You are cordially invited to a lecture in the University of Alberta East Asia Lecture Series:
Dr. Marsha Haufler (Professor, Kress Foundation Department of Art History, University of Kansas), "Mosaic as a Sacred Art inthe Democratic People's Republic of Korea."
Thursday, 24 March, 2011, 5:00 - 6:00pm, Fine Arts Building 2-20.
Abstract:
Since the 1960s, mosaic murals have been part of a vast cultural project of creating socialism with national characteristics in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). North Korea reeived the art of making colored-chglass tile murals fromthe Soviet Union, where the ancient tradition of furnishing churches with glittering mosaics was adapted to serve the modern socialist state. Glass-tile mosaics, with their refined craftsmanship, brilliant colors, and shimmering surfaces, proved to be ideal vehicles for celebrating the fruits of collective labor and for idolizing revolutionary personalities. North Korean artists combined Soviet themes, mosaic technology, and types of installation with subjects and styles drawn from the art of the Communist China, and domesticated these elements to create an art from unique in East Asia.
Sponsored by the University of Alberta China Institute, Department of East Asian Studies, and Department of Art and Design.