사진의 기호학적 고찰

강태희(Kang Taehi) 서양미술사학회 1996 서양미술사학회논문집 Vol.8 No.-

After its birth over 150 years ago, photography recently became one of the most important media of all art, and the camera-based images have become our primary environment The common notion that photography is the exact replica of reality or that what it conveys is the honest reproduction of reality is still around. But recent studies have deconstructed this myth and visual semiotics tried to define the photography as a sign. One of the scholars in this field was Roland Barthes and he contributed to the foundation of semiotcs of photographic image. His notion of ‘message without code’ and his last book Camera Lucida were widely known and cited by every theorist of photography. But despite the effort of many semioticians, semiotics of photography is far from established or settled and this is also true for the visual semiotics in general. According to Peircian model, photography is an icon, index, and symbol sign and it belongs to the same category as the other visual image. But since it is indexical to reality it becomes the most powerful means of representing and interpreting reality. As photography is no longer considered the ‘real’ medium, we ‘read’ it and this reading process refers to the socio-cultural context where the sign is produced. The recent reappraisal of Surrealist photos and the rise of construced photos make us to readjust our sense of reality and our understanding of the photographic sign as well.

미니멀리즘, 1967

강태희(Taehi Kang) 서양미술사학회 1991 서양미술사학회논문집 Vol.3 No.-

The year 1967 is the crossroad of modernism and postmodernism. This ‘apocalyptic’ year was announced through the seminal writings on postminimal arts by the major artists in each field and was also witnessed by the works that predicted the disruption of Greenbergian modernism. 1967 was also the year Michael Fried’s famous “Art and Objecthood” was written. This essay turned out to become a kind of the final monument to the moribund modernism. Fried attacked the so-called ‘objecthood’ and ‘theatricality’ of Minimal Art which he perceived as the greatest threats to modernism. Donald Judd, who was influenced by Frank Stella’s non-relational, object-like paintings, campaigned for the ‘specific objects’, which combined the qualities of painting and sculpture. Robert Morris also argued for the simple and undivided ‘unitary forms’ for their strong gestalt effect, and recommended large-scale works that include the elements of space, light, and the viewer’s field of vision as important aesthetic factors. This consideration of situation and beholder is the direct opposite to the self-reflective and self-contained modernist works. For Fried, theatricality or the condition of theater is the negation of art because it is the hybrid form of distinctive arts and also because it requires the duration of experience on viewer’s part. But as it turned out, his warning against theatricality became an anticipation for the postminimal arts such as Process Art, Earth Art, and Conceptual Art, which all manifest situational aesthetics and the tendency of dematerialization. In conclusion, although Minimalist theories were indebted to Greenberg’s modernism, they divorced from it in the introduction of situational aesthetics and set the stage for the coming postmodernism.

미술과 돈에 관한 몇 가지 이야기들

강태희(Kang. Taehi) 한국예술종합학교 미술원 조형연구소 2007 Visual Vol.4 No.-

In this essay, I try to examine the economical mechanism in pricing arts and raise several questions surrounding the connection between the economic and aesthetic evaluation of artworks. A couple of stories ranging from a personal episode to the social phenomenon would present how an art historian(myself), ordinary people(like my mother), an artist(Yves Klein), and the market of a country(Goodmorning Shinhan Stock Company) are responding to, joining in, or accepting the process of the pricing system of artworks. From the economic point of view, an artwork has not only the aesthetic value but the social value for collecting and investment like other products. However, according to the social studies, pricing of artworks is based on a symbolic mechanism which has no direct connection to the ‘value’ of the works. The connection between value and pricing needs the conventional interpretation of the artworld. Many art historians and critics divide the price and cultural value of artworks to understand the process of art market. Some say that the cultural and aesthetic value of artworks is not affected by the law of supply and demand. However, others say that the connection to the pricing ‘contaminates’ the cultural value of artworks. Here, my question is whether we could talk about the aesthetic value of art without considering its economic value.

How Do You Wear Your Body?: 이불의 몸 짓기

강태희(Kang Taehi) 한국미술사교육학회 2002 美術史學 Vol.16 No.-

In today’ s ever-changing world, we witness the human body emerging as one of the major areas subject to some very fundamental changes. The correlation between body and identity is nothing new to us, but in the midst of the ever-present fluctuation generated by the complexity of contemporary society, the female body is now facing an identity crisis as never before. As western culture has obsessively regarded the female body as a marker of her identity, the notion of deficiency and excessiveness accordingly became encoded in her identity. Such coding forced women to be categorized in the sphere of monsters rather than that of humans (this status is only attributable to ‘men’). For such reasons, the ‘technologization of identity’ becomes a doubly loaded challenge for women. Among the contemporary artists who use their own bodies as the primary medium for art, Lee Bul deserves special attention. Her dynamic works take on a conceptual approach and are issue-based. Though the general themes related to the immortal body and death span throughout her artistic career, her works can largely be divided into two phases. While her early works, created before 1997, incorporate images of human-monsters and are demonstrated with a strong feminist stance, her post-1997 works of cyborg-monsters testify to her interest in the intervention of technology, and the feminist statements became somewhat reserved. Lee’ s early works which deal with images of fetuses, pregnant women, and deformed or partial body parts demonstrate their formal affinity to the works by Hans Bellmer, Cindy Sherman, or Kusama Yayoi and Louise Bourgeois. Decorated with beads and sequins, these costume pieces, with their monstrous appearance, have numerous tentacles multiplied in a strange manner so that they reached a state of pseudo-human. Lee wore these pieces during her performances in rural Korea and in the metropolises of Japan. And in her monument series constructed with inflated balloons, the patriarchal colonialist perspective is parodied through the representation of diverse images of Asian women. In 1997, the artist gained international recognition through her decaying fish series. By introducing the element of smell to the system of representation, and by absurdly combining decaying fish with artificial sequins, the artist brought up the issues of cheap Korean female labor and the sacrifices of women. The element of decay in the fish series provides a logical connection to the artist’ s later works of cyborgs. By voluntarily choosing to wear the image of a monster, which historically has been used to identify women, Lee intervenes and diffracts the patriarchal views of the male gaze. Her action is blasphemous in that it intentionally goes over the normative frames of representation and refuses to remain in a docile body conforming to the regulations of disciplinary powers to an extent of self-surveillance. Possessing contradictory features as excentric beauty and the grotesque, the monster is an object of sublime as well as abjection, and becomes an embodiment of superior power. After exhibiting her fish work at MoMA, Lee moved away from the images of organic monsters and experiments with cyborg figures. The source of her inspiration turned toward Japanese cartoons and animation. The blue/red girlish cyborgs with incomplete arms and limbs in machine form, nevertheless share the basic compositional features of the traditional human statue. In White Cyborgs cast in polyurethane, the images of a princess and female heroine are combined. and indicate the influence ranging from art history to mass media. The latest version of Lee’ s cyborgs are horrible end-products of science and technology and these cosmic monsters are exemples of the ‘organs without bodies’. Despite being cyborgs, which is normally assumed to be sexually neutral, the works formally allure themselves to be sexually female, and even possess female names. The works are rooted in an

마르셀 브로타스의 미술관

강태희(Kang, Taehi) 한국예술종합학교 미술원 조형연구소 2009 Visual Vol.6 No.-

Nowadays, the expansion and omnipresence of museums is phenomenal and recent museum culture tends to obscure the fact that this phenomenon is historical rather than natural. Accordingly, the recent development of ’museum discourse’ focuses on the revelation and subsequent deconstruction of its ideology and institutionalization, Related institution critique was initiated by the Conceptualist artists in the late 1960s and among them, tv1arcel Broodthaers is a central figure. He established his own museums and used exhibition itself as a medium of inquiry. His interest in museum and its power was caused by the 1968 student revolution in Paris and in Brussels. With fellow artists, he occupied the museum and negotiated with museum officials. After this incident he opened his own museum in his own house in Brussels and called it Museum of Modern Art, Department of Eagle. 19-century Section, Eagle was the symbol of the authority and power of art. The museum continued to be open for 4 years changing the location and name, W it was an imaginary and discontinuous one. The final manifestation of the museum is at the Kunsthalle, Düsseldorf in 1972. Almost 300 images of eagles from all periods and in all media were collected from various other museums and collections under the heading ‘The Eagle from the Oligocene to the Present.’ Each image was labelled “This is not a work of art” in English. French, or German. The formula was obtained by the contraction of a concept by Duchamp and tv1agritte. By this, he underlined the principle of authority and asked who decide art and with whose consensus. By reversing Duchamp’s readymade concept he criticized Duchamp’s generalization of art and by denying Magritte, he tried to recover the objecthood of things. He was invited to the 《Documenta 5》 in 1972 and on that occasion, closed his museum for good. His last exhibition was also about the issue of who is responsible for the definition of art. Although his museums were fictions and the eagle exhibition was a kind of farce. his desire to reveal and thus to investigate the ideology of museum and of the exhibition methodology is a valuable contribution to museum discourse.

추상과 죽음

강태희(Taehi Kang) 현대미술사학회 2012 현대미술사연구 Vol.0 No.31

Andy Warhol’s last signed works before his death were the photo editions of 〈Skeletons〉 sent to 『Parkett』 for publication. And one month after the opening of the blockbuster exhibition 《The Last Supper》 in Milan, silkscreened versions of Leonard’s work, he passed away. His death was sudden and nobody expected it including Warhol himself, but these two incidents remind us that Warhol’s lifelong subject had been death. The critical opinions on Warhol’s late period from the 1970’s to his death can be summarized with the expression ‘post-lapsarian Warhol’ and this period was synonymous with indifference and bad reputation so far. But contrary to the general consensus that Warhol was finished as an artist, he was trying his hand to new abstract paintings and struggled to regain the status of avantgarde artist. Even though he produced lots of works during this period, most of them were not shown in America until his death and thus his final years were considered trivial. After his untimely death, a couple of exhibitions focused on his late works revealed the importance of this period to his whole career as a painter, and the critical attentions have been paid to Warhol’s last years recently. Warhol had a farewell exhibition in 1966 to pursue the filmmaker’s life but resumed painting in 1972. But comeback show with 〈Mao〉 partraits, 《Hammer and Sickles》 and 《Andy Warhol’s Portraits of the 70s》 were all badly received, and he was forced to do something new and different. Starting with the 〈Skull〉 series, which were the continuation of the ‘death and disaster’ theme in the early 60s, he produced impressive body of works such as 〈Shadow〉, 〈Oxidation〉, 〈Rorschach〉, and 〈Camouflage〉. All these late works are abstract and death-related since they deal with the body’s disappearance and ultimate demise. Warhol’s late works can be summarized with two key words; abstraction and death. He freely expressed his affinity to Abstract Expressionism and was influenced by the abstract qualities of the silkscreen printing process which are quite explicit in the works like 〈Electric Chair〉 for example. The first important trial to abstraction was the 〈Shadows〉, in which only the broad brushmarks were the contents. 〈Oxidation〉 was made with urinal over the still wet canvas mixed with metal particles, and the 〈Rorschach〉 was adopted to test the boundary between the figurative and the abstract, and abstract and decorative. For 〈Camouflage〉, he appropriated the military camouflage patterns and this series was perfect as the posthumous testament and best conclusion to his career.

이우환의 신체

강태희(Kang Taehi) 현대미술사학회 2000 현대미술사연구 Vol.10 No.-

문헌소개 Ⅰ: 리챠드 쉽 著, 『세잔과 인상주의의 종말』 : 현대미술의 이론, 테크닉, 그리고 비평적 평가에 관한 연구

강태희(Taehi Kang) (서평자) 서양미술사학회 1989 서양미술사학회논문집 Vol.1 No.-

마르셀 브로타스의 미술관

강태희(Kang Taehi) 서양미술사학회 2000 서양미술사학회논문집 Vol.13 No.-

Nowadays, the expansion and omnipresence of museums is phenomenal and recent museum culture tends to obscure the fact that this phenomenon is historical rather than natural. Accordingly, the recent development of ‘museum discourse’ focuses on the revelation and subsequent deconstruction of its ideology and institutionalization, Related institution critique was initiated by the Conceptualist artists in the late 1960s and among them, Marcel Broodthaers is a central figure. He established his own museums and used exhibition itself as a medium of inquiry. His interest in museum and its power was caused by the 1968 student revolution in Paris and in Brussels. With fellow artists, he occupied the museum and negotiated with museum officials. After this incident he opened his own museum in his own house in Brussels and called it Museum of Modern Art, Department of Eagle, 19-century Section, Eagle was the symbol of the authority and power of art. The museum continued to be open for 4 years changing the location and name, but it was an imaginary and discontinuous one. The final manifestation of the museum is at the Kunsthalle, Dusseldorf in 1972. Almost 300 images of eagles from all periods and in all media were collected from various other museums and collections under the heading ‘The Eagle from the Oligocene to the Present.’ Each image was labelled “This is not a work of art’ in English, French, or German. The formula was obtained by the contraction of a concept by Duchamp and Magritte. By this, he underlined the principle of authority and asked who decide art and with whose consensus. By reversing Duchamp’s readymade concept he criticized Duchamps generalization of art and by denying Magritte, he tried to recover the objecthood of things. He was invited to the Documenta 5 in 1972 and on that occasion, closed his museum for good, His last exhibition was also about the issue of who is responsible for the definition of art. Although his museums were fictions and the eagle exhibition was a kind of farce, his desire to reveal and thus to investigate the ideology of museum and of the exhibition methodology is a valuable contribution to museum discourse.

미국의 페미니스트 미술과 이론

강태희(Taehi Kang) 서양미술사학회 1990 서양미술사학회논문집 Vol.2 No.-

Feminist art movement in America, which was motivated by the rising tide of feminism in general in late 1960s, has been one of the most vital issues of present art world since its inception. The feminist artists, critics, and historians fought against the inequity and tried to change the status of women artists which had been marginalized, if not completely omitted, in the history of art until very recently. In the 70s, the East Coast feminists concentrated on the protest-oriented public activities, while the West Coast artists fostered female imagery and sensibilities under the initiative of Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro. The latter cultivated ‘vaginal images’ and cherished ‘separatism,’ which was widely criticized by many. As the result of the feminist movement, the first a few woman-artist exibitions were organazed, woman-artists exibition spaces were created, and a few feminist art publications were issued. Feminist artists attempted to raise women’s consciousness, and some created female images and others elevated women’s craft to high art. Feminist performances and rituals were also presented, and some artists protested against the exploitation of woman as sex object by substituting male nudes for female ones. The initial action-oriented movement in the 70s gave way to theories in the 80s, and despite the wide-spread optimism in early 80s, feminist movement suffered a setback in 80s because of the general reactionary and conservative mood of Reagun era. The feminist theoreticians in the 80s were influenced by European theories and methodologies. They criticized the hierarchy of art history and the male concepts of ‘greatness’ and ‘mainstream’ in art. They argued that old art history with women added is not a real solution, and attempted to critique and analyse the established art thinking. At this point, it is too early to evaluate what feminism has really accomplished, and since it is still a vital movement, its full impact on male-dominated art history is yet to be seen.