What is it about?
This essay examines contemporary Korean artist Lee Wan (b. 1979) and his documentary film Made-In-Series. His work touches on the critical issues of the colonial history of commodities and the connection of this history to neoliberal globalization in Southeast Asia in the "postcolonial" period. My analysis explains how Lee's site-specific, painstaking work criticized working conditions in Asia at large and intended to negate the rule of capital.
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Why is it important?
I analyzed Lee's piece as a provocative criticism of the restructured international divisions of labor after mainland China joined the newly configured global market economy in the late 1970s. While analyzing Lee Wan's documentary film, this art critique pays special attention to the ethnic, regional, and international divisions of labor that played out in the global labor market.
Perspectives
This was my first publication about my primary research question: How does political economy (especially capitalism) affect local/ global art-cultural production? Interviewing Lee Wan was fun. I would like to thank the editor and also my dear friend Sarena Abdullah here again.
Dr Victoria Young Ji Lee (이영지)
State University of New York Korea
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Defying the division of labour: Lee Wan and the Made-In series, Art & the Public Sphere, July 2018, Intellect,
DOI: 10.1386/aps.7.1.79_1.
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