A Puppet Show
Minjoong (People’s) Art Movement
Woodcut, 1980s
South Korea
417
On December 3, 2024, South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol of the conservative People’s Power Party (PPP) declared martial law after accusing the oppositional Democratic Party (DPK) of conducting “anti-state activities” in collaboration with the North Koreans. The martial law order prohibited political activities and suspended free press. Shortly after, South Korea erupted in protests, and the next day, legislators unanimously passed a motion to lift martial law. Yoon has since been impeached.
Martial law has a familiar and traumatizing presence in South Korean history. In the first three decades following independence from Japanese colonization and the 1948 rupture separating North and South, South Korean governance was ruled by harsh dictators. During those decades, martial law was declared 16 times by leaders seeking to stay in power in the face of protests and multiple coup d’etats.
The last time martial law was used was 1980. After dictator Park Chung Hee was assassinated in 1979, a military coup deposed next-in-line Choi Kyu-hah. The leader of the coup, General Chun Doo-hwan, declared martial law in May 1980. Gwangju, a major city in the southwest, was the center of anti-government and pro-democracy protests. When troops, recently trained in “riot” response, arrived they indiscriminately attacked protestors and bystanders alike, leaving hundreds beaten, raped, tortured, and an estimated 1,000-2,300 dead. Many participants were sent to the Samchung re-education camp, a concentration camp established during Chun’s rule that forced 10,000-100,000 South Koreans to do hard labor under threat of physical violence.
This massacre was supported logistically by the U.S. government during the Carter administration. As a result, the 1980s saw a surge in anti-American sentiment, as seen in this week’s Poster of the Week, that viewed the U.S. as a puppetmaster of South Korea’s government. The poster was made by the Minjoong (‘people’s”) art movement. Minjoong art emerged in the chaotic aftermath of the Gwangju Uprising, and its pro democracy artists embraced styles that represented the reality of Korea’s working class.
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