Goddess with a Picasso face: Art markets, collectors and sacred things in the circulation of Korean shaman paintings

Abstract

In the well-known story of how 'primitive art' came to be recognized as such, things once regarded as sacred or empowered circulate as art collected for reasons far removed from their original intention. In the case of Korean shaman paintings, the authors interpret this process as a kind of 'purification' in Bruno Latour's sense, a translation and transformation of old practices (paintings as the seats of gods) into things that are deployed in acceptably modern ways (paintings as art commodities). The authors recognize, also following Latour, that this is necessarily an incomplete and unstable process. Their discussion assumes two parallel purifications, a discursive purification that recuperates the paintings as art market commodities and a more literal purification by shamans when, in particular circumstances, they deem it appropriate to release paintings to the art market. The authors are concerned with both thickening and broadening the discussion of art market circulation: thickening, by showing how, within a particular history in a particular place, at some distance from Paris or New York, things once sacred came to be revalued as 'art'. They broaden the discussion by setting it among collectors and dealers in South Korea and thus outside the familiar dichotomy of the West and the rest that has heretofore organized discussions of the commodification and circulation of once sacred goods. A seemingly familiar story about art markets and the social life of things unfolds within the unfamiliar context of an alternative or Other modernity.

What is an animated image?

“…Sometimes the retiring mansin is influenced by money and does not adequately heed the gods' commands when choosing a successor, circumstances that result in financial problems, trouble with clients, and serious illness for the teacher, the successor, or both. Arjun Appadurai (1986: 21) might describe these competitions over a mansin's gods/paintings as "tournaments of value, " particularly among Hwanghae shamans whose accumulations of paintings become a material measure of their growing spiritual power (Kendall and Yang 2014). And, as we have seen, even seemingly willing gods might not ultimately inhabit a successor shaman's shrine.…”

“…An aging shaman marks the end of her practice with a major ritual (hajik kut) where she feasts and entertains her guardian gods for one last time and sends them off with a sometimes-tearful farewell. Speaking through the mouth of the shaman, the gods indicate their desire to accompany one or another of her successor spirit daughters (sinddal) and spirit sons (sinadŭl), the shamans she has either initiated or mentored (Kendall and Yang 2014;Kendall, Yang, and Yoon, forthcoming). According to Mansin Sŏ, "The god speaks through the spirit mother to say where it wants to go.…”

“…12 Shamans associate these miraculous discoveries with a more magical past time but cite rare recent instances "just a few years ago" when an inspired initiate dug up a catch of paraphernalia on a mountainside. Likewise, a potential shaman, a stranger caught in crazed wandering, might find herself drawn into a shrine where her manic prostrations in front of the altar testify that the moment of transition has arrived, that the current proprietor of the shrine should retire, relinquishing gods and paraphernalia to the inspired newcomer (Kendall and Yang 2014). A painter of shaman paintings described the experience of his mother, a well-regarded shaman who, although very old, could not bring herself to take down her shrine and burn her paintings:…”

“…In a work of collaborative research, we have been examining the biographies of Korean shaman paintings (musindo, t' aenghwa), considering how they operate in different contexts of use, transaction, and appreciation, and how these meanings are subject to debate, even among the shamans themselves. We have explored how, in recent decades, such paintings have become objects of collectable art, avidly sought by a coterie of South Korean collectors, and have noted how these same paintings retain a frisson from their prior association with shamans, gods, and souls (Kendall and Yang 2014;Kendall, Yang, and Yoon, forthcoming). 1 They are "hybrids" in Bruno Latour's sense (1993); once regarded as sacred, magical, and possibly even scary, they have been "purified" by their translation as collectable art (Mitchell 2005), but not completely.…”

“…The collector responds to the same painted evocation of presence-a colorful god with bold, staring eyes-that caused the painting to stand out in the shrine as something "at odds with the normal" (Taussig 2009: 8). Many Korean collectors retain a visceral awareness that in popular parlance, ghosts, pollution, and generally inauspicious auras follow paintings and other shamanic paraphernalia (Kendall and Yang 2014;Kendall, Yang, and Yoon, forthcoming). Shamans themselves speak of "t' ali, " the inauspicious consequences of improperly handling or otherwise being connected to objects that have been associated with a spirit/soul (yŏng) presence or power.…”