Images

Special Feature: Korean Genre Fiction

Special Feature: Korean Genre Fiction

Self-Portrait, 2018, Color pigment on Hanji, 139 x 59 cm

Images: Yun Suk Nam

Self-Portrait, 2018, Color pigment on Hanji, 94 x 71 cm

Self-Portrait, 2018, Color pigment on Hanji, 137 x 93 cm

Women of Resistance, Becoming Historic

—Portraits of Female Independence Activists Who Quaked History

February 17, 2021-April 3, 2021 Hakgojae Gallery

KANG Ju-ryong (1901–1932)

"… There is no shame in sacrificing my body so that my 2,300 fellows, flesh is not pared. The greatest knowledge I've learned is that dying while fighting for the public is an honorable deed. Thus, coming up to this roof, I am determined and ready to die. If the wage deduction is not taken back, I will honorably die, representing the laboring masses, suffering from the capitalists, exploitations. Please do not try to bring me down by force. Shall anyone who puts a ladder to this roof, I will fall and die."

—Speech by KANG Ju-ryong at Eulmildae, May 29th, 1931

Portrait of KANG Ju-ryong, 2020, Color pigment on Hanji, 210 x 94 cm

KWON Ki-ok (1901–1988)

"I was young, but my fight against Japanese Imperialism was unconditional. I wasn't afraid of prison, not even death. It was truly heartbreaking that I was still young and a woman. This was when I decided to become a pilot who can fly in the skies and easily demolish the Japs."

—From an interview, July 1961

Portrait of KWON Ki-ok, 2020, Color pigment on Hanji, 210 x 94 cm

Women of Resistance, Becoming Historic

—Portraits of Female Independence Activists Who Quaked History

February 17, 2021-April 3, 2021 Hakgojae Gallery

KIM Maria (1892–1944)

"Why do you refuse to use the name, the Great Japanese Empire?" "Because I never learned it, nor do I want to know it."

"Since when did you think of Chosŏn's liberation?"

"I have never ceased to think of it." "How were you, a woman, involved in a movement with men?"

"The world is only successful when men and women work together. A good family is made with the collaboration between husband and wife, and a good nation is achieved through the collaboration between men and women."

—From the interrogation and testimony for the trial of the Korea Patriotic Women's Society Incident

Portrait of Maria KIM, 2020, Color pigment on Hanji, 210 x 94 cm

KIM Myung-si (1907–1949)

A woman of perfect height, with a dark face. Confident and fiercely ending way of speech, and a pair of attentive eyes. Her whole body was immersed in the revolution and seemed audacious as if it was the revolution itself.

"My whole youth, from 25 to 32 years old, was spent entirely in prison."

Stories of fighting on the battlefield, being arrested while pregnant and being struck in the stomach and losing the baby, crossing a river at night with unknown depth and width (…) she lowered her head and exited the room after saying fighting, fighting in the forefront of the revolution is truly wretched and exciting.

—From an interview in Liberation Sinbo, November 2nd, 1946

Portrait of Heroine KIM Myung-si, 2020, Color pigment on Hanji, 210 x 94 cm

Women of Resistance, Becoming Historic

—Portraits of Female Independence Activists Who Quaked History

February 17, 2021-April 3, 2021 Hakgojae Gallery

KIM Alexandra (1885–1918...