Abang-gung and Bari —
restoring the erased
She seized the gaze that was always presumed to be male.At the forefront of Korean feminist art since the 1990s.
Dismantling the gaze —
and rebuilding a subject
Since the 1990s, Ryu Junhwa has worked at the forefront of Korean feminist art. Her practice does not stop at depicting women: it dismantles the roles that a patriarchal society prescribed for them, and makes visible the structures of oppression hidden inside those roles. Hers is an art that challenges social taboos and overturns the male-centered system of looking.
Her early work placed on the canvas the realities of women who had become victims of social violence — sexual assault, the sex trade — sounding a heavy alarm in the society of its time. In the Korean word for prostitution, maechun, she fixed her attention not on the act of selling but on the act of buying, emphasizing the responsibility of the men who purchase sex. By reading language and image against the grain, she turned dominant assumptions on their head.
Using popular objects such as the Barbie doll, alongside photography and installation, she criticized the double standard that contemporary society forces upon women — the ‘chaste wife’ and the ‘sexual object’ at once. She seized the ‘observing gaze’ that had been conventionally reserved for men and turned men into the object of observation; she rendered, as a ghostly figure, the violence concealed behind the term jipsaram— ‘the person of the house’ — that erases the individuality of a married woman.
Her work did not remain a private act of creation. Through the feminist artist group Ipgim (‘Breath’), it expanded into a collective voice. The attempt to reinterpret Jongmyo — that patriarchal symbolic space — as the Abang-gung, the ‘beautiful, defiant womb’ animated by women's vitality is regarded as one of the most symbolic and defiant events in the history of Korean feminist art.
More recently she has turned to Bari, the abandoned princess of myth, and to women independence activists of history — re-illuminating the narratives of women that a patriarchal view of history had obscured. Ryu Junhwa's work has moved beyond denouncing past wounds toward excavating forgotten women's histories and building a new female subjecthood: a process of historical re-illumination.
Major themes
- 1
Overturning the gaze
She seizes the observing gaze long reserved for men and turns men into the object of observation — dismantling the male-centered system of looking.
- 2
Ipgim and the Abang-gung
Through the feminist collective Ipgim, she reimagined Jongmyo as the «Abang-gung» — regarded as one of the most symbolic, defiant events in Korean feminist art history.
- 3
Restoring erased histories
From Bari of myth to women independence activists of history, she recovers the narratives of women obscured by a patriarchal view of history.
The arc of the work
- 1990s–Steps to the forefront of Korean feminist art; confronts the realities of women made victims of social violence.
- LanguageReads maechun against the grain — the act of buying, not selling — to name the buyer’s responsibility.
- ObjectBarbie dolls, photography, installation — critiquing the double bind of the ‘chaste wife’ and the ‘sexual object.’
- IpgimWith the feminist collective Ipgim, reinterprets Jongmyo as the «Abang-gung» — a collective, defiant voice.
- RecentRe-illuminates Bari of myth and women independence activists, restoring narratives obscured by patriarchal history.
This arc traces themes within the artist’s practice; specific dates and venues are noted only where independently documented.
Ipgim and the Abang-gung project
- Ipgim (‘Breath’) — a feminist artist collective through which Ryu Junhwa’s practice expanded into a shared, communal voice.
- The «Abang-gung Jongmyo Occupation Project» reimagined the patriarchal symbolic space of Jongmyo as a site animated by women's vitality.
- Regarded as one of the most symbolic and defiant events in the history of Korean feminist art.
- In recent work, Bari of myth and women independence activists become figures of historical recovery.
Three essays —
on the work and its stakes
1Seizing the gaze — overturning the male-centered system of looking
At the center of Ryu Junhwa's practice is a question about who is permitted to look. In the inherited grammar of Western and Korean image-making alike, the observing gaze had long been presumed to belong to men, while women appeared as that which is looked at. Her work refuses this arrangement: it seizes the ‘observing gaze’ and turns men into the object of observation.
This is not a reversal for its own sake but a way of making the structure visible. By critiquing the double bind that society forces upon women — the ‘chaste wife’ and the ‘sexual object’ held at once — she exposes how a single system can demand opposite things of the same person. The work treats the gaze itself as a political instrument, and reassigns it.
Across painting, photography, and installation, the consistent strategy is to challenge social taboo head-on. The practice does not merely represent women; it intervenes in the very apparatus through which women have been represented.
2Ipgim and the Abang-gung — a collective, defiant voice
Ryu Junhwa's practice did not remain private. Through the feminist artist group Ipgim it expanded into a shared voice — the work of building, exhibiting, and acting together rather than alone.
Its most resonant gesture was the attempt to reinterpret Jongmyo — the royal ancestral shrine, a dense symbol of patriarchal order — as the «Abang-gung», the ‘beautiful, defiant womb’: a space animated, instead, by women's vitality. To stage a feminist art festival in the shadow of that shrine was to set Confucian solemnity and a feminist concept of liberation in maximal tension.
This is why the project is regarded as one of the most symbolic and defiant events in the history of Korean feminist art. It transformed an established historical and cultural site into a space of contemporary art — and it did so collectively, as a festival of sharing rather than a single author's statement.
3Bari and the recovery of history — from accusation to restoration
If the early work sounded an alarm about present violence, the recent work turns toward what was lost. Ryu Junhwa re-illuminates Bari — the princess of Korean myth, abandoned for being born a daughter, who nonetheless journeys to the underworld to save those who cast her out — and the women independence activists whom a patriarchal account of history left in shadow.
These figures are not chosen for nostalgia. They are chosen because their narratives were obscured — written out of the record kept by a patriarchal view of history. To paint them is to perform an act of restoration: to excavate forgotten histories of women and to build, from them, a new female subjecthood.
In this way her practice has moved beyond denouncing past wounds toward a process of historical re-illumination. The accusation of the early work and the recovery of the recent work are two halves of one project — to make the erased visible, and to let it speak.
From the early canvases that named present violence to the recent work that restores erased histories, Ryu Junhwa's practice has pursued a single question: who is permitted to look, to speak, to be remembered? She joins this campaign not as a subject of its cause but as a fellow artist in solidarity — so that the women who come after might work, and be seen, on their own terms.
Selected Works
2 works are featured here.
Ryu Junhwa joined this campaign in solidarity with fellow artists. Every work sold flows directly into the artists' mutual-aid loan fund— a purchase becomes the next month's lifeline for an artist navigating financial exclusion today.
