동북아역사재단 2023년 02월호 뉴스레터
- Lee Hoon-seok, exhibition planner, Ph.D. in Russian Art History
Nikolai Shin as the Picasso of Asia
Nikolai Shin, a Goryeoin painter of Uzbekistan, is nicknamed the “Picasso of Asia.” Even those who do not have the slightest interest in arts must have heard about Pablo Picasso. The fact that this Goryeoin painter who is less well known among Koreans is compared to Picasso, who has world-class reputation, can be quite surprising. Could this be another example of the hyperbole that is often used to promote exhibitions and sales?
Of course, Shin’s reputation does not match that of Picasso, whose use of Cubism has created a huge wave in the history of arts. Cubism was a dramatic and revolutionary attempt back in the time that involved dismantling, analyzing, and reassembling objects. What about the works of Shin? Could they rival Picasso's innovative and dramatic works? Does he really deserve to be called the Picasso of Asia? To answer these questions, we should first go over the history of Goryeoin diaspora, of which the artist is a part, and the situation of the artistic world of the Soviet Union since the 1950s.
From a Korean of Primorsky Krai to Goryeo-saram
The Picasso of Asia has another name apart from his legal name, Nikolay Sergeevich Shin, and it is Shin Sun-nam. Just like any other “Goryeoin” of the time that were forced to move from Joseon to Primorsky Krai, and from Primorsky Krai to Central Asia, he treasured his real name in his heart apart from his legal name. Koreans who migrated to the Soviet Union are called Goryeoin in Korea. However, Goryeoins prefer to use pure Korean instead of the Chinese character in (人), so they call themselves “Goryeo-saram.”
In 1937, Joseph Stalin forcibly relocated Koreans living in Primorsky Krai to Central Asia under the pretext of preventing Japanese espionage activities in the Far East border region. However, the fact that arresting and relocating even Koreans residing in central Russia that was distant from the borders revealed the real intention. The scheme was to break up the Korean community that was developing influence by taking up more than half the population of Primorsky Krai, which was a strategic region. It aimed at removing the possibility of Japan attacking the Soviet Union by giving a reason that Koreans in the region are supporting the independence movement of Joseon. Koreans who had no choice but to escape to Primorsky Krai to avoid starvation and exploitation since the late period of Joseon had their lands and property forfeited and left to leave regardless of their will. This is how they became Koreans of Primorsky Krai to Goryeo-saram.
From Shin Sun-nam to Nikolai Shin
Shin Sun-nam, who was nine years old at the time of forced displacement, was never able to forget the memories of Koreans being transported in filthy cargo cars like sardines packed in cans; people dying from communicable diseases, cold, and starvation; and desperate struggles to survive in wasteland where they were eventually placed. Goryeoins who were suddenly thrown out to wasteland of Central Asia had no place to stay; they dug up soil to build mud huts and cultivated the rocky barren land with their bare hands. According to official statistics, over 40,000 out of 170,000 Koreans died during the process of migration and settlement. After years of efforts to survive, Goryeoins succeeded in farming rice and got back their stable life, but their sacrifice during the process was too harsh.
Shin was talented in arts since his early years of life, and he taught himself to draw. He farmed in the daytime, studied at night, and made drawings in between. His grandmother saw his talent and took young Shin to Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, to enroll him in formal arts education despite the financial difficulty they were going through. Shin graduated from Benkov Art School and Ostrovsky College of Theater Arts, and started his career as an artist in the Soviet Union under the official name of Nikolai Shin.
Neglected by the official and unofficial artistic world of the Soviet Union
We must pay attention to the term “official.” The painter’s world in the Soviet Union was divided into official and unofficial societies between the 1950s and late 1980s. The official artistic society, from a narrow perspective, denied the autonomy of art and emphasized its functional aspect as a tool for promoting systems, which included artists who focused on political works centered on socialist realism. From a broader perspective, it included artists who painted “positive” landscapes, still life, or portraits with less political features. They were all trained at formal art institutions without exception and were part of the Soviet artist federation, in which the government provided them with housing and studios to enjoy a stable environment for creative work.
Meanwhile, unofficial artists intended to express their personal minds and emotions through experimental and free abstract and semi-abstract work. They did not hesitate to reflect social contradictions and pessimistic perspective of the Soviet society. Obviously, they were expelled from the artist federation and prohibited from exhibiting their work. Some were recognized from outside the country by Western collectors who were attracted by the “dissident” of unofficial art, but they were only a few.
Shin belonged somewhere in the middle, in neither of the artistic society of the Soviet Union. He can be considered closer to unofficial art. Like other unofficial artists, his early works strongly feature avant-garde practices of the West and Russia in terms of style. The portraits especially feature Fauvist color experiments and experimental compositions that show the influence of Cubism and Futurism. However, his works featured not only the characteristics of unofficial art that mainly focused on expressing freedom as an artist through experiments, but also his thoughts, nostalgia, and compassion for his ethnic identity as a Goryeoin.
Shin was not removed from the artist federation, but his avant-guard experiments mixed with ethnic themes had no space to be seen in the official world of art. His works remained unnoticed by collectors merely because he was based in Tashkent and not in Moscow or Leningrad—the central districts of the unofficial art world. Despite the harsh reality of neither being recognized by official or unofficial sides, he continued with his work. This is his famous painting titled Requiem: Korean History of Migration.
Diaspora works of Shin influenced by avant-garde
Shin began painting Requiem in the 1960s and completed in 1982, which was the revelation of the cultural trauma that Goryeoins went through after the deportation in 1937. Cultural trauma, first introduced by neo-Durkheimian cultural sociologist Jefferey Alexander, states that a tragic event experienced by a group reconstructs the identity of the group through the process of reproducing traumas through artwork, including literature and film. The tragedy of Goryeoins who sacrificed countless lives during deportation and settlement is portrayed in a massive painting of 44 meters in height and 3 meters in width through a group of suffering people. This is a cultural reproduction of the change of identification of “Koreans of Primorsky Krai” to “Goryeo-saram.”
The Legend of Love and Sukok Medals represent Shin’s agonies as part of the Korean diaspora that has to blend into the mainstream culture of Central Asia and retain the ethnic identity. Shin’s later works in the 2000s feature more refined compositions and colors. His last pieces of work that are as innocent as children also represent the artist’s efforts to maintain the ethnic uniqueness that is slowly fading away. Here you can also observe his experiment of styles that continues from avant-garde of the early 20th century of the West and Russia.
Shin’s works began to be officially recognized by Uzbekistan and Korea after the Perestroika movement. The Uzbek government acknowledged Shin by granting him the status of a meritorious artist in 1987. The opening ceremony of Shin’s first solo exhibition was held in Seoul in 1997, and former Prime Minister Koh Geon and former Minister of Culture and Sports Song Tae-ho were present at the event. The Korean government awarded him with Geumgwan (1st grade) Order of Cultural Merit, and his main work Requiem was donated to the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Korea.
2028 celebrates the artist's 100th birthday. Neither did Shin pass down a legacy of the world's art history the way Picasso did, nor was he famous as Picasso. As seen from this fact, his nickname Picasso of Asia was not granted because of his fame. Nevertheless, he merits the title for the following reasons: First, his works made artistic achievement by overcoming difficult situations that were harsher than the background of the appearance of Picasso's cubist work. Second, his works remain as shared cultural assets of Korea and Uzbekistan, leaving a market legacy in the overall history of art in Eurasia.
동북아역사재단이 창작한 '레퀴엠- 한민족 유민사, 신 니콜라이' 저작물은 "공공누리" 출처표시-상업적이용금지-변경금지 조건에 따라 이용 할 수 있습니다.
