법과 예술 - 조영남 사건으로 본 주리스토크라시(Juristocracy)

Abstract

Disputes around the ghostwriting of Cho Youngnam’s painted works on hwatu have come to face judicial judgment. Would it be desirable to evaluate it as “realization of the rule of law” when it comes to the law intervening in the domains of literature and the arts? This paper is aimed to criticize the rapidly growing tendencies where people rush to the police and to courts to find legal solutions, while it should actually be discussed and resolved within the domains of literature and the arts. Along with the disputes over Shin Kyungsook and Chun Kyoungja, Cho Youngnam case demonstrates a decent opportunity to reflect upon judicial activism toward literature and the arts in relation to the question of what art is or what an author is in the field of contemporary arts and aesthetics. No barriers are to be welcomed to resist the rule of law—one of the most rational institutions alongside democracy—from being firmly established in society. Nevertheless, in the fields where autonomy plays a critical role, especially in the world of academia and the arts, indiscriminate attempts to appeal to or to find a settlement from the law give rise to concerns of hindering sound growth of relevant areas. Unfortunately, Korea’s legal culture has grown too fast to experience rationalism, thus rapidly displaying abysmal aspects of the law, namely instrumentalism; the trend of jurisdiction’s excessively widening its boundaries across the domains of literature and the arts is growing to an extent to hamper development of literature and the arts. Cho Youngnam case surely is a proper subject to embody such abstract and general issues. Provided that the rule of law barges into the areas of literature and the arts in the name of “judicialization of the arts,” society may turn into what George Orwell had predicted. In order not to pursue a barren world without the arts but full of jurisdiction, sparing literature and the arts from Juristocracy—neatly dressed up in the name of the rule of law—is imperative.