?By Matt VanVolkenburg







The Korea Times archives

The 1960s are known as a decade when the horizons of art and fashion were expanded dramatically, and Korea was no exception to this trend. While daily newspapers covered these topics in a limited way, their weekly magazines, which tended to sensationalize, gave a good deal more coverage to cutting-edge art and fashion, especially when it involved scantily clad women.







Though the Hankook Ilbo published the country's first weekly in 1964, the form came into its own when Seoul Shinmun began publishing Sunday Seoul in late 1968. Other weeklies soon followed. These magazines were clearly aimed at a male audience and often featured nude photos of Korean and Western women, the latter provided by Associated Press. Unsurprisingly, American and European experimental fashions of the time received eager coverage, including bodypainting, see-through clothing and clothing made of stickers or paper.







It was not long before these trends reached Korea. As the Kyunghyang Sinmun reported in August 1968, bodypainting "finally" reached Korea when a British artist held a bodypainting exhibition at the Olympus Hotel in Incheon. Out of "respect for Korean tradition," his wife wore a bikini rather than be painted in the nude.







In mid-November 1968, Sunday Seoul published an article on bodypainting featuring nude photos of experimental artist Jeong Gang-ja. Jeong had first come to public notice with the performance "Transparent Balloon and Nude Happening" in May 1968 at the music hall C'est Si Bon. The Korea Times covered this event on June 9, 1968, writing: "It was happening all right. It takes 15 balloons, a semi-nude woman's body, loud, loud primitive beats and psychedelic lights to make some graduates of art schools claim that they have produced a work of art."







Despite such dismissiveness, the weekly magazines covered experimental art exhibitions, fashion shows featuring see-through clothing, paper clothing and Korean bodypainters. The cover of the Weekly Kyunghyang on Oct. 29, 1969, featured TV actress Kim Yun-hui apparently topless and covered in bodypaint, while a more modest April 1970 photo spread featured women in miniskirts with flowers and faces painted on their legs or arms.







Sunday Seoul, which made efforts to promote youth culture, went further, publishing rather revealing color photos of a nude Korean model having her body painted in July 1970, followed weeks later by photos of the aforementioned artist Jeong Gang-ja and her fellow male artists with their naked bodies entwined. These photos were taken during a rehearsal for an upcoming exhibition, but as it turned out, the rehearsal was the only performance. This left the reporter wondering whether the term "experimental" was "just a prank," suggesting that Jeong and her friends may have taken advantage of a magazine that had previously described her as being "more famous for disrobing than for art work."







The photos of Jeong and her male compatriots, as well as street performances that drew police attention that summer, may have been the last straw, however. While a crackdown on youth culture starting Aug. 28, 1970, is best remembered for forcing haircuts on long-haired youths, the list of targets, which included "bodypainting nude shows, avant-garde drama which showed sexual acts performed in the streets, and avant-garde clothing involving excessive exposure," made clear the authorities' interest in clamping down on experimental art and risque fashion. Though almost all of the thousands detained by police in the ensuing crackdown were caught for having long hair, the critical eye of the police had a chilling effect on experimental art.







The disappearance of nude centerfolds from most weekly magazines by May 1970 suggests restrictions had begun earlier, but as authorities decried "decadent behavior masked as avant-garde art," nude performance art and bodypainting disappeared from the public eye. Sunday Seoul still found a use for art, however. Its "Sunday Gallery" feature, which aimed to reward male readers, likely had its genesis when the magazine realized the ban on nudity did not extend to paintings of naked women.







Matt VanVolkenburg has a master's degree in Korean studies from the University of Washington. He is the blogger behind populargusts.blogspot.kr