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About this talk

Lee Qoede is a well-known name in modern Korean art—but how much do we really know about him? Much of what we do know ends with his time as a prisoner during the Korean War and then his move to North Korea. Drawing on her book Art, War, and Exile in Modern Korea: Rethinking the Life and Work by Lee Qoede , Jinyoung Anna Jin picks up the story where it usually stops, tracing Lee’s life and work after the division of Korea. This talk explores how Mexican muralism and socialist artistic networks offered another way of imagining modern art—one that developed alongside, and often challenged, European-centered and Cold War ideas of modernism. Following Lee beyond the familiar story reveals an unexpected map that stretches from Korea to Mexico, asking us to reconsider where modernism happened and who shaped it. This lecture is co-hosted by SOAS East Asian Art Research Seminar Series (EAARS) and the SOAS Centre of Korean Studies. Header image: Huy Hung Trinh via Unsplash

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