Performing Through the Lens: The Role of Press Photography in Kang-ja Jung’s Feminist Avant-Garde Art and Political Activism in Postwar South Korea
Presentation Type
Presentation
Start Date
8-3-2025 3:20 AM
Description
Dr. Sooran Choi, Assistant Professor of Art History, University of Vermont, U.S.A.
Performing Through the Lens: The Role of Press Photography in Kang-ja Jung’s Feminist Avant-Garde Art and Political Activism in Postwar South Korea
In the late 1960s and ’70s, Kang-ja Jung emerged as a radical feminist artist in South Korea’s avant-garde through her involvement in Happenings that featured her body and nudity. Central to her practice was the strategic use of press and media photography, which documented and shaped public reception of her performances during a time when cameras were a relative luxury in South Korea. Her work’s representation was filtered through the country’s desire to align with global art trends and its conservative media. This seeming lack of agency and control over how her work was received became an advantage for Jung. The media’s reframing of her as part of the cutting-edge global avant-garde, combined with their sensational focus on her nudity, distanced her radical political intentions from direct scrutiny. Jung skillfully used these depictions to blur the boundaries between art and political activism— categories that were largely separate in South Korea at the time. By allowing the media to distort the radical aspects of her work, she subverted censorship while continuing to engage in politically charged acts. The government even exploited scandalized or sexualized media narratives to divert attention from political issues, further protecting Jung’s work.
Amid South Korea's strict societal and governmental censorship, the mediated photographic record—though perceived as realistic—helped Jung avoid full accountability for the political implications of her performances and the associated risks of censorship or punishment. By allowing the press to filter her work through their biases, she skillfully balanced exposure with protection. This paper examines how Jung used media photography as a protective layer, employing press distortion to veil her radical intentions while challenging the boundaries of acceptable discourse in Cold War-era, Neo-Confucian South Korea, aligning her work with the global feminist avant-garde while navigating the country’s conservative socio-political climate.
Dr. Sooran Choi, Assistant Professor of Art and Art History at the University of Vermont, specializes in decolonization within avant-garde discourse, global feminism, and ecocriticism, focusing on contemporary East Asian art. Her book manuscript, Zombie Avant-Gardes: Subterfuge in Postwar South Korean Art, examines interdisciplinary artistic exchanges post-WWII, challenging center-periphery binaries through a postcolonial lens. Her work seeks to decolonize avant-garde frameworks by situating South Korean postwar art within its socio-political and cultural contexts. Her publications include “Manifestations of a Zombie Avant-Garde” (Rebus, 2020), “Camouflaged Dissent” (Multiple Modernisms, Routledge, 2021), and “Korean Shamanism in Action/Art” (Religion and the Arts, Brill, 2023). Dr. Choi received the 2018 CAA Professional Development Fellowship, alongside grants from The Academy of Korean Studies and the Mellon Foundation for launching the Cross-Ethno-Gender Korean/Asian Studies Initiative (CEGKASI) to promote cross-disciplinary Korean studies in 2023.
Relational Format
Conference proceeding
Recommended Citation
Choi, Sooran, "Performing Through the Lens: The Role of Press Photography in Kang-ja Jung’s Feminist Avant-Garde Art and Political Activism in Postwar South Korea" (2025). Women of Photography: A 24-Hour Conference-a-thon Celebrating International Women’s Day 2025. 11.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/womenofphotography/2025/schedule/11
Performing Through the Lens: The Role of Press Photography in Kang-ja Jung’s Feminist Avant-Garde Art and Political Activism in Postwar South Korea
Dr. Sooran Choi, Assistant Professor of Art History, University of Vermont, U.S.A.
Performing Through the Lens: The Role of Press Photography in Kang-ja Jung’s Feminist Avant-Garde Art and Political Activism in Postwar South Korea
In the late 1960s and ’70s, Kang-ja Jung emerged as a radical feminist artist in South Korea’s avant-garde through her involvement in Happenings that featured her body and nudity. Central to her practice was the strategic use of press and media photography, which documented and shaped public reception of her performances during a time when cameras were a relative luxury in South Korea. Her work’s representation was filtered through the country’s desire to align with global art trends and its conservative media. This seeming lack of agency and control over how her work was received became an advantage for Jung. The media’s reframing of her as part of the cutting-edge global avant-garde, combined with their sensational focus on her nudity, distanced her radical political intentions from direct scrutiny. Jung skillfully used these depictions to blur the boundaries between art and political activism— categories that were largely separate in South Korea at the time. By allowing the media to distort the radical aspects of her work, she subverted censorship while continuing to engage in politically charged acts. The government even exploited scandalized or sexualized media narratives to divert attention from political issues, further protecting Jung’s work.
Amid South Korea's strict societal and governmental censorship, the mediated photographic record—though perceived as realistic—helped Jung avoid full accountability for the political implications of her performances and the associated risks of censorship or punishment. By allowing the press to filter her work through their biases, she skillfully balanced exposure with protection. This paper examines how Jung used media photography as a protective layer, employing press distortion to veil her radical intentions while challenging the boundaries of acceptable discourse in Cold War-era, Neo-Confucian South Korea, aligning her work with the global feminist avant-garde while navigating the country’s conservative socio-political climate.
Dr. Sooran Choi, Assistant Professor of Art and Art History at the University of Vermont, specializes in decolonization within avant-garde discourse, global feminism, and ecocriticism, focusing on contemporary East Asian art. Her book manuscript, Zombie Avant-Gardes: Subterfuge in Postwar South Korean Art, examines interdisciplinary artistic exchanges post-WWII, challenging center-periphery binaries through a postcolonial lens. Her work seeks to decolonize avant-garde frameworks by situating South Korean postwar art within its socio-political and cultural contexts. Her publications include “Manifestations of a Zombie Avant-Garde” (Rebus, 2020), “Camouflaged Dissent” (Multiple Modernisms, Routledge, 2021), and “Korean Shamanism in Action/Art” (Religion and the Arts, Brill, 2023). Dr. Choi received the 2018 CAA Professional Development Fellowship, alongside grants from The Academy of Korean Studies and the Mellon Foundation for launching the Cross-Ethno-Gender Korean/Asian Studies Initiative (CEGKASI) to promote cross-disciplinary Korean studies in 2023.
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