Korean Art and Gender Conference
Date and Time
Location
In recent years, a growing number of scholars have begun to examine Korean artifacts from all historical eras through the critical lens of gender to understand an array of previously neglected issues. This two-day international conference aims to encourage this relatively nascent movement in the field of Korean art history by convening scholars engaged in these new discursive frameworks whose research is providing a fuller picture of cultural production in Korea. The speakers include many early career scholars based in Korea as well as those working in the United States to promote intellectual exchange across disciplines and geographical and intergenerational borders. Presentations will cover a wide range of themes arising from Joseon-period paintings, textiles, and embroideries to the modern metaphysical abstractions of Seundja Rhee (1918-2009) and the contemporary portrait practice of Yun Suknam (b. 1939).
The conference has been conceived in partnership with the Leeum Museum of Art and in anticipation of a special international loan exhibition Women and Buddhism in East Asian Art (working title) to be held at the Hoam Museum of Art from March-June 2024. This will be the first major exhibition to focus exclusively on the role and depiction of women in the Buddhist art of Korea, China, and Japan, providing an urgent corrective to the male-centered narrative that has dominated the discourse. Diverse artifacts including Buddhist paintings, sculptures, sutra transcriptions, embroidery, and metal crafts will be used to examine the importance of women as patrons and producers of Buddhist art of the pre-modern period. In exploring the history of how women navigated discriminatory Buddhist institutions and society at large, the exhibition will illuminate the important socio-cultural implications of religious art as well as contemporary issues that will resonate with audiences today.
