Political Art and Resistance Art – Minouk Lim vs. Sanghee Song vs. Ayoung Kim

1. Deviant Political Art and Resistance Art

The 11th round of The Golden Phoenix invites Minouk Lim (1968), Sanghee Song (1970), and Ayoung Kim (1979). These artists engage in contemporary political art through critical reflections on modernist progress ideologies and utopian constructs, while simultaneously continuing the lineage of historical resistance art through multi-media practices deviating from formalist modernism.

However, their political art is characterized by a refined, non-political or post-political sensibility, and their sense of resistance is aesthetically encoded through metaphor and paraphrase. Additionally, they expand and deepen the realms of contemporary art and feminist art by discursively and practically creating shared ground, focusing on cultural codes of representation, gender, and difference.


2. Minouk Lim, ‘Bartleby Within Me’

Minouk Lim: The Aesthetics of Contemplation and Bypassing
Resistance through Weakness and Idleness
Turning Attention to the History of Concealed Existences

Minouk Lim's socio-political consciousness and critical stance towards the times stem from her everyday life and existential experiences. Consequently, her intensely serious artistic world resonates with human warmth and sensory vibrations. This magnetic pull or human appeal is deeply connected to her contemplative, questioning mindset that lays bare issues without asserting clear-cut conclusions, choosing instead to mull over them thoughtfully. From her unavoidable hesitation emerges a distanced contemplation and the aesthetics of bypassing, allowing latent political consciousness to surface.

Identifying with ‘Bartleby’ from Herman Melville's novel (Bartleby, the Scrivener), Lim becomes another Bartleby who substitutes resistance and refusal with powerlessness, thus transcending politics to become a leap-forward political artist.

Minouk Lim’s artistic career began in the mid-1990s to mid-2000s with the Pijin Collective, a collaboration with Fredric Michon. Her early works, including the provocative Social Meat (1999), were marked by rebellious activism. From 2005 to 2010, a prolific period in her career, she focused on the harmful effects of Korea's accelerated construction boom and new town culture under neoliberalism. Through poetic and narrative documentaries, she explored themes of modernization and uniformity.

New Town Ghost (2005) was the precursor to this era. In this work, a two-member street band consisting of a rapper and a drummer rides a mobile stage truck around the bustling Yeongdeungpo Market area, singing about the contrasting fortunes brought by new town developments. In Portable Keeper (2009), set in Moraenae Market, a lethargic young man carrying useless rods made from discarded items, such as fan blades and faux fur, wanders through the market ruins and construction sites. His presence contrasts with the rapper's vitality, embodying Bartleby’s resistance through apathy and idleness.

S.O.S. - Adopted Discrepancy (2009) and The Weight of Hands (2010) are key works from this period that emphasize theatricality and cinematic elements. In S.O.S., a cruise carrying passengers/viewers passes through three episodes sequentially:

1. A protest by youths shouting, "Leave the nameless things alone,"
2. A couple wandering in search of seclusion,
3. A long-term prisoner’s solitary monologue rejecting conversion.

Meanwhile, a searchlight mounted on the ship illuminates the unvarnished reality of the developing Han River banks. In The Weight of Hands, Lim experiments with perceptual disruptions using jump cuts. A group of people disembark from a tourist bus and explore construction sites along the rainy Han River, following a mysterious figure playing a drum. Inside the bus, mournful passengers pass along the limp body of a woman singing a sorrowful farewell. Images of flowing liquids—river water, rain, and the woman's tears—are captured using infrared thermography, transforming them into sensuous fields of temperature and color. By visualizing the weight of the invisible through luminous hues, Lim resurrects the erased memories of the Han River, once celebrated as a symbol of economic miracle.

Since the 2010s, Lim has shifted her focus to the hidden histories within sensitive political and social issues, such as division, diaspora, war, and violence. Her works from this period involve montage videos that reinterpret political events by appropriating broadcast footage, differing from her earlier staged videos.

In The Possibility of Half (2012), she juxtaposes the funerals of South Korea’s Park Chung-hee and North Korea’s Kim Jong-il, along with the mirrored images of mourning citizens from both countries. By cross-editing these scenes, Lim envisions a future where the two streams of tears, divided by ideology, might connect, imagining the possibility of reconciliation.

Promise of If (2015) reexamines the 1983 live TV program Finding Dispersed Families, which captivated the entire nation. The work captures the suspended moments of hope, despair, and reunion experienced by separated families, reinterpreting this historical event through video and installation art.

In Navigation ID (2014), Lim summoned collective memory and historical catastrophe by relocating a container storing the remains of civilian massacre victims from the Korean War to the forecourt of the Gwangju Biennale. The mourners were greeted by mothers of the victims of the May 18 Gwangju Uprising, connecting those who lost parents in the 1950s with those who lost children in the 1980s. This poignant performance condensed 30 years of history into a visceral, life-affirming event, showcasing Minouk Lim’s distinctive aesthetics of mourning.


3. Sanghee Song, ‘Come Back Alive, Baby’

Sanghee Song: Focusing on Fearful Tragedies
Uncovering Psychological Trauma and Calling Spirits
Finding Hope Amidst Apocalyptic Situations

Sanghee Song examines the symptoms of modernity and modernism, revealing the human oppression internalized by these systems, while simultaneously uncovering the psychological trauma etched like a stigma. As a feminist who challenges patriarchal structures and phallocentric subjects, she critically examines the violence inflicted upon historical victims, the oppressed, marginalized women, minorities, and subalterns positioned outside of power structures. Her work delves into the terrifyingly tragic histories of catastrophic massacres and enforced sexual labor, functioning as a critique of systems, institutions, and civilization itself.

Sanghee Song's early works are characterized by feminist satire that addresses the realities imposed upon women by patriarchal destiny. In Correctional Devices for Success (2001) and Gestures to Become a Good Daughter (2001), she parodies the disciplining of the female body to conform to the ideals of lady-like behavior and the fantasy of being the perfect daughter. She further explores the multifaceted identities of women through a series of staged photographs where she herself becomes the model.

In Floor Cleaning (2002), she rolls on the floor, wrapped tightly in double-sided tape, collecting dust from every corner of the house, representing the domestic female. In Dongducheon (2005), she portrays a woman in the red-light district of Dongducheon, living a life alienated by enforced silence, symbolizing women marginalized by social conventions. A smiling bus conductor with a prosthetic arm, photographed at the pier of Wolmido, symbolizes the submissive woman tamed by patriarchal norms.

After settling in Amsterdam in 2006, Sanghee Song expanded her thematic concerns beyond the self and gender to encompass global issues, broadening her cultural perspective within European society. This shift marked a significant transformation in her artistic world, characterized by a comprehensive use of mixed media, including drawing, text, sound, and video. Notably, her work began to be underpinned by extensive research involving on-site investigation, data collection, and analytical study, leading to larger-scale projects with evolved content and form.

Metamorphoses, Book XVI (2009) symbolizes this transformation. An ambitious creative work, it serves as the final volume of Ovid's Metamorphoses, metaphorically narrating evolutionary transformations of primordial creatures through tales of gods and humans, love, desire, betrayal, and revenge. Set against the backdrop of ancient mythology, Song portrays tragic love stories among imaginary marine creatures, humans, dinosaurs, and whales. By depicting apocalyptic love stories that ultimately end in catastrophe, she warns against ecological destruction caused by petro-capitalism and state power, highlighting humanity’s arrogance and ignorance that could lead to the earth's demise. This eschatological narrative is softened by the artist's delicate pencil animations and poetic narration.

Byeon Gang-soe-ga: In Search of a Person 2016 (2015–2016) is a video installation inspired by the Korean folktale of Byeon Gang-soe and Ong-nyeo. The legend of wandering souls—Byeon Gang-soe, the cursed Ong-nyeo, shamans, musicians, and beggars expelled from society—is interwoven with video sketches and interviews of war prisoners and surviving comfort women who continue to live marginalized lives.

This juxtaposition transforms the narrative into an epic saga that transcends time. As exemplified by Shoes (2011), which re-enacted the 1983 KAL flight incident with abandoned shoes floating eerily on the waters of Sakhalin, Sanghee Song mourns innocent deaths through a ritualistic invocation of spirits, archiving tragic maritime events such as the Sewol Ferry disaster and the Mediterranean refugee crisis using video and text.

Come Back Alive, Baby (2017), presented as her winning piece for the Korea Artist Prize at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, stands as the culmination of Sanghee Song's artistic prowess. This comprehensive video installation expands on-site exploration and research, deepens the political narrative, and elevates aesthetic expression. It creates a multisensory montage environment through archival films, documentary photographs and videos, pencil drawings, text, and sound.

Filmed at concentration camps in Germany and Poland, World War II bunkers in the Netherlands, and nuclear power plants in Korea and abroad, the video footage is displayed across three large screens. Viewers are confronted with the fall of reason and morality, as testified by scenes of nuclear warfare, Auschwitz's mass extermination, the murder of refugees escaping by sea, and human experiments at baby farms.

However, Sanghee Song finds hope amidst these apocalyptic scenes by incorporating the Korean folktale of the Baby Warrior. Twice killed by parents and the state but ultimately resurrected, the baby’s supernatural power is interpreted as a possibility for salvation after the end of the world. Through this déjà vu-like narrative, Sanghee Song envisions feminine healing and peace, discovering humanistic motherhood that yearns for renewal and reconciliation.



4. Ayoung Kim’s ‘Speculative Fiction’

Ayoung Kim: Between Fiction and Nonfiction
Mapping within Global Contexts
Evoking Contemporary Issues and Critiquing Civilization

Ayoung Kim examines historical events, both significant and anecdotal, from modern and contemporary Korean history within the context of global dynamics, mapping their interconnectedness through a unique cartographic practice. Her mapping projects are interpreted as "mental maps" translating psychological processes or as "speculative maps" constructed using dialectical reasoning.

These projects stem from her acute awareness of specific issues related to territorial imperialism, multinational capitalism, and neo-colonialism. By gathering relevant data and reworking it through artistic techniques like montage and bricolage, she creates hybrid music-dramas or videos that blend sound, text, and performance. This process results in a fragmented and disjointed form of "speculative fiction," where fiction and fact, virtuality and reality, past and present, are interwoven.

Since transitioning from photography to video in 2010, Ayoung Kim has focused on reflecting and critiquing the myths of utopia during modernity and their underlying symptoms of imperialist and colonialist ruptures. By tracing the fluid phenomena of modern liquid civilization—characterized by conflicts, assimilation, and transplantation between civilizations—she initially focused on physical modes of transportation such as steamships, trains, and railways.

PH Express (2011) visualizes the equivalence between modernization and colonization brought about by the rapid transportation devices invented to expand imperial territories. Set in the geopolitical context of open-port-era Joseon (Korea), this cinematic narrative explores the dynamics of power among empires at the end of the 19th century.

The title itself refers to a steamship route designed for East Asian plunder, exposing the geopolitical conflicts of the time through the historical incident of Britain’s illegal occupation of Geomun Island’s “Port Hamilton” to counter Russian expansion into Joseon. By dramatizing this lesser-known historical event with satire and imagination, Ayoung Kim presaged her unique speculative fiction style, blurring the lines between fiction and nonfiction.

Zephir: Whale Oil from the Hanging Gardens, Shell (2014–2015) is a three-part sound drama that adapts speculative fiction into a musical theater format. This work centers on petroleum, the modern energy resource, exploring various dimensions related to its use, including the history of bitumen, petro-capitalism, and the expansion of Korean construction companies into the Middle East. To create a non-contextualized narrative, Kim developed a simple algorithm resembling a digital chance operation, generating unpredictable and indeterminate storytelling.

The subtitle, "Whale Oil from the Hanging Gardens," derived from the name "Zephir" (bitumen in the Old Testament), is an example of the arbitrary output produced by her algorithm. Using a montage script co-authored with the algorithm, Kim combined the compositions of contemporary musicians with dialogues and choruses. In Version 3, presented at the 56th Venice Biennale, she experimented with a synesthetic music drama by incorporating visual elements, reinterpreting and evolving the work.

Ayoung Kim's speculative fiction reached its zenith in Porosity Valley 1: Portable Holes (2017) and Porosity Valley 2: Trickster Plot (2019). The concept of "porosity" originated from contemplating the emptying geological layers created by petroleum extraction. The movement of matter through these porous spaces metaphorically evokes contemporary issues of refugee migration and data mobility, triggering Kim's imaginative creativity. By juxtaposing geological porosity with human migration and data movement, Kim completes her civilizational critique, linking modern colonialism with contemporary neo-colonialism.

Porosity Valley is a form of speculative science fiction that depicts the arduous migration of "Petra Genetrix," a mythological creature and metaphorical entity representing underground minerals, symbolizing perpetual movement. In Porosity Valley 2, Petra's existence is analogized to the Yemeni refugees who sought asylum in Korea, adding a layer of contemporary reality to Kim's speculative fiction. In Porosity Valley 1, Petra merges with its clone before disappearing into an unknown realm. In Porosity Valley 2, Petra escapes a migration center and encounters "Mother Rock," a transcendent entity embodying the totality of data, culminating in a fantastical union.

The self-identical merging of the genderless Petra or its queer union with the Mother Rock is interpreted not as dystopian apocalypticism but as a sublime narrative where ancient mythology and digital fables converge. From this perspective, Porosity Valley as "Speculative Fiction" can ultimately be interpreted as "Speculative Feminism."


5. Subversive Fluidity, Buoyancy, and Mobility

The works of Minouk Lim, Sanghee Song, and Ayoung Kim share a scholarly approach grounded in research and a sensitivity to multi-media aesthetics. They also exhibit a preference for metaphor over literalism and allegory over simile, with a contemplative attitude that reads the present through the lens of historical memory. Additionally, they share an ethical consciousness that listens to the voices of minorities and women, anticipating the return of the oppressed, along with a matured sense of otherness that mourns disaster and death.

Above all, they utilize fluidity, buoyancy, and mobility as feminine mechanisms to dismantle the rigid and ossified walls of patriarchal civilization. Flow, symbolized by the Han River, the deep sea, navigation, and migration, is inherently unstable and non-fixed, but it also carries subversive potential. This is the aesthetic motivation and practical result that align their political and resistant works with feminism.

References

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