach is expected to create an open-space integrating complexity and dynamics of users. At the same time, it emphasizes senses of user' body with synesthesia and non-determination. The focus is placed on user participation and sublimity rather than on aesthetic beauty, which kind of experience is called simulacre. By attaching importance to user participation, the work got free from the material characteristics, and acceptance from the old practice of simple perception and contemplation. The boundaries between the subject and object and the beautiful and ordinary, from the perspective of this approach, are vanished. Now everything ordinary can become an artistic work. Western dichotomy and discrimination is not effective any more. And there is 'de-construction' where there is perfect equality between ordinary daily life and beautiful arts. Thus today's landscape design pays attention to the user and uses newly perceived sensitivity by pursing obscure and unfamiliar things rather than aesthetic beauty. Space is accordingly defined to take place accidentally as happening and event, not as volume of shape. It's the true way to express spatiality of landscape design. That's an attempt to reject conventional concepts about forms and space, which served as the basis for landscape design, and to search for new things.

• The Journal of Art Theory & Practice
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• no.6
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• pp.27-50
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• 2008

This thesis examines contemporary Chinese painting after the Cultural Revolution(1966~76), focusing upon so-called "Chinese Pop art", which I termed as "Socialist Pop art". I considered the art of this period within the broader context of social changes especially after the Tienanmen incident of 1989. After the Cultural Revolution during which idolization of Chairman Mao was at its peak, one of the major changes in communist China was that an anti-Mao wave was generated in almost every social class. For example, novels that revealed the hardships during the Cultural Revolution were published. Posters that openly criticized the Maoism were also produced and displayed on the walls, and demand for democracy spurred widespread activist movements among young generations. These broad social changes were also reflected in art. A variety of art movements were introduced from the West to China, and after a period of experimentation with the new imported styles, artists began to apply the new artistic idiom to their works in order to visualize their own social and political realities they lived in. It was a shift from earlier Socialist Realism to a new expression either directly or indirectly, "Socialist Pop", an amalgam of Socialist Realism and Pop art tradition. After the 1989 crackdown of Tienanmen Square protest, when communist government quelled with brutal measures the students, workers, and ordinary people who rose for democracy, greater urge to protest the Deng Xiaoping regime emerged. This time coincided with the gradual emergence of art using Pop art vocabulary to satirize the social reality, the Socialist Pop art, along with many other art forms all with avant-garde spirit. One of the most frequent subjects of Chinese Pop art was visual images of Chairman Mao and his Cultural Revolution, and new China that was saturated with capitalism, which tainted the Chinese way of life with a Western way of consumerism and commercialism. The reason for the popularity of Mao's image was spurred by the "Mao Craze" in the early 1990's. People suddenly began to fall in a kind of nostalgia for the past, and once again, Mao Zedong was idolized as an entity who can heal the problems of modern China who had been marching towards their ultimate destination, the economic development. But this time Chairman Mao was no more an idol but just a popular, commercial product. He is no more an object of worship of almost religious nature but he has become an iconography symbolizing the complex nature of present Chinese society. During this process of depicting the social reality, Chinese artists are making the authority and sanctity of Maoism ineffective. Dealing with this new trend of contemporary Chinese art in view of "Socialist Pop art" two manners of re-creating Pop art can be illustrated: one that incorporates the propaganda posters of the Cultural Revolution; the other borrows from Chinese traditional popular imagery or mass media, such as photos taken during Mao era. What is worth mentioning is that these posters and photos of the Cultural Revolution can be identified as 'popular' media, as they were directed to educate the popular mass, thus combination of this ingenuous pop media with Western Pop art can be fully justified as a genre unique to China. Through this genre, we can discover a new chapter of the Chinese contemporary painting and its society, as their Pop art can be considered as self-portraits true to their present appearances.

• The Journal of Art Theory & Practice
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• no.10
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• pp.183-202
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• 2010

The term "philosophizing art" was coined by Arthur Danto, who tried to define new forms of art, especially Andy Warhol's pop art appeared in New York after 1960's, which could not be explained by traditional concept of "representation". As Danto said "the term 'philosophizing art' is unclear, whether art discusses philosophical issues or art is the object of philosophic discussions", it does not seem like Danto himself had a specific idea when he used this term. The background for Danto coining this term derives from the fact that the old art concept such as denotation and connotation could not fully explain phenomenalistic aspects of concept art which appeared frequently at that time. Many articles in his book "philosophizing art", in which many of his criticism are included, mainly say that art begins philosophizing by dealing with not mimesis or representation but concepts. According to his argument, the history of western art, which has been consisted of mimesis and representation, has come to end when art is about physically embodied with meaning. Of course, as Danto say so, what goes to end is not art itself, but the narrative of art. It means master narrative saying art should be shown different from nature or artificial daily product is over. Danto could not find principals of mimesis and representation which had been main logic in the western art history, when he saw Andy Warhol's Brillo Boxes at Stable Gallery, New York in 1964. Danto questioned "if we can not distinguish Brillo box's artistic aspects visually from other factory-made products, how can we distinguish art from non-art", By answering those questions, he discovered two facts which made him realize the end of Art: One is there is no special way in which works of art have to be shown or has to exist. Therefore, art history has proven that commercial boxes, trashes and files of underwear can be a work of art. The other is we have fully recognized it at the end of 20thcentury. Danto confessed that through Brillo Boxes, he realized the works of art are decided by something can not be seen by eyes, not by distinguished differences by looking at it. This thesis is trying to show personal understanding about art, philosophy and discourses surrounding them and to figure out how Dante opened a new world to art criticism by using new definitions such as 'end of art' and 'philosophizing art' which Danto used to explain inner aspects of art.

• The Journal of Art Theory & Practice
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• no.14
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• pp.7-32
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• 2012

The exhibition was started in 2010 in the New Acropolis Museum of Athens and embarked a journey since 2011 as a travelling exhibition inside Greece and abroad. The main purpose of the exhibition was to draw attention of the general public to the value of the 'rescue excavation' and of cultural heritage of Greece, by presenting the reconstruction bust of a girl whose skull was found in Kerameikos cemetery of ancient Athens. The new Kerameikos excavation was initiated by the construction of Metropolitan Railway lines in the center of Athens between 1992 to 1998. It revealed a pit of a mass burial where about 150 people were inhumed in a very hasty way without proper funeral rites or offerings. These bodies are identified as the victims of the infamous plague of Athens in the first years of the Peloponnesian War(430-426 BC). The epidemic disease killed almost one third of the city population including Pericles, and brought extreme fear and panic to the Athens society. The traditional funerary rites were totally disrupted, and the social decorum and the morality among the citizens became enfeebled. The plague and the civil war were the decisive factors to end the Golden Age of Democratic Athens. However, the exhibition organizers did not focus on the tragic aspect of this disaster and its casualties. Their main concern was to simplify the scholarly works of archaeological excavation and microchemistry analysis so that the exhibition viewers will easily understand and empathize the living value of the scholarly works of ancient Greek civilization. The centripetal element of the exhibition was the vivid face of an 11 years old ancient girl 'Myrtis', which was carefully reconstructed based on both the scientific data and artistic imagination. Also the set up of the exhibition was structured in order to stimuli cognitive and emotional experience of the visitors who witnessed the rebirth of a vibrant human being from an ancient debris. The museologists' continuous efforts to promote projects of contemporary artists, publications, and school programs related to the exhibition indicate that the ulterior motive of this exhibition is the cultural education of the present and future generation through the intimate experiences of ancient Greek life. Also this is the reason why the various museums that held the travelling exhibition try to make the presentation as a gesture of memorial service for an anonymous Athenian girl who deceased circa 2400 years ago. The pragmatic efforts of Greek scholars and museologists through exhibition show us a way to find a solution to the continuous threat of cultural resources by massive construction projects and land development, and to overcome public indifference to the history and cultural heritage.

• The Journal of Art Theory & Practice
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• no.7
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• pp.7-36
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• 2009

This paper intends to examine the significance of the "Minjoong Misool(People's art)" of the 1980s emerged in Korea in its social, cultural, and art historical context. This paper also aims to provide an analysis of the meaning and form of the individual artist's works, which have been overlooked under the dominant discourse that has emphasized their political role as a collective group. In particular, this paper scrutinizes the work of "Critical Realists" by examining the way in which they perceived Korean society in the early 1980s and visualized their experiences of the period. The figurative art newly emerged in the early 1980s challenged the formalist Modernism, which was adopted into Korea and translated into monochrome paintings and the work of the conversative academicism of the 1970s. The figurative art encouraged a social communication and moreover it intended to criticize the conflicts in the political, economical, and social domains in Korea. The targets of its critique include the unavoidable results of the unprecedented development of economy, various social phenomena of the post-industrial society, and the growth of the commercialized kitsch culture. Along with Shin, Hak-chul's work that incorporates collage technique since the 1980s, the work of some members of "Reality and Utterance" and "Im- sul-nyun" exemplify their critical interests in disclosing the false dream of wealth and happiness by both referring to and drawing on the utopian fantasy manipulated and distributed by mass media and commercial advertisements. This paper pays particular attention to Nouvelle Figuration emerged in France and Europe during the 1960s, which is comparable to the new figurative art emerged in Korea during the 1980s. Nouvelle Figuration criticized the autonomy in art isolated itself from political and social reality after WWII, in particular the indifference of Informel and abstract art as well as American abstract art. Moreover it became rather politicized around May of 1968. Given that French Nouvelle Figuration was introduced in Korea in 1982 and made a significant contribution to the formation of figurative art in Korea, it should be noted that the new figurative art emerged in the 1980s in Korea cannot be categorized merely in relation to People's Art. This paper intends to critically redress the notion that People's art was formed in the particular political, economical, and cultural context of Korea independent of the contemporary artistic practices outside Korea. It will provide a critical examination and analysis of the content and form of the new figurative art, from which People's Art was germinated, in the global context.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.419-427
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• 2020

Ye-chan(倪瓚) is one of the four great masters of the Yuan. He built his own unique art world under the rule of the times under the rule of immigrahts. His theory of painting, i-ch'i(逸氣) in the heart, is a spiritual product made up of the influence of traditional oriental thoughts such as Confucian scholar(儒), Buddhism(佛), and Zen Buddhism(禪). The i-ch'i is a new awareness of nature that has arisen between literary noblemen(文人士大夫) under the influence of freshness(淸淡), emptiness(虛無), non-action(無爲). This is beyond the mundane world and became the theoretical basis for literati painting. The i-pi(逸筆) of Ye-chan is a method of drawing the i-ch'i in the heart. This is the boundary of his literati painting obtained through his long efforts and practice. Ye-chan realized the high ground of unity of poem and calligraphy(詩書一體) and unity of poem and Zen(詩禪一致), which he realized in his daily life.His artistic spirit expressed the high level of staying away from being clean(脫俗遠塵), doing not stay in one place(一所不住), and unity of poem and calligraphy(詩書一体). Through this, he built a unique world of literati painting in the Art World of the late Yuan and early Ming dynasty.