portrait of byungsoon choi by han-yeol lee at the gwangju art biennale 2010
image © designboom


on june 9, 1987 yonsei university student han-yeol lee (1966-1987) was struck in the head by a police tear gas
canister while attending a pro-democracy rally in seoul, and later died from his injuries. lee's death quickly became
a rallying point for members of the democracy movement, and his funeral drew crowds estimated to be in the millions.
one of the major focal points of lee's funeral was a large memorial portrait of the fallen activist painted by the
artist and fellow democracy-fighter, byungsoon choi. a truck displaying the portrait followed the mourners on their
route from seoul to gwangju, where the young man was born. after the funeral, choi's painting was publicly
displayed at yonsei university as a memorial, but was quickly attacked and destroyed by seoul police forces,
which sought to downplay lee's death. choi painted an identical portrait to replace the one that had been
destroyed, but soon after it was replaced, this second portrait was slashed with knives, and act of vandalism
that many have attributed to the police. the slashed painting was eventually repaired, and is on view at this year's
gwangju art biennale, affixed to a truck in the same manner as during lee's funeral. over the course of its two iterations,
choi's image has acted as both a social crystallization point and as an icon, as a focal point for throngs of
mourners and as a cipher for the democratization movement as a whole. it thus became a target of aggression
by those who feared the power of images.



front view
image © designboom



detail of portrait
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the truck covered in a black fabric
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an exhibited photograph of the funeral march
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exhibited drawing of the painting's arrangement on the truck
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image © designboom