This study is about the cultural policy related to fine art under the U. S. Military Government in Korea(USAMGIK), from September 8, 1945, to August 15, 1948. Drawing on the previous studies of Korean art history in the ‘Liberation Period’, this study especially concentrates on intention, attitude and activities of the USAMGIK. Particularly the historical documents, stored at the National Archives at the College Park, Maryland, U.S.A., were valuable to do research on the cultural policy of USAMGIK. The cultural policy was subordinated to the political objectives of occupation that can be summarized to building a stronghold of anti-communism in South Korea. Under the U.S. Military government control, cultural matters were assigned to the Cultural Section, the Bureau of Education, which later turns into the Bureau of Culutre, the Department of Education. The Bureau of Culture dealt with matters of the ancient Korean art treasures and of the Korean contemporary art. USAMGIK reopened the Korean National Museum which had been closed by the Japanese since the World War Ⅱ period. After that, U.S. Department of State sent arts & monuments specialists to South Korea for investigating ancient Korean art and culture. Although some of the destructed art treasures were restored during the occupation, there were many negative cases including intentional destruction of historic sites or loot of art treasures by U.S. army. In contrast to their interest in the Korean antiquities, USAMGIK payed little attention to promoting the Korean contemporary artists and their arts. USAMGIK distrusted and suppressed the artists of leftism, while they kept good relations with the pro-American artists and the right-wing artists. In conclusion, the visual-cultural policy of USAMGK was mainly planned and carried out in order to preserve the national interest of the United States. This period produced long-term effects on the fine art and visual culture of South Korea, in terms of institution, policy, and reorganization of art community based on anti-cummunism.

The cultural debates between conservatives and liberals at the end of the 1980s andin the early 1990s were termed as “culture wars.”The “culture wars”involved a diverserange of controversial issues, such as the introduction of multicultural curricula ineducational institutions, prayers in schools, whether to allow gays to serve openly in themilitary, and whether abortion should be permitted. The most heated debates of the“culture wars”regarding art raged over the NEA and the question of whether AndresSerrano’s works should have been publicly funded, in addition to the exhibition “RobertMapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment”which were charged as projecting “obscene”or“blasphemous”images. This paper examines the development of culture wars in art and focuses on severalissues invoked by the NEA debates. However, it is not a detailed chronologicalinvestigation. Rather it pays attention to the several phases of the debates, analyzing andcriticizing the clashes of the political and esthetical points of views between conservativesand liberals. How could NEA funding, a mere fraction of the federal budget, have become socritical for both sides(conservative and liberal), for politicians and artists’groups, and foracademics and the general public? The art community was astounded by this chain ofevents; artists personally reviled, exhibitions withdrawn and under attack, the NEA budgetthreatened, all because of a few images. For conservative politicians, the NEA debate wasnot only a battle over the public funding of art, but a war over a larger social agenda, awar for “American values and cultures”based on the family, Christianity, the Englishlanguage, and patriarchy. Conservative politicians argued the question was not one of“censorship”but of “sponsorship,”since the NEA charter committed it to “helpingmuseums better serve the citizens of the United States.”Liberals and art communitiesargued that the attempt to restrict NEA funding violated the First Amendment rights ofartists, namely “free speeches.”“No matter how divided individuals are on matters oftaste,”Arthur C. Danto wrote, “freedom is in the interest of every citizen.” The interesting phase is that both sides are actually borrowing one another’s point of view when they are accompanied by art criticism. Kramer, representative of conservativeart critic, objected the invasion of political contents or values in art, and struggled to keepart’s own realm by promoting pure aesthetic values such as quality and beauty. But, whenhe talked about Mapplethorpe’s works, he advocated political and ethical values. Bycontrast, art experts who argued for Mapplethorpe’s works in the Cincinnati trial defendedhis work, ironically by ignoring its manifest sexual metaphor or content although theybelieved that the issues of AIDS and homosexuality in his work were to be freelyexpressed in the art form. They adopted a formalistic approach, for example, by comparinga child nude with putti, a traditional child-angel icon. For a while, NEA debates made art institutions, whether consciously orunconsciously, exert self-censorship, yet at the same time they were also producingpositive aspects. To the majority of people, art was still regarded as belonging to the pureaesthetic realm away from political, economical, and social ones. These debates, however,were expanding the very perspective on the notion of what is art and of how art isproduced, raising questions on art appreciation, representation, and power. The interestingfact remains: had the works not been swiped in NEA debates, could the Serrano’s orMapplethorpe’s images gain the extent of power and acceptance that it has today?

From the late 1920s to the 1930s, Korea’s fine art community focused on traditionalviewpoints as their main topic. The traditional viewpoints were discussed mainly byKorean students studying in Japan, especially oil painters. Such discussions on tradition canbe divided into two separate halves, namely the pre- and post-Sino-Japanese War (1937)periods. Before the war, the modernists among Korea’s fine art community tried to gain afuller understanding of contemporary Western modern art, namely, expressionism,futurism, surrealism, and so forth, on the basis of Orientalism, and borrow from theseschools’in order to create their own works. Furthermore, proponents of Joseon’s avant-garde fine arts and artists of the pro-fine art school triggered debate on the traditionalviewpoints. After the Sino-Japanese War, these artists continued to embrace Westernmodern art on the basis of Orientalism. However, since Western modern fine art wasregressing into Oriental fine art during this period, Korean artists did not need to researchWestern modern fine art, but sought to study Joseon’s classics and create Joseon’s ownavant-garde fine art in a movement led by the Munjang group. This research reviews thetraditional view espoused by the Munjang group, which represented the avant-garde fineart movement of the post-war period. Advocating Joseon’s own current of avant-garde fine art through the Munjang literarymagazine, Gil Jin-seop, Kim Yong-jun and others accepted the Japanese fine artcommunity’s methodology for the restoration of classicism, but refused Orientalism as anideology, and attempted to renew their perception of Joseon tradition. The advocation ofthe restoration of classicism by Gil Jin-seop and Kim Yong-jun appears to be similar to thatof the Yasuda Yojuro-style restoration of classicism. However, Gil Jin-seop and Kim Yong-jun did not seek their sources of classicism from the Three-Kingdoms and Unified Sillaperiods, which Japan had promoted as a symbol of unity among the Joseon people;instead they sought classicism from the Joseon fine art which the Japanese had criticized asa hotbed of decadence. It was the Joseon period that the Munjang group chose as classicism when Japanwas upholding Fascism as a contemporary extremism, and when Hangeul (Korean writing system) was banned from schools. The group highly evaluated literature written in the styleof women, especially women’s writings on the royal court, as represented by Hanjungnok(A Story of Sorrowful Days). In the area of fine art, the group renewed the evaluation of notonly literary paintings, but also of the authentic landscape paintings refused by, and thevalues of the Chusa school criticized as decadent by, the colonial bureaucratic artists,thereby making great progress in promoting the traditional viewpoint. Kim Yong-junembraced a painting philosophy based on the painting techniques of Sasaeng (sketching),because he paid keen attention to the tradition of literary paintings, authentic landscapepaintings and genre paintings. The literary painting theory of the 20th century, which washighly developed, could naturally shed both the colonial historical viewpoint whichregarded Joseon fine art as heteronomical, and the traditional viewpoint which regardedJoseon fine art as decadent. As such, the Munjang group was able to embrace the Joseon period as the source ofclassicism amid the prevalent colonial historical viewpoint, presumably as it hadaccumulated first-hand experience in appreciating curios of paintings and calligraphicworks, instead of taking a logical approach. Kim Yong-jun, in his fine art theory, definedartistic forms as the expression of mind, and noted that such an artistic mind could beattained by the appreciation of nature and life. This is because, for the Munjang group, theexperience of appreciating nature and life begins with the appreciation of curios ofpaintings and calligraphic works. Furthermore, for the members of the Munjang group, who were purists who valuedartistic style, the concept of individuality presumably was an engine that protected themfrom falling into the then totalitarian world view represented by the Nishita philosophy. Such a 20th century literary painting theory espoused by the Munjang groupconcurred with the contemporary traditional viewpoint spearheaded by Oh Se-chang in the1910s. This theory had a great influence on South and North Korea’s fine art theories andcircles through the Fine Art College of Seoul National University and Pyongyang Fine ArtSchool in the wake of Korea’s liberation. In this sense, the significance of the theoryshould be re-evaluated.

The propaganda paintings in oil colors or in forms of posters made from 1949 to1966 have gone through some changes experiencing the influence of the Soviet Union Artand discussion of nationalization, while putting political messages of the time in the pictureplanes. The propaganda paintings which have been through this process became aneffective means of encouraging the illiterate people in political ideologies, production, andlearning. Alike other propaganda paintings in different mediums, the ones which werepainted in oil colors and in the form of posters have been produced fundamentally basedon Mao Zedong’s intensification of the literary art on the talks on literature at Yenan. Yet,the oil paintings and posters were greatly influenced by the socialist realism andpropaganda paintings of the Soviet Union, compared to other propaganda paintings indifferent mediums. Accordingly, they were preponderantly dealt in the discussions ofnationalization of the late‘50s. To devide in periods, the establishment of People’s Republic of China in 1949 as adiverging point, the propaganda paintings made before and after 1949 have differences insubject matters and styles. In the former period, propaganda paintings focused on thepolitical lines of the Communists and enlightenment of the people, but in the latter period,the period of Cultural Revolution, the most important theme was worshiping Mao Zedong.This was caused by reflection of the social atmosphere, and it is shown that thepropaganda painters had reacted sensitively to the alteration of politics and the society. Onthe side of formalities, the oil paintings and posters made before the Cultural Revolutionwere under a state of unfolding several discussions including nationalization whileaccepting the Soviet Union styles and contents, and the paintings made afterwards showmore of unique characteristics of China. In 1956, the discussion about nationalization which had effected the whole world ofart, had strongly influenced the propaganda paintings in oil colors more than anything.There were two major changes in the process of making propaganda paintings in oilcolors. One was to portray lives of the Chinese people truthfully, and the other was toabsorb the Chinese traditional styles of expression. After this period, the oil painters usually kept these rules in creating their works, and as a result, the subject matters, characters, andbackgrounds have been greatly Sinicized. For techniques came the flat colored surface ofthe new year prints and the traditional Chinese technique of outlining were used forexpressing human figures. While the propaganda paintings in oil colors achieved high quality and depth, theposters had a very direct representation of subject matters and the techniques wereunskilled compared to the oil paintings. However, after the establishment of People’sRepublic of China, the posters were used more than any other mediums for propagation ofnational policy and participation of the political movements, because it was highly effectivein delivering the policies and political lines clearly to the Chinese people who were mostlyilliterate. The poster painters borrowed techniques and styles from the Soviet Unionthrough books and exhibitions on Soviet Union posters, and this relation of influencesconstantly appears in the posters made at the time. In this way, like the oil paintings, theposters which have been made with a direct influence of the Soviet Union had developeda new, sinicised process during the course of nationalization. The propaganda paintings in oil colors or in forms of posters, which had undergonethe discussion of nationalization, had put roots deep down in the lives of the Chinesepeople, and this had become another foundation for the amplification of influences ofpolitical propaganda paintings in the following period of Cultural Revolution.

The term ‘modern’, in broader sense, refers to the concepts like modernity,modernization, modernism and the like, which came from Westernization impling therecognition of indigenous culture as being inferior to Western culture by comparison alongwith the expanded influences of the Empire of Japan. These concepts, however, ratherthan evolving from Western standards, came into being as a form of civilization led byJapan which had already tasted the fruits of modernization by 1920s. Since 1920s, the policy of, so-called, reconstructing Asian countries by Japan came tocreate eastern way of modernism, as a new East Asian trend mainly revealed in Chinawhich was against colonization after Japan’s invasion and conquest of Manchuria.Therefore, Eastern‘modern’unlike Western one could be understood in the widespreadterminology,‘Modern(摩登)’in Shanghai, reflecting consciousness like‘Fashion’or‘Trend’in female images on a variety of visual media. By 1930s it was the most notablethat‘modern’was accepted as something similar with‘Fashion’, or‘Trend’in socio-cultural contexts. These atmosphere had led commercial arts to enable to communicatewith the public in a great deal of supports and success in Shanghai which was widelyregarded as the citadel for the inflow of Western culture, among which transformations infemale images were remarkable as a representative form of culture. It is also remarkablethat‘historical modernity’transforming from the feudal age to modern society wasconsidered a synchronic modernity, and nationalism was regarded as a sort of beingmodern, while involved in the newly-changed female images as a fashion mode. Changes in fashion including hair style in Shanghai by 1930s, as a way ofexpressions showing what was modern through commercial artistic productions, wereeasily noticed in visual media as an outlet of modern women’s inner desire revealing theirpursuit for new mode of life in metropolitan cities. As a characteristic of the time creating anew code of visual female images, it is notable that there existed another form of‘modern’satisfying socio-cultural needs of the general public seeking for being‘modern’.

Foreigners who arrived in Korea after the age of enlightenment were Japanese,Chinese and‘Westerners’who were Europeans and Americans. The westerners werediplomats who visited Korea for colonization or for increasing their economical profits bytrading after the spread of imperialism, and tourists curious of back countries, artists,explores and missionaries to perform their roles for their religious beliefs. They contactedwith Korean cultural and educational people as missionaries and instructors duringJapanese colonial period. In 1945, the allied forces occupied Korea under the name oftakeover of Japanese colony after Japan’s surrender and the relation between foreignersand Korean cultured men enter upon a new phase. For 3 years, American soldiers enforcedlots of systems in Korea and many pro-American people were educated. This relationshiplasted even after the establishment of the government of Korean Republic and especially,diplomats called as pro-Korean group came again after Korean War. Among them, therewere lots of foreigners interested in cultures and arts. In particular, government officialsunder American Forces who were influential on political circles or diplomats widened theirinsights toward Korean cultural assets and collected them a lot. Those who were in Korea from the period of independence to 1950s wrote theirimpressions about Korean cultural assets on newspapers or journals after visitingcontemporary Korean exhibitions. Among them, A. J. McTaggart, Richard Hertz and theHendersons were dominant. They thought the artists had great interests in compromisingand uniting the Orient and the West based on their knowledge of Korean cultural assets,and they advised. However, it was different from Korean artist’s point of view that theforeigners thought Korean art adhered oriental features and contained western contents. From foreigners’point of view, it is hard to understand the attitude Korean artistschose to keep their self-respect through experiencing the Korean war. It is difficult todistinguish their thought about Korean art based on their exotic taste from the Koreanartists’local and peninsular features under Japanese imperialism. We can see their thoughtabout Korean art and their viewpoint toward the third world, after staying in Korea for ashort period and being a member of the first world. The basic thing was that they couldsee the potentialities through the worldwide, beautiful Korean cultural assets and they thought it was important to start with traditions. It is an evidence showing Korean artists’pride in regard to the art culture through experiencing the infringement of their country. By writing about illuminating Korean art from the third party’s view, foreignersrepresented their thoughts through it that their economical, military superiority goes withtheir cultural superiority. The Korean artist’s thought of emphasizing Korean history andtraditions, reexamining and using it as an original creation may have been inspired bywesterners’writings. ‘The establishment of national art’that Korean artists gave emphasis then, didn’tonly affect one of the reactions toward external impact,‘the adhesion of tradition’.In theprocess of introducing Korean contemporary art and national treasure in America, differentview caused by role differences-foreigner as selector and Korean as assistant-showed thefact evidently that the standard of beauty differed between them. By emphasizing that thebasis to classify Korean cultural assets is different from the neighborhood China and Japan,they tried to reflect their understanding that the feature of Korean art is on speciality otherthan universality. And this make us understand that even when Korean artists professmodernism, they stress that the roots are on Korean and oriental tradition. It was obviously a different thought from foreigners’view on Korean art that Koreanartists’ conception of modernism and traditional roots are inherent in Korean history. In1950s, after the independence, Korea had different ideas from foreigners that abstract wasto be learned from the west. Korea was enduring tough times with their artists’self-respectwhich made them think that they can learn the method, but the spirit of abstract is in theorient.

In Korea, nation and nationalism are undeniable justice, absolute virtue andmoreover system of desire. From the late Chosun Dynasty when the Korean Peninsula hadto survive from the critical situation of being the arena of competition, and through thecolonial period under Japanese imperialism, nationalism became stronger as a logic ofsurvival. The policy of seclusion under closed and exclusive nationalism that didn’trecognize the world situation well enough, eventually gave more pain to the nation.Nationalism in colonial Korea which was as reformed nationalism and on the other hand,as intransigent, resisting nationalism. Since the purpose of this writing is not for clarifyingthe argument raised on Korean nationalism, there is no use mentioning how it went withthe change of time. But we have to focus on the fact that the word‘nation’whichappeared under the influence of popular revolution and capitalism meaning‘a group ofpeople’, was translated and understood as a racial concept for strengthening the unity of‘single-race nation with five thousand years’history. First of all, there is nationalism used to fortify the system. ‘The Charter of NationalEducation’and‘The Pledge of Allegiance’were ornaments to intensify the ruling ideologyand dictatorship to militarize entire South Korea for‘settling Korean democracy’professednationalism. Also, another ruling ideology armed with‘self-reliance’put North Korea intothe state of hypnosis called nationalism. Nationalism, claiming‘nation’outwardly, but inreality, being an illuminating, instructing ideology isolating each other was indeed a bodywith two faces. This made‘nation’in Korea mysterious and objective through work suchas. The statue commemorating patriotic forefathers’and picture of national records’inSouth Korea art. Nationalism used to strengthening the system encountered the magical‘single-race’and made‘ghost’being an extreme exclusion to other nations. We can findpedigreed pureness not allowing any mixed breeds from the attitude accepting western art-via Japan or directly- and making it vague by using the word Korean and Asia. There’s nationalism as a resistant ideology to solidify the system on the other side. Itcame out as a way of survival among the Great Power and grew with the task of nationalliberation to became as a powerful force facing against the dictatorship dominating SouthKorea after the liberation. This discussion of nationalism as a resistance ideology was activein 1980s. In 1980, democracy movement against the dictatorship of 5th Republic originatedfrom military power which came out suppressing the democratic movement in Gwangju,spread out from the intellects and the students to the labors, farmers and the civilians. It is well known that the‘Nation-People(Minjoong)’s Art Movement could come out under thissocial condition. Our attitude toward nationalism is still dual in this opening part of 21st century. Onone hand, they are opposing to the ultra-nationalism but are not able to separate it fromnationalism, and on the other, they have much confusion using it. In fact, in a single-racenation like Korea, the situation of being nationalism and jus sanguinis together can causedual nationalism. Though nationalism is included in the globalization order, it is evidence that it’seffective in Korea where there are still modern fetters like division and separation. Inparticular, in the world where Japan makes East Asia Coalition but exposed in front ofnationalism, and China not being free from Sinocentrism, and American nationalism takingthe world order, and Russia fortifying nationalism suppressing the minority race after thedissolution of socialism, Korean nationalism is at the point to find an alternative plansuperior to the ruling and resisting ideology.

“When it comes to art, nationalism is a goodticket to ride with,”says the title of areport in the Indian Express (Mumbai, 29 Oct 2000). The newspaper report goes on to saythat since Indian art was kept “ethnic”by colonialism, national liberation meant openingup to the world on India’s own terms. Advocacy, at the tail end of the 20th century, wouldcontrast dramatically with the call by Rabindranath Tagore, the founder of the academy atSantiniketan in 1901, to guard against the fetish of nationalism.“The colourless vaguenessof cosmopolitanism,”Tagore pronounced, “nor thefierce self-idolatry of nation-worship, isthe goal of human history”(Nationalism, 1917). This contrast is significant on two counts. First is the positive aspect of “nation”as a frame in art production or circulation, atthe current point of globalization when massive expansion of cultural consumers may berealized through prevailing communication networks and technology. The organization ofthe information market, most vividly demonstrated through the recent FIFA World Cupwhen one out of every five living human beings on earth watched the finals, is predicatedon nations as categories. An extension of the Indian Express argument would be thattagging of artworks along the category of nation would help ensure greatest reception, andwould in turn open up the reified category of “art,”so as to consider new impetus fromaesthetic traditions from all parts of the world many of which heretofore regarded as“ethnic,”so as to liberate art from any hegemony of “international standards.” Secondly, the critique of nationalism points to a transnational civic sphere, be itTagore’s notion of people-not-nation, or the much more recent “transnationalconstellation”of Jurgen Habermas (2001), a vision for the European Union where civilsphere beyond confines of nation opens up new possibilities, and may serve as a modelfor a liberated sphere on global scale. There are other levels of collectivity which art mayaddress, for instance the Indonesian example of local communities headed by Ketua RukunTetangga, the neighbourhood headmen, in which community matters of culture and thearts are organically woven into the communal fabric. Art and collectivity at the national-transnational level yield a contrasting situation of,on the idealized end, the dual inputs of local culture and tradition through “nation”as necessary frame, and the concurrent development of a transnational, culturally andaesthetically vibrant civic sphere that will ensure a cosmopolitanism that is not a“colourless vagueness.”In art historical studies, this is seen, for instance, in the recentdiscussion on “cosmopolitan modernisms.” Conversely, we may see a dual tyranny of a nationalism that is a closure (sometimesstated as “ethno-nationalism”which is disputable), and an internationalism that is evolvedthrough restrictive understanding of historical development within privileged expressions.In art historical terms, where there is a lack of investigation into the reality of multiplemodernisms, the possibility of a democratic cosmopolitanism in art is severely curtailed.The advocacy of a liberal cosmopolitanism without a democratic foundation returns art todominance of historical privileged category. A local community with lack of transnationalinputs may sometimes place emphasis on neo-traditionalism which is also a double edgedsword, as rekindling with traditions is both liberating andrestrictive, which in turninterplays with the push and pull of the collective matrix.

As it is known, during the Second World War Greece has fought on the side of theallies and the end of the war found the country on the winners’side. However, thestruggle for authority right after 1945 was merciless and extremely difficult, as well asdangerous for the course of the country to the future. The political powers were dividedbetween the legal authorities that were represented by the king and formed the exiledgovernment on the one hand and the part of the resistance teams and the rebels of the leftthat had a soviet friendly direction on the other. Thus, the start of a civil war was just a matter of time. It finally started in 1947 andlasted for more than two years. The consequences were disastrous for the country’seconomy and decisive for the future course of Greece. The national army prevailed withthe help of, mostly, the English. Royal parliamentary democracy was established with aclear political turn to the west, as a completion and adaptation of the Agreement of theGreat Powers at Yalta. Art had a ‘similar’route. Dipolar, contradictory: conservative choices on the oneside, and a will for pioneering inspiration and perspective on the other side. The‘dominate’trend was first evident in sculpture and mainly in the public monuments. Theirconstruction aimed mostly at the public propaganda and at the promotion of the sovereignideology. On the one side we have the public sculptures composed of faces of contemporaryheroes or leading figures of the civic war and the national resistance. On the other side wehave monumental statues mainly that appeal to a ‘public’outside of the country’s bordersand mostly of the north borders, where there are countries with a communistic regime, likeBulgaria, Serbia and Albania. Their subject is derived from the heroic events of the BalkanWars (1912-1913) and ancient historical figures like Alexander the Great as the Greek armyleader, his father, Philippos II and Aristotle, who was of a north-Greek origin. The political message is twofold: on the one side the ‘inner enemy’the communiststhat were defeated and the promotion of the new liberal social system and on the otherside the north neighbours, which not only represent the East Block, but they also conspire the history and the culture of the Greeks. This is the way how the ‘Cold War’was resultedin a full and totalitarian expression in art.