Shin Hak-chul (, b. Keishōhoku-dō, 12 December 1943) is a representative South Korean minjung artist known for his photo collage and montage works on Korean modern and contemporary history and social injustice. Shin Hak-chul trained in oil painting and applied modernist techniques to realist themes in the 1970s to create a unique style of history painting from the 1980s.
From the democratic movements of the 1980s, Shin focused on creating works that directly addressed history as experienced by the Korean masses and criticize imperialism, political repression, military dictatorship, exploitation of labourers, corruption, capitalism, consumerism, industrialisation, urbanization, as well as cultural imperialism.
Early life and stylistic development Shin Hak-chul was born in Gimcheon County, Keishōhoku-dō, Korea, Empire of Japan on 12 December 1943.
Shin studied oil painting and graduated from Hongik University in 1968.Hyejong Yoo, "Shin Hak-Chul’s Formalistic Realism and Its Corporeal Monumentality," Journal of Korean Modern & Contemporary Art History 37, (2019): 107, 10.46834/jkmcah.2019.07.37.101 In addition to his career as an artist, he taught painting in high schools from the 1970s to the 1980s.
He became a member of the Korean avant-garde artist group, "AG", and took part in group exhibitions from 1969 to 1975.Sim Gwang-hyeon, "Hanguk geunhyeondaesa ui yeoksajeok teurauma wa hoehwajeok jeongsin bunseok," in Minjung Misul, yeoksa reul deutneunda 1 (Seoul: Hyeonsil minhwa A, 2017), 145. His early works of the 1970s such as The City I Live In (내가 사는 도시, 1967) and Emergency Escape (비상탈출, 1971) show signs of influence from pop art and surrealism.Han, Jaesub, "A Study on Shin Hak-chul’s The Series of Korean Modern·Contemporary History," Journal of Korean Modern & Contemporary Art History 22, (2011): 267. However, over time he created a ‘postmodernist realism’ that combined the principles and forms of modernist art with the realism art movement.
Though he was a member of AG, Shin was not completely absorbed with modernist styles, he was also drawn to works by Raphael (1483-1520) and Jean-François Millet (1814-1875) which emphasised the reality of life.Kim Hyeon-hwa, Minjung misul (Paju: Hangilsa, 2021), 166.Kim Jae-won, "1970-nyeondae Hanguk ui sahoe bipanjeok misul hyeonsang: Hyeonsil Dongin eseo Hyeonsil Gwa Baleon hyeongseong ggagji," in Hanguk hyeondae misul 197080, ed. Hanguk Hyeondae Misulsa Yeon-guhoe (Seoul: Hakyeon Munhwasa, 2004), 49.
After the disbandment of AG in 1975 and his own departure from formal modernism, he freely utilised photorealism, surrealism, montage, and collage using commercial images from advertisements and journalistic photographs in formulating his style of history paintings to raise awareness on what he considered to be the evils of Korean society from the 1980s.Kim Hyeon-hwa, Minjung misul (Paju: Hangilsa, 2021), 166-167. His series, Modern Korean History (한국근대사, 1980–1987) of the 1980s and Contemporary Korean History (한국현대사, 1988–1998) of the 1990s form the main branch of his works.Seo Yuri, "Comparative Research on Space and Quarterly Art (1978-1983): The Structural Shift of Korean Modern Artistic Field," Journal of Korean Modern & Contemporary Art History 42, (2021): 379, 10.46834/jkmcah.2021.12.42.353Hyejong Yoo, "Shin Hak-Chul’s Formalistic Realism and Its Corporeal Monumentality," Journal of Korean Modern & Contemporary Art History 37, (2019): 105, 10.46834/jkmcah.2019.07.37.101 Shin was heavily impacted by Sajin euro bon Hanguk 100-nyeonsa (), a book published by Donga Ilbo that exposed the devastating reality faced by Korean peasants and labourers in the late 1970s. Shin held his first solo exhibition at Seoul Museum () in 1982, was invited to participate in Seoul Arts Center's group exhibition series, 'Critical Artists' (문제작가, 1981–1984), and was selected the first recipient of the Art Journalist Award () that was awarded by reporters of daily newspapers.Lee Ju-heon, "Minjung misul ui munhwasajeok uimi: 'Minjung misul 15-nyeon' jeon eul bogo," Munhak gwa sahoe 7, no. 2 (May 1994): 881.
There was a sharp divide in the Korean art scene from the 1970s to the 1980s; on one side were Korean abstract artists and on the other, minjung artists.Korean Culture and Arts Foundation and Hexa Communications, Korean Contemporary Art (Seoul: Hexa Communications, 1995), 39. Shin employed realism in his artworks to raise awareness on the injustice lived by the social classes that were neglected from mainstream social, political, and economic developments and decision-making. Like many other minjung artists, Shin recognized the importance of visual imagery in mass media as a vessel of communication with the masses and collaged images from women's magazines to deliver direct messages of criticism.Shin Hak-chul and Park Chan-gyeong, "Shin Hak-chul: Seomin ui yeoksa reul geurinda," Munhak gwahak, no. 19 (September 1999): 223–45. However, unlike the majority of minjung artists, Shin employed Western painting styles and photography in his works, which was criticised by the majority of his contemporaries.Han, Jaesub, "A Study on Shin Hak-chul’s The Series of Korean Modern·Contemporary History," Journal of Korean Modern & Contemporary Art History 22, (2011): 255. In experimenting with more conventional styles used in minjung art, Shin drew inspiration from the kitsch and photorealist paintings hung up on barber shops and painted Rice Planting (모내기, 1987, repainted in 1993) that formed part of Modern Korean History series.Sim Gwang-hyeon, "Hanguk geunhyeondaesa ui yeoksajeok teurauma wa hoehwajeok jeongsin bunseok," in Minjung Misul, yeoksa reul deutneunda 1 (Seoul: Hyeonsil minhwa A, 2017), 150,156.
Approach to Minjung issues The violent oppression of the Gwangju Democratic Movement of May 1980 fuelled the so-called Minjung Cultural Movement (Minjung munhwa undong, 민중문화운동) which encompassed fields of history, aesthetics, philosophy, humanities, religion, media, and education, but the visual arts was the most powerful and pragmatic means to navigating the direction of the cultural movement.Kim Hyeon-hwa, Minjung misul (Paju: Hangilsa, 2021), 10-11. The movement saw the Korean public or masses as the protagonists of history and was focused on studying the social value and lives of labourers, farmers, the urban poor, with the ultimate goal of developing and strengthening the collective struggle against the social elite and to achieve political and cultural resistance.Kim Hyeon-hwa, Minjung misul (Paju: Hangilsa, 2021), 11.
Shin Hak-chul had supple knowledge on Western modern and contemporary art and socio-political issues and incorporated this to his critiques on the prevalent cultural imperialism that accompanied the rise of capitalism, consumerism, Industrialisation, and Westernization in South Korea in the 1980s after a wave of rapid economic development. He was particularly critical of the American influence in South Koreans and regarded global companies and mass-produced commodities as an embodiment of economic neo-imperialism.Kim Hyeon-hwa, Minjung misul (Paju: Hangilsa, 2021), 156, 167. In his series, Modern Korean History and Contemporary Korean History, Shin used vivid, realistic visual images to portray the explicit reality of Korean society in which American products and fetishism has overtaken the minds of the Korean 'minjok' (민족, 民族, nation, people) and transformed society into an inferno.Kim Hyeon-hwa, Minjung misul (Paju: Hangilsa, 2021), 167. Shin Hak-chul traces the origin of these threats to South Korean governance tainted by the travesty of the Korean War (1950-1953), which was in turn, caused by the history of colonial occupation by Japanese Imperialist forces.
Like the majority of minjung artists, Shin also particularly criticized capitalism and the dangers it posed as an American neo-imperialist force in Korean society. Mass production and consumption on a national and international scale, the greed and monopoly of international conglomerates, and the subsequent subordination of smaller and weaker economies to the developed Western powers were perceived by minjung artists as the greatest threat to the Korean people, and Shin Hak-chul was in favour of constructing a socialist society where an egalitarian economy was fused with a people-centric nationalistic ideology to enforce an autonomous identity of the South Korean masses.Kim Hyeon-hwa, Minjung misul (Paju: Hangilsa, 2021), 155, 166. The demonization of capitalism, industrialization, and consumerism can be spotted in the majority of Shin's work throughout his career.
Though Shin Hak-chul advocated for the socially neglected and weak, his works have also been subject to criticism in light of his use of women in his painting subjects and in his patriarchical interpretations of progress and resistance. The deep-rooted minjung affiliation to the mother and maternal love also frequent appeared as the subject of Shin Hak-chul's works. In Great Land (대지, 1984), Shin depicts a mother with a determined look on her face, carrying her young son on her back as if she is sprouting from the fertile soil, while the title refers to the idea of 'Mother Earth.' Here, the mother is Park Kyongni (박경리, 朴景利, 1926–2008), celebrated author of the novel series Toji (토지, The Land, 1969–1994), while the son on her back is her son-in-law and poet Kim Chi-ha (1941-2022), known for his active political and cultural resistance against dictatorship from the 1960s.Kim Ui-yeon, "Shin Hak-chul gwa Yun Suk-nam ui jakpum sok e jaehyeon doen eomeonisang: Minjung misul sigi reul jungsim euro," in Hanguk hyeondae misul ilggi (Seoul: Nunbit, 2013), 230. Though Park Kyongni is one of the most well-known and revered author in South Korea to this day, in Shin Hak-chul's painting, she is depicted as a mother, caring and struggling to protect the ‘son,’ Kim Chi-ha. Maternal love, devotion, and dedication for the minjung movement by the nurturing of resistant ‘warriors’ was a common theme in not only minjung art but also Fascist propaganda, and reveal the androcentric perception of women as supplementary devices in minjung art of the 1980s.Kim Hyeon-hwa, Minjung misul (Paju: Hangilsa, 2021), 124. Moreover, his series, Modern Korean History has been accused of fetishization of the female body and phallic representations used to express associations of masculine energy with resistance and heroism.Hyun-Hwa Park, "A Study on the Masculinity Represented in Minjung Art – the dual form of sexual politics of Narcissism and Fetishism -," Journal of Contemporary Art Studies 17, no. 1 (2013): 33-36.
Korean history series