On October 18, 2013, the sixth seminar of DOOSAN Curator Workshop III featured a discussion by art critic Hyun Jeong on issues of identity in contemporary art and Jacques Ranciere’s politics of aesthetics.  
 
1) The Relationship Between Identity and Creativity
Reflecting the emergence of identity as a major topic in contemporary art, the lecture began with a discussion about the phenomenon of the issue of identity playing a central role in many artworks. Following the modern period, the concept of identity emerged together with the appearance of the individual. Accordingly, it began not as a need from within the individual, but as a transformation into “otherness” due to the conditions of the external environment?in other words, beginning from external demands. In the case of Korea, considerations about identity first emerged following the 1980s, and artists posed questions about existence, being, and identity, deviating from the prior pattern of living with a clear sense of purpose and point of direction. In this regard, Hyun Jeong emphasized that one must fully recognize the limitation in which identity simply remains an issue of language written on a piece of paper that contains the information of systems and individuals. He continued to note that although numerous artists in Korea are producing highly completed artworks with subjects dealing with their identities and the loss of those identities, these artists need to show that their own artistic worlds transcend the simple representation of events from individual experience. In addition, he insisted that when one experiences certain incidents, one should not merely accumulate external conflicts, but should instead reveal one’s inner concerns as related to those incidents.
 
2) The Perspective of Viewing Artworks, the Attitude or Role of the Critic
Hyun Jeong emphasized that when viewing an artwork, limitations exist with regard to an attitude that only sees through the lens of ideology and places theories at the center of art, thus instrumentalizing it. As such, one should attempt to reduce diverse social phenomena into art; that is, the effort of thinking in a way that is connected to images is necessary. To achieve this, he explained that one should not keep explaining the meaning of representation in an exaggerated manner by using theory, but rather should elicit meaning through communication with images. He also pointed out that even for seemingly abstract artworks, as a middle point (a common ground with viewers’ experiences) appears, a process of understanding artworks is established. However, in the process of dealing with contents involving the destruction of order, such as the severance, fragments, traces, afterimage, and residue of recent Korean contemporary art, finding a certain point of contact is becoming increasingly difficult. He asserted that based on an understanding of Korea’s history, reconstructing the already fragmented existing history should come first, rather than unquestioningly accepting Western movements that attempt to overthrow the existing order. Meanwhile, with regard to the recent debate on the absence of art criticism, he defined an art critic not as a person who judges and criticizes artists, but as someone who sets forth a clue as to how to think about the overall art world.
 
3) Reading Ranciere
Frequently discussed these days is Ranciere’s theory that deals with the issue of the politics of aesthetics and begins from the disconnect where, although technology and civilization have made human life comfortable, people still talk of death and deconstruction. Under Ranciere’s theory, issues of reproduction that are frequently discussed in aesthetics are connected to the issue of disposition that is created by the power of the era and the process of representation. In this case, the issue of disposition abides by the rule of the privileged class that attests to only its own world; thus, politics inevitably emerge. Contemplating these processes, Ranciere believes that liberation is none other than the power that one has as a subject to repudiate external things, and the power one has to relocate one’s own life. Therefore, Ranciere puts emphasis on the processes, acts, and events that are actually occurring, and pursues the original form of politics (La politique) rather than staying with political action (Le politique). Hyun Jeong concluded his lecture by stating that it is related to divesting simple performances from contemporary art and making the exhibition hall into more of a space where political actions arise; in other words, a space that is able to discuss the expansion of an open galley where participants?not performers?give rise to events.