Why Performance in Authoritarian Korea?

Abstract

In this article Joan Kee asks what motivated artists in South Korea to turn to performance in the late 1960s and 1970s during the oppressive regime of the Yushin, or ‘restoration’ government. By comparing the various approaches taken by different artists and groups, Kee examines the subtleties between action and inaction, considering what these both might mean during a period of political turmoil.