Cut, Paste,
and Read the World
The image was theirs. The meaning is ours.Park Bul-ttong tears the picture apart to show you what was always hidden inside.
Scissors as critique —
the collage that cuts through power
Park Bul-ttong (b. 1956) chose his medium deliberately: collage. Not painting, not printmaking — but the act of cutting images produced by power and rearranging them into new, unauthorized meanings. Newspapers, magazines, advertisements: the raw material of his work is the very media through which authority speaks.
In the Korea of the 1980s, this was a radical choice. As a member of the Minjung Misul Hyeopuihoe (National Artists' Association), Park understood that the most effective critique of a media-saturated world was to work from inside it — taking the images that were fed to people and showing, by simple rearrangement, what they concealed.
His collages are direct without being blunt, political without being didactic. The scissors do the arguing. And the result — a world reassembled honestly — is both a critique and a kind of liberation.
Major themes
- 1
Deconstruction of image
Mass media images are cut apart and reassembled to expose the power structures hidden within them.
- 2
Satire and directness
Without detour, his works deliver social and political messages with immediate visual impact.
- 3
Democracy of collage
Using everyday printed materials rather than costly supplies, he lowers the threshold of art while raising the stakes of critique.
The artist's timeline
- 1956Born in Hadong, South Gyeongsang province.
- 1984Graduates from Hongik University, Department of Western Painting.
- 1985First solo exhibition 〈Nunbit〉 at Gwanhun Gallery; co-founds the Minjung Misul Hyeopuihoe (National Artists' Association).
- 1980sDevelops his signature political collage style, using mass media materials to critique power.
- 1990s–Continues exhibiting nationally and internationally; work acquired by major collections.
- 현재Continues working; his collages remain one of the sharpest visual critiques in contemporary Korean art.
Selected exhibitions & collections
- 〈Nunbit〉 (1985) · 〈Joljak〉 (1987) · 〈Gyeolsa Bandae〉 (1989) — Geurimadang Min, Seoul
- 〈Confession on the Disability of Desire〉, Kumho Museum of Art (1992); 〈Park Bul-ttong 1985–2016〉, Gallery 175 (2016)
- Group exhibition: 《15 Years of Minjung Art: 1980–1994》, MMCA (1994)
Exhibition Works
1 works are currently on view.
Park Bul-ttong joined this exhibition 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.
