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[English Books in Korea ⑤]

Promoting Korean Art Through Books

English editions of Korean art books for foreigners

 

2024.10.07

 

Youlhwadang Publishers, the publisher I’m working for as an editor, has three ways of utilizing English when publishing books on Korean traditional culture and arts. At the most basic level, we include an English summary at the front of the book that summarizes the content of the Korean edition, with the intent of providing the most basic information for librarians in foreign libraries with no Korean skills to categorize the books. For art collections that are mainly image-based with relatively few texts, the full text is included in both Korean and English so that it can be distributed at home and abroad as a single edition. This is also useful for artists to use as a portfolio when performing abroad. Finally, the Korean and English editions can be planned as independent books, published simultaneously or in sequence. The English editions are marketed to foreign audiences. The decision to choose between these three options depends on the kind, topic, budget, and distribution network of the book.
When it comes to a full-fledged publication of English editions, we usually find an overseas publisher to export the rights or co-publish the book, as we need a native English-speaking editor to proofread and a seamless overseas distribution network. However, compared to Korean pop culture, children’s content, and webtoon markets, it is still hard to export books on traditional Korean culture and art to foreign publishers under reasonable conditions. Even when books are exported, they need to be financially supported and are often published by academic publishers with a limited readership. So, as their production capacities are not as high as those required for art books let alone their limited distribution network, we prefer producing the English edition by ourselves at the same time as the Korean edition to reduce production costs and maintain high quality. Now that the level of English translators has advanced, I believe it is worthwhile to actively push forward projects to produce English-language books in Korea ourselves and distribute them overseas.
In this article, I would like to introduce a few English edition art books published by Yeolhwadang Publishers, as well as more recent titles from other publishers. The books selected are not primarily text-based, but rather well-edited books with an even mix of images and text, and books with high production quality, including printing and binding. Though Yeolhwadang Publishers also has a number of English books on architecture, they are not covered here as the field has been featured separately in the past article.

 

Chang Ucchin: Modern Painter or Artisan?
Written By Kim Hyung-Kook, translated into English by Dai Sil Kim-Gibson, published by Youlhwadang Publishers, 2004

 

『Chang Ucchin: Modern Painter or Artisan?』

 

 

This book is a biography of Chang Ucchin (1917-1990), a representative Korean painter, published in both Korean and English. Written by Kim Hyung-Kook, a social scientist who was a close observer of the artist, the author sees the artist’s artistic qualities as a combination of the mundane and the transcendent, and traces the trajectory of the artist’s life space and dreams, including his years in Deokso-ri, Myeongnyun-dong, Suanbo-myeon, and Mabuk-ri. Although it has been twenty years since it was published, the Korean edition has recently gone through its third printing of the revised edition in celebration of Chang Ucchin’s memoir exhibition at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), proving readers’ constant love for the book. Unlike other large art books that can be overwhelming to buy and read, this book is compact in size and includes key works, making it suitable for the general public who wants to learn about Korean artists.

 

Byun Shiji: A Painter of Storms
Written by Soh Jong-Teg, translated by Yu-Hyun Catherine Park and James Maxwell Milne, published by Youlhwadang Publishers, 2017

 

『Byun Shiji: A Painter of Storms』

 

 

Byun Shiji (1926-2013) is a Korean painter born on Jeju Island, who mainly drew the sea, wind, and horses of his homeland. The entire painting is colored in either a lino sheet or ochre color. The landscapes and figures drawn on it might not show the virtuosity of ink lines, but they are expressed with old-fashioned, unpretentious tastes and dynamism. He was the first Asian artist to have his works permanently exhibited at the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., winning him international acclaim. This book is an English edition published in 2017, the same year the Korean edition’s revised version, first published in 2000, was released. Chinese and Japanese editions were also published at the same time. Soh Jong-Teg, a Korean literature expert who was so deeply drawn to Byun’s works that he wrote a biography of the artist, said, “There is still no other rare and precious example where art and culture, locality and globalization, and the East and the West are brought together like in his paintings.” This book includes key artworks within a narrative that follows the author’s life, making it a light read that can be easily held in hand, similar to the previously introduced Chang Ucchin: Modern Painter or Artisan?.

 

Gut, Korean Shamanic Ritual: Songs Calling Spirits
Photographs by Kim Soo-Nam, texts by Kim In-Whoe, Published by Youlhwadang Publishers, 2005

 

『Gut, Korean Shamanic Ritual: Songs Calling Spirits』

 

 

This is a documentary photo book by Kim Soo-Nam (1948-2006), a photographer who holds a unique place in Korean shamanic photography. The photographs of gut (rituals performed by Korean shamans) he took over a decade of traveling throughout Korea from the 1970s onward present the tenacious vitality of the rituals. Both Korean and English editions were published at the same time, and out of the vast amount of photographs taken of more than 20 types of gut, about 160 black-and-white photographs were carefully selected and organized in a way that shows the ritual procedures. The suffering and joy of life, the religious reverence and artistic beauty, as well as han (meaning a sense of resentment and anger in Korean) and tears of the common people reflected in gut are vividly conveyed. In a time of growing national and international interest in shamanism, this is an invaluable source for documenting a half-century-old record that is now long lost. The book is filled with powerful images that will be of interest to researchers and the general public alike. Folklorist Kim In-Whoe’s commentary and photographer Kim Soo-Nam’s descriptions of the photographs help readers understand the history and practice of Korean shamanism.

 

Korean Art 1900-2020
Texts by Kim In-Hye et al., edited and published by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, 2022

 

『Korean Art 1900-2020』

 

 

This book is an introduction to 120 years of Korea’s modern and contemporary art, curated and published by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA); the Korean edition was published in 2021, and this English edition followed soon after. A total of 34 Korean art experts from all fields participated in the writing of the book, presenting various perspectives and interpretations of Korean modern and contemporary art from 1900 to 2020. The book is divided into five chapters: “From calligraphy and painting to art,” “Art in a time of war and division,” “The tradition/modernity dynamic in the modernization era,” “Democratization Movement and the pluralization of art,” and “Globalism and contemporary Korean art.” With more than 400 color plates showcasing major works and materials, as well as a chronology of Korean art history, readers can take a bird’s eye view of 120 years of Korean art. Though it can be a bit distracting because of the multi-author format instead of a single author’s solo perspective, it remains a fundamental text for general readers and researchers who want an overview of Korean art, as it was a massive project carried out by a national institution relatively recently.

 

Park Dae Sung: Ink Reimagined
Edited by Kim Sung-Lim, published by the Korean Art Management Service and Gana Foundation for Arts and Culture with the Hood Museum of Art, 2022

 

『Park Dae Sung: Ink Reimagined』

 

 

Korean artist Park Dae-Sung (1945- ), who is active in Korea and abroad, is an artist who interprets nature in a modern and imaginative way using the traditional method of ink painting. Having lost his left arm and both his parents at the age of five, he studied painting on his own, learning traditional brush and ink techniques, and has since established his own unique style. This book, published in conjunction with his international exhibition that toured eight countries from 2022 to 2023, sheds light on Park’s artistic world from multiple perspectives, featuring more than 150 major works, interviews with the artist, and texts that explore his calligraphy, landscape, animal, and still life paintings. Furthermore, in addition to the artist’s biography, the book also provides an overview of the history of Korean art from the 1950s to the present day, as well as a glossary of terms, names, and place names related to Korean art in the appendix. It will serve as a good introduction to the contemporary Korean style of ink painting for international readers, and will help arouse interest in the tradition of East Asian ink painting and contemporary Korean art. Above all, with its excellent quality of printing and editing, the book is highly recommended for its value to be collected.

 

 


Written by Yi Soo-Jung (Editorial Director, Youlhwadang Publishers)

 

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Yi Soo-Jung (Editorial Director, Youlhwadang Publishers)

#Art#Korean traditional culture#English editions#Korean artist
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