Video stills from various video art sent to North Korea, Professor Kim's Contemporary Art History Lessons (each video roughly 10 minutes), edited like children's educational TV show. Themes of Art History Lessons by Professor Kim include:
1. Art and Life
2. Art and Food
3. Art, Money, Power
4. Abstract Art and Dreams
5. Feminism, Are We Equal?
6. Art, Lives Matter, and Social Justice
7. Remix and Appropriation Art
8. Art and Technology
9. Art and Silence
10. Art and Environment
There are a number of organizations in the United States that promote efforts to send information to North Korea. These include Flashdrives for Freedom, in California, who work with New York’s Human Rights Foundation. These US organizations are linked with larger organizations in Seoul, such as the North Korea Strategy Center. The Strategy Center liaises directly with activists and North Korean dissidents who send content into the North. The content generally includes world news, Wikipedia downloads, K-pop videos, K-drama, K-film, religious content, and more. The artist Mina Cheon has been working with ground level individuals and organizations based in South Korea who feel it is their life mission to free North Koreans from dictatorship; to help the opening up of North Korea, by supplying its people with information from and about the outside world.
Looking at how media has played a role in opening closed societies, from faxes to art magazines – and, specifically, how information flows helped transform the Soviet Union and China – Cheon has been producing Professor Kim Art History Lessons with the North Koreans in mind. The videos are produced in K-Town of Baltimore, Maryland, uploaded onto USB drives in South Korea then passed on to these people, who directly take them into North Korea. The USBs have entered the country via several routes – through the land border with China, by balloons from South Korea, and another route that cannot be shared. Several hundred USBs have been sent to date and on going.
List of Contents
Art History Lesson 1 What is Art, What is Life? Part 1 (To be an Artist)
(Professor Kim Snapchat Filter: Flower)
Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917
Assignment 1: Select an object from everyday life and call it art.
Art History Lesson 2 What is Art, What is Life? Part 2 (Art and Food)
(Professor Kim Snapchat Filter: Flower)
Kim Il Soon, Eat Choco·Pie Together, 2014
Damien Hirst, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, 1991
Andy Warhol, Campbell’s Soup Cans, 1962
Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Untitled (Ross), 1991
Ai Weiwei, Sunflower Seeds, 2010
Cody Choi, The Thinker, 1996-7
Assignment 2: Select a food you like and call it art.
Art History Lesson 3 Art, Money, Power
(Professor Kim Snapchat Filter: Leopard)
Andy Warhol, Mao, 1972 (Series #90-99)
Ai Weiwei, Mao, 1986
Ai Weiwei, Study of Perspective: Tiananmen, White House, Eiffel Tower, 1995
Joonho Jeon, The White House, 2005
Wang Guangyi, Great Criticism, 1990-2007
Alexander Kosolapov, Coca-Cola, 1983; Malevich, 1990; This is My Blood, 2001
Lee Mingwei, Money for Art, 1994
Assignment 3: Share your money not as money but as art.
Art History Lesson 4 Abstract Art and Dreams
(Professor Kim Snapchat Filter: Bunny)
Grace Hartigan, Untitled, 1952
Wassily Kandinsky, Black Strokes, 1913
Kazimir Malevich, White on White, 1918
Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1955
Jackson Pollock, Autumn Rhythm (Number 30), 1950
Rene Magritte, Golconde, 1953
Salvador Dali, The Persistence of Memory, 1931.
Yves Klein, International Klein Blue (IKB), 1959
Kim Il Soon, North Korean Dream Paintings
Assignment 4: What do you dream about? Write down your dreams and make them come true in abstraction, so you won’t get into trouble!
Art History Lesson 5 Feminism, Are We Equal?
(Professor Kim Snapchat Filter: Cat)
Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries
Yoko Ono, Cut Piece, 1964
Barbara Kruger, Not Stupid Enough, 1997
Guerrilla Girls, Do Women have to be Naked to get into the Met. Museum? 1989
Shirin Neshat, Rebellious Silence, 1994
Kim Il Soon, Happy North Korean Children, 2014
Assignment 5: Reverse the gaze, and find a gorilla (Guerrilla Girls) mask and wear it to a party.
Art History Lesson 6 Art, Lives Matter, and Social Justice
(Professor Kim Snapchat Filter: Mouse with Glasses)
South Korean Minjung Misool, 80s pro-democracy art
Dread Scott, I am Not a Man, 2009; A Man Was Lynched by Police Yesterday, 2016
Mark Bradford, US Pavilion Venice Biennale 2017 and his social justice work
Free Ai Weiwei
Bansky
Assignment 6: Make a Sign that says My Life Matters and wear it to a special event or make art in the streets in secret.
Art History Lesson 7 Remix and Appropriation Art
(Professor Kim Snapchat Filter: Zebra)
Cindy Sherman
Mariko Mori
Yasumasa Morimura
Gerhard Richter
Komar + Melamid
Ilya Kabakov
Mina Cheon aka Kim Il Soon
Assignment 7: Create remix collage, to make something original, and think about who do you want to be today, a copy of another personality.
Art History Lesson 8 Art and Technology
(Professor Kim Snapchat Filter: Mouse with Glasses)
Nam June Paik, Zen for TV, 1963; Zen for Film, 1965
Satellite Art
net.art
Douglas Davis, The World’s First Collaborative Sentence, 1994
Char Davies, Osmose VR, 1995
Pierre Huyghe, Analee
Christian Marclay, The Clock, 2010
Lee Wan, Proper Time, 2017
Cao Fei, RMB City: Second Life Project, 2008
Assignment 8: Turn on all your devices (media players) at once!
Art History Lesson 9 Art and Silence
(Professor Kim Snapchat Filter: Bunny)
John Cage, 4’33”, 1952
BBC Televised Full Orchestra 4’33”
Allan Kaprow, On/Off, 1994
Yoko Ono, Bed In, Peace, 1969
Kim Soo-ja, A Needle Woman
Assignment 9: Get together with friends and watch John Cage’s 4’ 33” broadcasted live by BBC in full orchestral setting.
Art History Lesson 10 Art and Environment
(Professor Kim Snapchat Filter: Flower)
Chris Jordan, Cell phones #2, 2005
Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty, 1970
Olafur Eliasson, Your Waste of Time, 2013
The 1st Antarctic Biennale 2017
Gabriel Orozco, Found Objects, 2012
Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Surrounded Islands, 1980-83
rAndom International, Rain Room, 2013
Assignment 10: Collect your trash and recycle it into art!
