Negotiating Urban Identities: International Art Events and the Cultural Identities of Korean Cities, 1988-1995

This dissertation explores cultural monuments and exhibitions commissioned or sponsored by the South Korean government from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s to understand their role in formulating the identities of cities such as Seoul, Daejeon, and Gwangju, and in globalizing Korean art. Beginning in the mid-1980s, South Korea initiated a series of cultural spectacles and urban reforms alongside state-led international events: the 1988 Seoul Olympics; the Taejon Expo ‘93; and the first Kwangju Biennale, held in 1995. Such government-led projects and exhibitions should be read in the context of the political conflicts that have shaped modern Korean society and the Korean art world; these monuments and exhibitions were carefully constructed to contribute to the state's urban development projects. The state-led projects sometimes encountered criticism from local artists. The debates among official art plans and criticism presented the process of defining urban identities.
Art projects from three different regimes will be discussed: the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art and the Olympic Sculpture Park of the Seoul Olympics under dictator Chun Doo-hwan; the Taejon Exposition and the Recycling Art Exhibition under the military regime of Roh Tae-woo; and the Kwangju Biennale during the first civilian government of Kim Young-sam. By scrutinizing these events, this research delves into the various interest groups' discussions around the international art events and the new urban arrangements at critical historical moments. In this dissertation, I study how these exhibitions and monuments attempted to construct and transform the identities of Seoul, Daejeon, and Gwangju and how they turned these cities into political spaces that are both material embodiments of political ideology and architectural sites activating political action and artistic expression. In sum, this study addresses how these cultural events negotiated contentious identities of cities and produced meanings in political spaces.