This month I look at the work of Joo, Myong-dok as seen in his book Korean Traditions — as seen through paper windows, 1981, Seoul International Tourist Publishing Company, Seoul, Korea. And as with last month’s article it will be based solely on this book as I have seen nothing he has produced before nor after.

In Korean Traditions Mr Joo states that his main objective is to give his children--perhaps all the children of Korea--a photographic archive, a legacy in black and white, to keep them mindful of times that were quickly passing by. And I applaud him for this statement, for this is the book’s main value. The work is a more or less matter-of-fact presentation, it reads almost as a catalog of things Korean. And with it’s format to heighten this reading, it could be used as a primer for understanding some aspects of Korean culture. The work is sectioned off into eight categories: Beliefs, Through Windows, Along the Walls, Villages, Children, Families, Nature, and Heritage, all of this followed by nine pages of explanation of the content presented. And while there are certain moments of visual beauty, the form of the presentation and the inconsistency in visual style make the work read as a simple presentation of fact.

This is not necessarily a negative criticism. There is a place for this kind of work, with it’s insistence of matter-of-fact presentation, and it is a very important place. And while I wouldn’t suggest this book for it’s photographic style, it is a wonderful exposition of Korean lifestyle as it occurred in the recent past--as it had existed with little change through decades, perhaps centuries, on this peninsula. For though one can see traditional living in folk villages and museums, there is nothing like this photographic memoir to remind us that, in the very recent past, this lifestyle was not confined to such rarefied spaces. It serves as an important reminder of the living conditions the last generation endured, and in this time of IMF depression it would be a timely reminder that things could be much harder than they are. I recently saw an exhibition of photographs taken in Taegu (where I live) in the 1960’s and 70’s, and it is astonishing to see how much change has taken place in this city in a mere 30 years or so. The change in Korea has been at such a pace that works like Korean Traditions become a core documentation of the rapid modernization and the perhaps frightful speed at which it has occurred.

And frightful is the key word here. In my limited time here I am continually reminded how much has changed within the span of just one generation. And it seems there is a fear that there is a lack of continuity, a question of enduring identity for the youth of this country. It has also become apparent that there is a great pressure for artists to look to the west for inspiration, for artists to produce for a more “worldly” art market and produce work for a western sensibility. And I understand this desire, a simply regional style can only serve to increase the isolation that Korea has endured and in many ways cultivated for the past 4,000 years or so. But in the rush to become more understandable--read more acceptable--to a western eye, there is a possibility of an erasure of what makes Korean art special in it’s own right. And that is exactly why things like the recent exhibition of Korean decorative paintings at Ho-Am Art Museum, and works like Korean Traditions are a necessity, perhaps now more than ever. But while I applaud the traditional content of Mr Joo’s work, the style of the imaging is a hodgepodge of straight forward (call it anthropological) documentation, western documentary style, and a more or less Asian stylization reminiscent of Korean traditional painting. And it is this inconsistency that makes the book less than memorable as a photographic work.

In part one, Beliefs, we mostly see representations of two major religious traditions. Except for a prehistoric dolmen that may have come from early inhabitants of a Caucasian ancestry, this section is split in two: Shamanism and Buddhism. There are images of Shamanist totems, a mudang, Buddhist monks and temples, and other items of ritual importance. And these images are all explained (if briefly) in the last section of the book. The images, as I’ve stated, range in style from anthropological representations to a typical western stylization reminiscent of Henri Cartier-Bresson or Don McCullen without the finesse. But the image that strikes me most in this section is a somewhat understated image of Buddhist inscriptions that seem to be cut into stone. In this image there is an express tension between the two dimensional surface and the three dimensional plane that we’ve come to expect in a photographic image. While this tension occurs at times throughout the book, it is here that I revel in Mr Joo’s photographic prowess. The reason I have such a strong reaction to this image is the way it’s reminiscent of Korean decorative painting. The columns of text take on a spiritual significance beyond what is written, and their shape reminds me of landscape painting from over a century ago. But beyond all these metaphoric cues, there is an attention to detail that is truly admirable. The image has what I like to term an “all over” composition. What I mean by that is that there is an attention to every inch of the image area. It seems every square centimeter of the frame has importance, and this is what makes the image special. Now one might say this kind of attention can be seen in the work of such famous photographers as Frederick Sommer and Paul Capinigro, but it was through their knowledge of Asian art that they came to such a style in the first place.

In the second section, Through Windows, we more of the 3d/2d tension. In fact this whole section, six images in all, is about this tension. There are two images, shown in succession, that truly embrace the intensity and “all over” compositional attention as seen in the image mentioned before. The images show the front facades of two houses, contrasting their styles in their architecture, the landscaping, and the types of tools used in the running of the households. The details and the photographic style, make these images stand out both for their information and visual acuity.

The attention to specifics makes this section, along with the next two, probably the most anthropological in the book. Here we see a concentrated study of the particulars that make up the everyday. Stone-mud walls, thatched and tile roofs, rough cut paper windows, lattice doors, bamboo and reed tools, stone basins, and one long shot that places these all in context, give the audience a real sense of what things might have been like in the not too distant past.

Section five, Children, is for me the least interesting of the book. For while I can appreciate the smiling or sometimes somber faces of the children portrayed, and I can read a lot into the postures and clothing, I don’t find anything too revealing in the expressions and there is little extraneous information to read into. Nor do I find anything wonderful about the style of the images produced.

The next section, Families, is filled with the things the last section lacks. The first seven images, group photos of entire families, are reminiscent of traveling anthropologist’s work, or FSA and itinerant photographers’ work from the US in the 1930’s and 40’s. They allow me a view into the lives of the people portrayed by not only letting me read into their faces, but seeing enough about their lives to give me an indication of who they were, what they did, and how they lived their lives. I can read family dynamics into the stances and postures; I take interest their style of dress, their tools, and the conditions in which they live. The images are moving on both a personal level and in their richness of information. The other photos in this section are interesting, both for the faces, postures, and dress styles, but they don’t have the kind of richness of the former.

The last two sections, Nature and Heritage, round out the work to give a sense of place and history to the work. These sections are filled with beautiful images of the land and historical monuments and offer a wonderful perspective in which to place the culture portrayed. The final photo in the book, an image of a collection of stone Buddhist icons all of which are damaged--all but one beheaded--is very telling. It works as an anchor to the book and keeps us mindful of the damage that can be done through carelessness, a metaphor for the possibility of loss if tradition is treated in the same way. It reminds me of a statement I read recently: Without tradition the future dies.

Taken on whole, the work delivers what it intends. It gives a sense of history, time and place, to a Korea that was rapidly fading away. From the first images to the last we are given a fairly inclusive view into the culture. The work has no undertones (nor overtones) of sentimentality nor a wish that things should be that way again. And while this may, in some ways, lead to a lack of visual beauty, I would take this work hands down over a work that glosses over the problems of the past, making it seem like the world was once a wonderful place and gee wouldn’t it be nice to go back there. After the images there is a section that gives us a somewhat brief introduction to the iconography contained within, and it’s a good compliment to the work for those with little knowledge of Korean culture. I wish this section was expanded for even with my limited knowledge it was of little use. If this work was made for education there should also be a bibliography to help those who wish to know more. And if I have one strong criticism of the book, it’s that it seems to waffle between being a book of fact and education, and being a book of photography. It is somewhat satisfying as either.

But Korean Traditions — as seen through paper windows is also a strange object, and it would be remiss of me not to mention this. Though it is a fairly straightforward publication, it’s oddness comes from the fact that it was produced with solely English text. Even though the opening statement from Mr Joo says his intention is to leave something for his children, he must be speaking of his work on whole, for the lack of Korean text lead me to conclude this book was conceived for a mostly for a foreign audience. And in fact it was. Published to coincide with an exhibition that was held in Japan, the decision to use English text--I’m told--was to offer the audience access that the Korean language would all but nullify. And this is reasonable since, due to the US’s economic power, more people learn English as a second language than any other language--much to the dismay of the French who’s language used to be the official international language, and the Spanish who’s language is spoken by people in more countries than any other.

But this fact leaves me a bit uneasy. It’s not specifically the use of English that bothers me, it’s that it signals a larger concern. Sure, I understand the pressure to make one’s work accessible, but the fear I have is as stated above: there is a pressure to please the west--and more specifically to please US audiences. There is an extremely western aesthetic in photography, and while this is in some ways understandable it must be suspect. Photography was invented in France and England and was made accessible to the masses through the work of Mr Eastman of Kodak fame. And the viewpoint a camera gives follows Renaissance perspective, again a western invention. So it’s only natural for a photographic image to follow some form of this stylization. But that doesn’t mean there can’t be a way of seeing that works against, or perhaps along with, that insistence on a western view. I guess the challenge is to find a way to image the world that feels natural, that makes an amalgam and allows a regional way of seeing into the parameters of a western technology. There has to be a denial to fit one’s work into an aesthetic that is foreign. I don’t pretend to know what a Korean aesthetic would look like, but I do know that if western culture is serious about the push for a “multi-cultural” world (as opposed to a one world mentality, or a “new world order”), people will have to educate themselves to the work presented rather than the work having to bend to the aesthetics of those in power.

Ken Marchionno ©1998

“Paper Windows,” Sajin Yaesul, Seoul, Korea, Aug, 1998