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CONTEMPORARY KOREAN ART: Tansaekhwa and the Urgency of Method. By Joan Kee. Minneapolis; London: University of Minnesota Press, 2013. vii, 347pp. (Figures.) US$39.95, paper-. ISBN978-08166-7988-1.
Recently, a certain type of Korean abstract painting has been commanding prices of well over half a million dollars. Called "Tansaekhwa" on the international art market, this art genre's success has spurred unprecedented attention to its style, both in academic and artistic commercial circles. Contemporary Korean Art: Tansaekhwa and the Urgency of Method by Joan Kee provides timely information on this group of painters and their Tansaekhwa works. Kee eloquently historicizes the development and practice of Tansaekhwa, a sub-genre of broader artistic trends in Korea dating to the 1970s. Kee argues that the Tansaekhwa painters' lack of explicit expression in sociopolitical space under South Korea's repressive regimes marginalized and ostracized them from the country's artistic mainstream. She distinguishes Tansaekhwa's abstract works from both the Western and Japanese Mono-ha abstract paintings, arguing that Tansaekhwa's "inverted teleology" demonstrates instead strong ties with the historical and cultural particularities of Korea.
The Tansaekhwa paintings' historical agony and sociopolitical complexes stem from the fact that the genre was born, practiced, and developed predominantly during the 1970s and 1980s, when socially expressive arts, i.e., "participatory arts," prevailed in South...