2014, Vol.41, No.

The Meaning of Appropriation in Andy Warhol's Artwork : On Arthur Danto's Theory

Jang, Minhan | 2014, 41 | pp.3~29 | number of Cited : 2

This paper aims to analyse Arthur Danto's arguments for Andy Warhol's artworks that appropriate popular images, and to elucidate the basis for his assertion that Warhol's artworks brought about the change in art's paradigm. On the one hand Warhol's artworks made by silk screen play important roles in the development of comtemporary arts. On the other hand his artworks are products of successful commercial designer who reacts to the taste of times sensitively. It is necessary to analyse the historical meaning of Warhol's artworks in order to evaluate his artworks properly. Firstly, Danto interprets Warhol's artworks as showing the American common experiences of everyday life. His appropriate image don't represent real object but the image itself, for example not real Campbell soup can, but image of Campbell soup can, and not real Marilyn Monroe, but American common image of Marilyn Monroe. Secondly I elucidate the historical meaning of Warhol's artwork through comparison with his artworks and Duchamp's artworks. Today we can no longer tell whether something is an artwork by visual inspection of arts. For instance we can't distinguish between an artwork (Brillo Box) and a mere thing (Brillo box in a market) resembling it. Duchamp, for the first time, eliminated the beauty in artworks by presenting ready-mades, but he wasn't aware that ready-mades brought about new paradigm in arts. Warhol made out What distinguished between an artwork and a mere thing resembling it to be something that is beyond perceptually properties. As his Brillo Box appears as an artwork, people start to be aware of being an art not by perceptive elements, but by invisible element. From now on contemporary artists create artworks Freely. Thirdly Danto explains this characteristics of the contemporary art as pluralism. The task of criticism in pluralism is just to give the reasons to see something as an artwork. Criticism today is to identify the meanings and explain the mode of their embodiment.

Theory of “partial object” in Gilles Deleuze : In Search of its ontological and aesthetical meaning

Jae-Yin KIM | 2014, 41 | pp.31~59 | number of Cited : 6

The concept of “partial object(objet partiel)” which plays an important role in Gilles Deleuze is originated from Melanie Klein, a famous psychoanalyst of children. While Sigmund Freud conceives human development from the(diachronic) viewpoint of “stage” or “phase”, Klein does from the(synchronic) viewpoint of “position”. According to Klein, human goes from “paranoid-schizoid position” to “depressive position” or vice versa, which should be comprehended not as a step-by-step development but as a change of position between the two. A little child has a phantasy whose main function is projective identification or intorjection. In the first position, a little child separates good object from bad in order to love or hate it. This phantasy is necessary for a little weak child to survive. This position is called “schizoid” because one separates all objects each other and “paranoid” because one experiences all objects in delusions. In this position, all objects are “partial”, because they are either good or bad. The eminent example is mother’s breast. Little child is only interested in breast, not in whole mother, for her/his sole concern is direct satisfaction or not of her/his drive. But in the second position, little child realizes that “good” object and “bad” object is one and the same whole, so begins to integrate the partial objects into “a whole object”. Everything is absolutely not good nor bad. So this position is called “depressive”. But as mentioned above, according to Klein, the two positions are not developmental stages but two different positions which will also remain in adults. Deleuze criticizes the Kleinian conception of “partial object”. First, partial object is not related with phantasy, but with real process of production as that of desiring-machine(machine désirante). Second, partial object is selected only apparently from whole person, but it is in reality produced in terms of the selection from a impersonal flux or hyle. In short, partial object is not anthropological but ontological entity. “Partial objects are molecular functions of the unconscious”. Partial object is produced from selection-cutting(coupure-prélèvement). Deleuze defines machine as “a system of cutting of flux”. Here cutting is not opposed to flux, but presupposes it. Cutting and flux are relative, for the former refers to peras or determination and the latter apeiron or the indeterminate. The product of cutting is partial object as object in general. The concept of partial object has some important meaning both ontological and aesthetic. The plasticity or potentiality of material in the process of art-working reveals the nature of being in general. Being is becoming and transformation. A whole is always partial. The partiality of object encourages artistic or creative experimentation. There is no final fixed object but only partial object always ready to be transformed. This is the ultimate meaning of partial object in aesthetics and ontology.

Biofact: Asymptote on the life

Seung-Chol Shin | 2014, 41 | pp.61~99 | number of Cited : 2

The biotechnology seems to fill in the role of the Host. Tissue engineering enables the growth of cell in vitro, and the religious miracle is substituted by technological life. The manufactured tissues replace the dysfunctional organs, and make visible a roseate future. The idea of body is, however, facing a crisis, while the organ could maintain it’s own life. The autonomous cell cultures maintain itself as a body, and the conventional body is substituted by the weird and accidental life, which is formed by the uncontrolled growth. The idea of biofact plays a decisive role at this point. It is based on the endogenous design, so that it prevent the advent of the chimeras. Biofact, which is the coinage of bios and artefact, denotes the biological artefact, which is alive. It grows by itself, but it haven't any autonomy - unlike the other natural life. It’s because it has always it’s creator. Biofact is produced as planned and intended, and for that purpose it should be controlled technically. But the technical control can not be performed as intended. Biotech tries to reduce the manufactured organ to utilitarian goods, but the biofact escapes from such reductionism while it maintains it’s own life. The technoscience, which tries to fill in the role of the religious symbol, the Host, be faced with difficulty at this point. The biotech brings the chimeras from the greek myth into reality, and it’s product wouldn't be an object of sacrifice, but embody the form of life. Biofact prefer to be a fetish - confront the technological reductionism, and the rest, that cannot be goods, radiates the uncontrolled energy of life. The technological control is destined to failure, so that the technoscience takes the lesson of the modern, that uses symbol and image to treat the uncontrolled energy. The symbol bears the energy of things in itself, and in this regression it keeps the tension between technique and life.

A study in comparative aesthetics for an investigation into the peculiarities of Korean beauty

Lee Joo Young | 2014, 41 | pp.103~151 | number of Cited : 4

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This research derived the peculiarities of Korean beauty by comparing the significant components of Korean aesthetics with those of Western aesthetics. In doing so, I tried to emphasize the standpoint to the nature, to the world and aesthetic consciousness of Korea. This aim required the establishment of a new set of Korean aesthetic categories. The representative aesthetic categories of Western aesthetics are Beauty, Tragic, Comic, Sublimity, Grace, Ugliness, and Characteristics. The Korean aesthetic categories Han and Humor are similar to Tragic and Comic, but the following Korean categories have no Western counterpart: Mut, Indifference, Deviation, Shinmung, Pungryu, and Shikim. The categories of Korean aesthetics circulate in both the vertical direction and the horizontal direction. Together they form a three-dimensional spherical system. In contrast, the circular categorical system of Dessoir forms a two-dimensional plane in which certain categories oppose each other. In his categorical system, the central point between opposing characteristics accentuates humanity, whereas the basis of the Korean aesthetic categories is nature. The central categories of Korean beauty exist and move in the microcosmos of the human emotional world. The microcosmos is divided into vertical and horizontal circular categories. Each of these circles is then divided into bright and dark aspects of emotion. The latter moves toward the bright aspect from the dark aspect, embracing nature as a vital power. Han, Humor, Heung, Shinmung, and Shikim are the vertical categories. Pungryu, Mut, Deviation, Archaic, and Indifference are horizontal circular categories. The vertical categories appear often in art that is based on tempo, stimulating human nature by moving emotion by the passage of time. The horizontal circular categories mainly in the formative arts, holding the floating life force of nature, are expressed by tranquil emotion. The formative arts have to embody every motive in space and the stopping moment, so they express the state of nature itself, in which extreme emotions are neutralized, and conflict and contradiction are reconciled. So in the formative arts, the contemplative sense of beauty is dominant, based on naturalness. The vertical circular categories are characterized by the emotion that arises in the relationship between individuals and society. The aesthetic characteristics of the horizontal circular categories are nearer to nature. No individual category can be divided clearly into a specific categorical domain, by reason of floating in a system of totality, but they distinctly reflect the character of their main position. To conclude, the peculiarity of Korean beauty appears as a complex aesthetic consciousness through the mutual interchange of categories. Therefore, the aesthetic consciousness deeply reflects the totality of life. In this way, the aesthetic categories circulate and melt the individual emotions into totality. Sadness and pleasure, worldliness and the divine, daily life and transcendence, beauty and ugliness; they all alternate each other together, and deepen the aesthetic dimension to reveal beauty as a whole. This unified aesthetic consciousness is circular and moving, not enclosed in a fixed system.

Kierkegaard's Existential Dialectic and Art Media

Young-So Yoo | 2014, 41 | pp.153~183 | number of Cited : 2

The Scientific Revolution and the Music of the Spheres

Jun-Sik Won | 2014, 41 | pp.185~212 | number of Cited : 4

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Music is today considered as an aesthetic discipline based on the subjective principles, clearly distinct from science having mathematical rationality. But it was a branch of science and held a place among the quadrivium beside arithmetic, geometry and astronomy until the 17th century of the Scientific Revolution. The connection between music and science forged by the Pythagorean school’s discovery of the relation between the length of a vibrating string and pitch. By extending the discovery to the motions of the celestial bodies, they invented the celebrated doctrine of ‘music of the spheres’. According to this, the velocities at which the planets circle the Earth, as well as the distances from the Earth to them, are in the same ratios as various musical intervals, especially those of the diatonic scale. This musical theorizing which was crystallized in the conception of the music of the spheres was a kind of proto-science, and thus the starting point of cosmology and astronomy as well as music theory. The doctrine of ‘music of the spheres’ has served as a strong impetus for the next generations of scientists in their exploration of the laws governing the universe. The last and the most earnest attempt to find musical harmony in the motions of the heavens was that of Kepler. He believed that the principles governing the motions of the planets could be expressed in the same ratio as found in music. He held firmly the Pythagorean conception of ‘the universe governed by musical harmony’. But he was confronted by a new circumstance in aspect of science and music. He accepted the Copernican heliocentric astronomy, and lived in an age when polyphony was the musical norm, and thus the planetary music must therefore be polyphonic, too. He tried to reconstruct the conception of ‘music of the spheres’ on the basis of musical polyphony and heliocentric astronomy. He compared the angular velocities of the planets based on the heliocentric system, and expressed these ratios as musical intervals in just intonation, not Pythagorean scale, that is, the harmonies which he found are polyphonic.

Minor Art: Deleuze’s Aesthetics and Art Brut

HAN EUI JUNG | 2014, 41 | pp.213~238 | number of Cited : 4

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Deleuze and Guattari explain the others in terms of ‘minority’ and distinguish majority and minority. Majority is the criterion of the evaluation with power and domination. On the contrary, minority, outside the criterion of the majority, has the potential ability to become, to change, and to create. Deleuze/Guattari consider Kafka’s literature as minor literature, and formalize its three characteristics: deterritorialization of the language, the political and the collective. This study tries to extend the characteristics of the minor literature to the minor art and to apply to art brut. This approach presents a new aesthetic basis to the earlier studies of art history or psychiatry. Deterritorialization, the political and the collective are the characteristics of the minor literature, as we look at the minor literature in terms of the expression’s medium, socius, subjet of production. As we examine art brut from these three aspects, firstly, we can define Art brut as the art of the minors. Because Art brut defined by Jean Dubuffet is a term indicating the artistic creations of the people in psychiatric hospital, of the medium who can create hallucinations, and of the neglected social groups. Secondly, deterritorialization of the language can be explained by the uniqueness of the expression’s medium. As the creators of Art brut don’t have a sense of artistic purpose nor consciousness of the artistic activity, the process or the methods of description of their work are illogical and informal. In particular, the total art of Adolf Wölfli shows the flow freely escaping from the earlier grammar of art. Thirdly, in terms of the subject of production, Art brut is characterized by the solidarity of minority. Wölfli’s unique art world was not accepted as the activity of one individual. Because of Dr. Morgenthaler who has observed him for 11 years, because of Jean Dubuffet who dressed Wölfli in the clothes of Art brut, the art world of Wölfli has been known to the public. Deleuze considers an authentic art as art escaped from the power of life. It can be called a minor art. Art brut can be functional as art of becoming and of transfiguration. Art brut is the art of the minority, and its expression away from the norm of art existing draw the line of flight. However, the work of the minority, only when it connects to the flow of becoming-minor, is completed as resistance.

Photography and Drawing : From Photography for Drawing to Drawing for Photography

Lee, Phil | 2014, 41 | pp.239~266 | number of Cited : 3

The Discourse Between the Art of Silver and Silversmithing Since World War Ⅱ

Sae-Mi Cho | 2014, 41 | pp.267~305 | number of Cited : 1

This thesis aims to explore the possibility of a new discourse beyond the discussion of Modern craft’s focus on technique and material. This paper examines the problems with Modern craft theory neglecting its historical and cultural value and becoming trapped in the dualism of functionalism and formalism. I also attempt to explore the concept of silver as a vehicle for a new monumentality. Whereas Chapter 2 deals with the development of the culture of Western silver, Chapter 3 considers 20th century, post-war silver with regards to two different aspects: Firstly, silver as a vehicle of pragmatism related to the industrial production and nationalistic ideology which flourished in Great Britain in 1960’s. Secondly, silver as an agency of formalism concentrating on material and technique which expanded in the United States of America in 1960’s. This tendency greatly influenced the development of Modern craft in Korea. Chapter 4 tries to pursue the possibility of de-material discourse of craft phenomenon based on “a new kind of commemoration of the silver” within the cultural context. As two exemplary cases, this paper analyzes the design of London 2012’s Paralympic medals by Lin Cheung, and the <Urn> by Lizzy Yoo. The conclusion addresses two potential problems if the material and technique centered formalistic approach became the accepted dogma of the field of study. Firstly, silver is likely to be recognized as a subject only with an exchange value. As we have witnessed through the history of silver, many magnificent works of silver were melted during war-time for their exchange value, even if technically the works were exceptional. Secondly, it is more likely to become the purpose of the field of study than ‘silversmithing for silversmithing’s sake.’ It’s as if the modernist protesting ‘art for art’s sake’ resulted in art becoming divorced from didactic, moral or utilitarian function. Crafts have the potential to explain the fundamental dignity of humanity. This paper examines the possibilities of a new craft by demonstrating a case for the culture of modern silversmithing.

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2014, Vol.41, No.