Additional information
by Kai Hong (Author)
Characterizing the situation in global contemporary art as that of the quagmire of nihilistic endless 'endgame' of the 'possibility of pervasive fradulence' (in Statley Cavell's words), Kai Hong presents a group of new artists from Korea as representing a new spiritual in art, capable of overcoming the Nihilism pervasive throughout the global institution of the'contemporar' art. The author takes issue with Arthur Danto's (and others like Hal Foster et al of the so-called International Centers of Art in New York and Paris) version of "Art after the End of Art" as intellectually dishonest attempts at globe-wide ultural Domination from the same hegemonic centers of Power --the same power centers of international finance and politicval economy-- ensconced in New York, London and Washington DC. Agreeing with Francois Jullien of France, the author suggests that the recovery of the forgotten artistic ideal from Ancient East Asia and their reformulation, custom-designed for the spiritual needs of the 21st Century is what is needed and precisely such new art is emerging from Korea, of all places. Rejecting Arthur Danto's notion of Art-after-the-End-of-Art as having been poorly argued, Author characterizes the situation of 'Contemporary Art' worldwide as mired in Nihilism of the passive kind, borrowing Nietzsche's term. Arguing that exhausted Western Grammar of Thinking which gave birth to the Modernity is intrinsically unable to overcome that Nihilism, it is mere intellectual fraud and hypocrisy to even talk of Post-modernity or Post-Colonialism or Multiculturalism. Kandinsky called for New Art --the art born of the Artist's inner necessity-- to overcome Western Nihilism in his Manifesto "Concerning The Spiritual in Art". Only the Arts animated by spiritual breath can overcome the contemporary nihilism pervasive in the Arts that go by the name of 'Contemporary Art'. Kai argues that Kandinsky had right ideas but failed to think through it and come up with the right kind of Art. Instead, Kai argues that the Arts that has rediscovered the spiritual resources of the Ancient East-Asian Art for their cultural reconfiguration of the contemporary Artistic Practices. Echoing some of Francois Jullien's radical contrasting of the traditional Western and Chinese Grammars of Thinking, Kai argues in this book that a group of South Korean Painters have been able to create peculiarly East-Asian modernist Art Works of Inner Necessity, creating the New Spiritual in Art, animated by the Spirit of Daam in their works of Paintings. What Kandinsky failed a century ago, these group of Korea Painters have been able to succeed and promises to open up an entirely new horizon of Art, rejecting in toto the entire edifice of what is by now an globalized artistic edifice of 'Contemporary Art'.
Author Biography
The Author holds a Doctorate in Philosophy, with special emphases on Philosophy of Art, Aesthetics, Political-Economy of Art and Culture, and the Philosophies of Language, Science and Technology. He's written an extended essay on Michenlangeo Antonioni's Decumentary on China and Maoism, discoursing on the Politics of Documentary Film, Cultural Revolution from Alain Badiou's philosophical perspective and Orientalism. He's simply the most influential art critic among the more academically inclined art world people of South Korea, his book (in Korean only for now) on Modern Art and Critique of the Globalized World Culture has been one of the most influential text in Korea for at least two decades. Mostly recently, he's taught at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in the Department of English Linguistics. He's also a Playwright two of whose plays are currently available from Amazon.com --Nostoi and Hiroshim Elegy.
