In Korea and Japan, art breaches an often troubled shared history
An exhibition organised jointly in Yokohama and Seoul explores painful, and sometimes neglected, episodes from the countries’ past
In Korea and Japan, art is exploring and bridging an often troubled shared history. The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) in Gwacheon is hosting an exhibition called Road Movie: Art between Korea and Japan Since 1945. At the core of this exhibition is Nam Hwayeon's video Imjingawa, whose title is the Japanese pronunciation of Imjin River. Imjin River is a 1957 North Korean song about longing for home, written by a defected lyricist.
The entire story is about how artists in both countries have been trying to navigate their fraught relationship despite political friction. This year, there has been more cooperation between the two countries. Chey Tae-won, chairman of SK Group, visited Seoul and Tokyo to promote business and governmental cooperation. He suggested that the combined value of the Korean and Japanese economies, which is $6 trillion, is a third of China's.
The proposal that drew the most attention was the idea of a permanent "big tent" of business, academia, and government, designed to ensure co-operation can continue even if there are changes in politics or historical friction.
Artists are also using their work to explore this relationship. Ei Arakawa-Nash's installation in the Japanese pavilion at the Venice Biennale invites visitors to carry a baby doll through the exhibition, change its diaper, and receive a poem written for the "baby's" birthday. Two dolls are located on the roofs of the Korean and Japanese pavilions, marking different dates of protest and conflict. The Japan Foundation calls it the first-ever official collaboration between the Japanese pavilion and another pavilion.
The MMCA exhibition Living Together, Road Movie frames the entire exhibition. Jung Yeondoo's video Magician's Walk (2014) begins the exhibition, while Koki Tanaka's Vulnerable Histories (A Road Movie) (2018) plays at the end. Tanaka's work is a response to the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, but he was criticized for being in the US when it struck.
His work focuses on the 1923 Kanto earthquake massacre, when thousands of ethnic Koreans were killed by Japanese police and vigilantes. Tanaka explores the discomfort of narrating a disaster he did not experience, by following the day-to-day life of a visually impaired masseur who lived during that time.
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