Taken by the influential photographer Shin Nakkyun, the photograph of model Choi Seunghui embodied a short-lived cultural moment in Korea known as Sinyeoseong, or 'New Woman.'
The young woman in the sepia-toned photograph curtsies gracefully, inclining her head and smiling sweetly at the camera. She wears a light-colored dress with puffed sleeves and a flared skirt that falls above the knee. To a contemporary viewer, this picture may suggest girlish innocence. But when this photograph was taken in Korea in 1930, local viewers would likely have found it unsettling.“The Space Between: The Modern in Korean Art” at LACMA.
Amid these dramatic transitions, the photograph represented a jarring modernity entering traditional Korean society. Here was a young woman with bobbed hair, wearing revealing Western clothing and posing coquettishly in a medium that had only been introduced to Korea in the late 1800s. Akin to her flapper counterparts in the West, she embodied a short-lived cultural moment known as Sinyeoseong, or “New Woman.
One of these women is the photo’s subject, Choi Seunghui. An artist who studied both Japanese modern and Korean Buddhist dance, she played a major role in the development of modern dance in Korea and was among the most famous and most photographed women of her day. This image, taken by the influential photographer Shin Nakkyun, may be one of the earliest depictions of Choi, capturing her on the verge of stardom.