Shaman Paintings and Old Shaman of Korea

Dr. Laurel Kendall explores the divine nature of Korean shaman paintings in her book, God Pictures in Korean Contexts: The Ownership and Meaning of Shaman Paintings, co-authored by Jongsung Yang, Director of the Museum of Shamanism in Seoul, and Yul Soo Yoon, Founder and Director of the Gahoe Museum.
What makes a shaman painting sacred? Can these art pieces ever be anything but magical? Dr. Laurel Kendall navigates the journey of shaman paintings as they pass hands from painters to shamans to art collectors. Join us to examine the boundary between the art world and tangible aspects of religious practice. 

Laurel Kendall is Chair of the Division of Anthropology and Curator of Asian Ethnographic Collections at the American Museum of Natural History, Adjunct Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University, and president of the Association for Asian Studies. Dr. Kendall began her long acquaintance with South Korean life in 1970 as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer, when a chance encounter with female shamans led her to subsequent anthropological fieldwork. Her Shamans, Nostalgias, and the IMF: South Korean Popular Religion in Motion (University of Hawaii Press, 2009) offers a 30-year perspective on people described in Shamans, Housewives, and other Restless Spirits: Women in Korean Ritual Life (1985) and The Life and Hard Times of a Korean Shaman (1988). In 2010, Korean colleagues awarded Shamans, Nostalgias, and the IMF the first Yim Suk Jay Prize recognizing a work of anthropology about Korea by a non-Korean. In 2007 the International Society for Shamanic research gave Dr. Kendall a lifetime achievement award.