민중미술: 「원시(原始)를 꿈꾸다」, 바타이유(G. Bataille)와 루카치(G. Lukács) 사상으로 접목 고찰

Abstract

In 1980‘s, Korean painters such as Kim Jung-heun, Kim Kyong-in, Son Jang-sup, Joo Jae-hwan, Oh Yoon, Lim Ok-Sang, Lee Jong-Gu, who witnessed Gwangju Massacre in May 1980, began to represent these terrible scenes in their arts. The movement is called 'Minjung Art'. This research explores the characteristics and meanings of the Minjoong Art, primarily considering the relationship between art and Korean political situation in the 80's. Korea has depended on and been protected by the world superpower America after its liberation from Japan by the aid of American military force. This situation has deeply affected Korean people that they have identified Americanization with capitalism, industrialization, and modernization. Minjung Artists thought that Korea has become a new colony of American economy, culture, art and politics. That is why Minjung Art was strongly motivated by the anti-colonial, and anti-American ideas. Minjung Art is a Socialist Art based on the Marx-Lenin theories. As such, it has its root in the philosophy of Gyögy Lukács. In this paper, I attempt to illuminate the theoretical relationship between the Gyögy Lukács, Georges Bataille and Minjung Art. Gyögy Lukács, an influential literary and art critic of the twentieth century, was a Post-Marxist who pointed out the capability of Realist Art to confront an objective reality that exists in the world. Georges Bataille, a French writer, economist, and sociologist, was a member of the extremely influential 'College of Sociology' in France. For them, work was the foundation for knowledge and ration. In the primitive times, Art was a work. Bataille believed that the making of tools and weapons was the departure point for that early faculty of ration, which humanized the animals we once had been. It is obviously work that made him a human being, the reasonable animal we are. Bataille thought that if it is true that work is our origin, if it is true that work is the key to humanity, human beings would eventually distance themselves completely from animality through work. Minjung Art did not aim at the revolution of social reality but to be an ideological art seeking for the reforms of the society that grants freedom for the people.