{"id":689,"date":"2015-05-31T13:13:58","date_gmt":"2015-05-31T13:13:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anniecohensolal.com\/sitev2\/?p=689"},"modified":"2022-02-25T13:39:33","modified_gmt":"2022-02-25T13:39:33","slug":"day-two-in-korea-from-tragedy-to-hope-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anniecohensolal.com\/sitev2\/en\/day-two-in-korea-from-tragedy-to-hope-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Day Two in Korea: From Tragedy to Hope"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=\u00a0\u00bb264&Prime; img_size=\u00a0\u00bblarge\u00a0\u00bb alignment=\u00a0\u00bbcenter\u00a0\u00bb]<style>.ld_spacer_6a9167b309604{height:30px;}<\/style>\n<div class=\"ld-empty-space ld_spacer_6a9167b309604\"><span class=\"liquid_empty_space_inner\"><\/span><\/div>[\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<span lang=\"EN-US\">At Yonsei University, the whole Kim family has come for the lecture. The room is full and I am greeted by a historian, professor Chang-gyun HAN, who studied in Paris years ago. I have been asked to speak in French with an interpreter translating sentence after sentence. Soo-Bok is introducing the session. He had bought the Sartre biography in 1985, when it was first published in Paris, and he stresses the <i>intellectuel engag\u00e9<\/i> in Mark Rothko. He has perfectly understood my own angle: I approach Rothko from the point of view of a social historian \u2013as an immigrant, an artist, a pioneer constantly active an intellectual and an educator. Furthermore, his concept of \u201cart as an experience\u201d, borrowed from his readings of John Dewey, is based on his demand that the public be <i>active<\/i> in front of his art. Before showing the keynote with pictures, I ask the Korean students to prepare their questions, and especially to contradict and challenge me in the end, because I want to hear their voices, understand their opinions. I will remain almost four hours in the Jang Gi-Won Memorial Hall at Yonsei University for one of the most daunting sessions in my professional life.<\/span>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column]<style>.ld_spacer_6a9167b309f39{height:30px;}<\/style>\n<div class=\"ld-empty-space ld_spacer_6a9167b309f39\"><span class=\"liquid_empty_space_inner\"><\/span><\/div>[vc_single_image image=\u00a0\u00bb265&Prime; img_size=\u00a0\u00bblarge\u00a0\u00bb alignment=\u00a0\u00bbcenter\u00a0\u00bb]<style>.ld_spacer_6a9167b30a23a{height:30px;}<\/style>\n<div class=\"ld-empty-space ld_spacer_6a9167b30a23a\"><span class=\"liquid_empty_space_inner\"><\/span><\/div>[\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<span lang=\"EN-US\">During the presentation, the attention of the audience is mesmerizing. Soo-Bok\u2019s interventions create a real link and, suddenly, the questions explode. A sociologist wants to know whether one needs to read the book before going to the Rothko\u2019s show. Another one is asking about the market, the recent auction sales in New York, somebody else about the exhibition at the Hangaram Center. A professor of English literature expresses her interest in the migration issue -she is surprised, she says, to find so many parallels between painters and writers. It seems that the debate is not slowing down. It is evolving progressively towards something else when a woman, to my left, just says bluntly: \u201cYou talk about Rothko and Sartre as intellectuals, you talk about critical thinking. I have often tried to express my opinions, but it is difficult to do so here, in Korea, you don\u2019t realize.\u201d This is strong and vibrant and it takes me by surprise. True. I don\u2019t know. What prompted me to go to Professor Kim, who\u2019s sitting in one of the front rows? I give him the microphone and I answer: \u201cYou\u2019re right, I don\u2019t know. But Professor Kim whom I met last night and who shares my ideas on education will be able to answer you better than me.\u201d <\/span>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column]<style>.ld_spacer_6a9167b30a4ce{height:30px;}<\/style>\n<div class=\"ld-empty-space ld_spacer_6a9167b30a4ce\"><span class=\"liquid_empty_space_inner\"><\/span><\/div>[vc_single_image image=\u00a0\u00bb266&Prime; img_size=\u00a0\u00bblarge\u00a0\u00bb alignment=\u00a0\u00bbcenter\u00a0\u00bb]<style>.ld_spacer_6a9167b30a758{height:30px;}<\/style>\n<div class=\"ld-empty-space ld_spacer_6a9167b30a758\"><span class=\"liquid_empty_space_inner\"><\/span><\/div>[\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<span lang=\"EN-US\">When Professor Kim starts describing the need for Koreans to express themselves, to stand up and refuse traditional submission, it becomes incredible. Now the debate on Rothko has switched to a debate on Korean education: Is critical thinking possible in Korea? What are the conditions for a Korean to emancipate from hierarchy, from tradition? I intervene and I quote one of my favorite Sartre\u2019s interviews, \u201cLes Bastilles de Raymond Aron\u201d, (<i>Le Nouvel Observateur<\/i>, 1968) when he asserted: \u201cThe only way to learn is to challenge\u2026My best students were not the most disciplined students, but the most challenging ones.\u201d It seems that the description of Rothko\u2019s trajectory in US society has been able to unveil deep tendencies, still at work in Korean culture. How breathtaking, how intense, how far from the mercantile presentation of the show that I saw in the morning! \/I have just been told that a video of the lecture will be ready soon and i\u2019ll post it here\/A student wants me to give an interview for his online newspaper, he is very critical of the show, he tells me that a lot of bloggers are too. It is hard to stop talking. The debate lasted more than three hours. <\/span> What a day! From tragedy to hope, just like the tension that Rothko decided to create in the Rothko Chapel, following what he felt in the Torcello church, in Venice. I feel totally energized, but I still have to find out why my book vanished, why my publisher disappeared\u2026[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column]<style>.ld_spacer_6a9167b30aaf0{height:30px;}<\/style>\n<div class=\"ld-empty-space ld_spacer_6a9167b30aaf0\"><span class=\"liquid_empty_space_inner\"><\/span><\/div>[vc_single_image image=\u00a0\u00bb267&Prime; img_size=\u00a0\u00bblarge\u00a0\u00bb alignment=\u00a0\u00bbcenter\u00a0\u00bb][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column]<style>.ld_spacer_6a9167b30ad9e{height:20px;}<\/style>\n<div class=\"ld-empty-space ld_spacer_6a9167b30ad9e\"><span class=\"liquid_empty_space_inner\"><\/span><\/div>[\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">par <strong>Annie Cohen-Solal<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column]<style>.ld_spacer_6a9167b30b033{height:30px;}<\/style>\n<div class=\"ld-empty-space ld_spacer_6a9167b30b033\"><span class=\"liquid_empty_space_inner\"><\/span><\/div>[\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At Yonsei University, the whole Kim family has come for the lecture. The room is full and I am greeted by a historian, professor Chang-gyun HAN, who studied in Paris years ago. I have been asked to speak in French with an interpreter translating sentence after sentence. Soo-Bok is introducing the session.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":262,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[59],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anniecohensolal.com\/sitev2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anniecohensolal.com\/sitev2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anniecohensolal.com\/sitev2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anniecohensolal.com\/sitev2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anniecohensolal.com\/sitev2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=689"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/anniecohensolal.com\/sitev2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":690,"href":"https:\/\/anniecohensolal.com\/sitev2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689\/revisions\/690"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anniecohensolal.com\/sitev2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anniecohensolal.com\/sitev2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anniecohensolal.com\/sitev2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anniecohensolal.com\/sitev2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}