Political artwork being pressured out of Gwangju exhibition

Painter Hong Sung-dam explains the work he did for the Gwangju Biennale special exhibition, Aug. 6. In the painting, President Park Geun-hye is depicted as a scarecrow being controlled by her father and former president Park Chung-hee and current presidential chief of staff Kim Ki-choon. (by Jung Dae-ha, Gwangju correspondent)

Hong Sung-dam’s work depicting Pres. Park as a scarecrow deemed inappropriate for publicly-funded exhibition

By Jung Dae-ha, Gwangju correspondent

“Get rid of Park Chung-hee’s epaulets, and his sunglasses, too!”

The city of Gwangju asked the Gwangju Biennale special exhibition not to show the work of popular painter Hong Sung-dam, 59, because it mocks the president, raising concerns about censorship of art.

Hong was planning to show a large hanging painting (10.5m wide by 2.5m tall) at the exhibition, which opens on Aug. 8. The artist was selected for the exhibition at the request of Yun Beom-mo, a professor at Gachon University of Medicine and Science who is the chief curator for the exhibition.

The exhibition is jointly sponsored by the Gwangju Biennale Foundation and the Gwangju Museum of Art at a cost of 1.23 billion won (US$1.19 million). Its objective is to shed new light on the value of the Gwangju spirit in terms of art and the current era. Around 100 pieces by 40 artists - including Hong - are to be displayed in the exhibition.

“I believed that the Sewol tragedy is one more example of state-sponsored violence, just like the Gwangju massacre on May 18th, 1980,” Hong said.

Hong’s work shows the citizen soldiers and women who volunteered to provide rice balls from the Gwangju democratization movement lifting the Sewol ferry out of the water upside down and the passengers returning home alive. On the left side at the top, President Park Geun-hye is depicted as a scarecrow being controlled by her father and former president Park Chung-hee and current presidential chief of staff Kim Ki-choon.

Hong explained that he had portrayed President Park as a scarecrow of the right wing, including the dregs of the Japanese collaborators and holdovers from the Yushin regime.

On the request of a curator, Hong promised on July 17 to change the picture of President Park from a scarecrow to a chicken. But when the city of Gwangju had the curator ask Hong at the end of July and the beginning of August to change some of the other elements of the work in exchange for allowing him to depict the president as a chicken, he brought back the scarecrow.

“Senior officials from the city government had the curator pressure me to get rid of Park Chung-hee’s epaulets and sunglasses, to erase Kim Ki-choon, and to remove the picture of Samsung Electronics chairman Lee Kun-hee,” Hong said.

But a curator for the special exhibition contradicted Hong’s story. “The city never asked us to change the work. I asked Hong to get rid of the epaulettes according to my own judgment,” the curator said.

When Hong didn’t change his painting, Gwangju City told him that he would be unable to participate in the exhibition, which critics are calling “excessive interference in art.”

“Certain parts of Hong’s painting do not conform to the purpose and objective of the original exhibition plan, so we asked the Gwangju Biennale not to display the painting,” the Gwangju City said on Aug. 6.

Gwangju Mayor Yoon Jang-hyun - a former democracy activist - also commented on the issue. “The freedom of creativity must be respected, but it would not be appropriate to hang up politically motivated pictures in an exhibition which is being supported with public funds,” Yoon said.

The curators of the special exhibition said that they would announce their final decision after discussing the appropriateness of exhibiting Hong’s painting.

In 2012, Hong painted a caricature of Park Geun-hye, who at the time was the ruling Saenuri Party’s presidential candidate. In the painting, Park was giving birth to a baby with the face of her father, former president Park Chung-hee, wearing sunglasses.

　

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