What is it about?
This article analyzes the artworks of Korean American artists Lanhei Kim Park, Nam June Paik, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, and Yong Soon Min, who incorporated clothing as a key material in their multimedia art. Drawing on the theories of Walter Benjamin, Lydia Liu, and Rey Chow, this study examines their trans-genre artworks through the lens of cultural translation, providing insight into racialized femininity, the xenoracial gaze, white American identity, incomplete deimperialization, and decolonization.
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Why is it important?
Although textiles and clothing hold substantial symbolic significance in twentieth-century multimedia art, their importance has often been overlooked. My research investigates the nuanced meanings embedded in versatile ethnic and contemporary clothing, as well as the practice of design, analyzing their translations within the frameworks of asymmetrical power dynamics encoded in ethnography and anthropology, racial politics, and colonial exploitation.
Perspectives
This paper was originally presented at the fall conference of the Korean Association for the History of Modern Art, held in October 2024. I extend my sincere gratitude to Na Young Hur for organizing the conference and to Hye Sung Park from MMCA for serving as the discussant.
Dr Victoria Young Ji Lee (이영지)
State University of New York Korea
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Sartorial Mediums : Cultural Translation and 20th‑Century Korean American Artists, Journal of History of Modern Art, December 2024, Korean Association for History of Modern Art,
DOI: 10.17057/kahoma.2024..56.002.
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