한국 현대공예 교육의 시작과 그 특성

Abstract

This study’s premise is that ‘contemporary crafts’ in Korea is a genre that was established by higher education institutions represented by universities, and that ‘contemporary crafts’ began in the 1960s. Based on this premise, this study examined the background in which early contemporary craft education was established within the university system after liberation, and its characteristics. In the late 1950s and the early 1960s, contemporary craft education in Korea began with ceramic education programs led by Hwang Jong-koo at Ewha Womans University and Kwon Soon-hyung at Seoul National University, and the crafts education at Hongik University, which was led by Yoo Kangyul and Won Dae-jeong. Thus, this study traced back the history of the departments and majors at the major universities that served as models for other university programs. Although contemporary craft was derived from the field of ‘Misul-gongye(art-craft),’ which was translated and imported during the Japanese Colonial period, it was established as a field with different characteristics from Misul-gongye. Until the 1950s, the characteristic of art-craft was reflected in university education. Yet, crafts education began to establish itself as a specialized program for training students through practice with material from the 1960s. Educators of contemporary crafts have come to consider themselves as fine-art ‘A’rtists rather than elite artists. They do not define themselves through exposing themselves ‘outward,’ as had been the case in the art-craft era. They now consider themselves prominent modern beings and pioneers and adopters of modern Western culture who express themselves ‘inward.’ For this, the past and traditions were summoned as the other. Such characteristics of early contemporary crafts education became the starting point of the infinitely repeated arguments on craft identity.