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Younger Generation in Dire Straits

A characteristic of youth is art that does not simply represent or reproduce what is already out there, but generates or creates the new. This is why art is so readily identified with youth. At the core of art is a youth that is defined less by physical age than by a generation that is constantly experiencing creation and growth. It is a fact that goes some way in explaining why journals and other art institutions extend its members such consideration. A special feature on the “Art Ecology of the Younger Generation in 2016” in the September edition of Monthly Art explored younger artists from various angles; another feature piece in the August edition of Art in Culture introduced a number of emerging artists. A glossary of sorts was organized for 81 young artists recommended by “young curators and critics who have been prolific in recent years.” With their critical and archival approach, these pieces do tend to confine members of the generation to a catalog—but a closer look at the “young” and “emerging” artists seen year after year raises the question of what might happen next after the youth and the emergence.

To be blunt about it, I do not see it as helpful to these artists to call them by any kind of collective name. In any event, exhibitions organized around “youth” were a crucial part of a number of exhibitions this year, from Kukje Gallery’s “Wellknown Unknown” to the Jeonbuk Museum of Art’s “Asia Young 36”. There are also all sorts of awards that give opportunities for young people to make their presence felt as leaders. The focus of the 3rd Chong Kun Dang Art Awards exhibition (at the Sejong Center art gallery) was on offering corporate support to discover and assist young artists with a focus on painting, art’s most fundamental genre. The artists selected for the 2016 Art Spectrum exhibition (Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art; “launched in 2001 to discover and support rising figures in contemporary Korean art”) people like Jeong Geumhyung, the star of the 16th Hermes Foundation Missulsang Awards, and the members of Mixrice, who won the 2016 Korea Arts Prize (National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art), are establishing themselves as young artists with a young spirit. A number of young media artists also took part in the “Virtual Politics” topic at the 16th Seoul International New Media Festival, which was organized by i-Gong—along time contributor to sharing alternative video culture from its place in front of Hongik University.

But revelations of sexual harassment in arts community (coming on the heels of similar incidents in the literary world) also revealed another hidden, painful aspect that young artists have had to endure. The incident, which was first reported over social media on October 21 by a female artist, has had major repercussions. That woman’s courageous confession led to still others, and ultimately to collective action in front of the building where the suspect worked. The December issue of Art in Culture focuses on sexual assault in the cultural community as a “hot issue.” The Association of Female Curators sent a united message: “Let’s break the vicious cycle of violence!” As in other areas of the cultural community, women make up an overwhelming majority of arts college students and members of the art world—yet what brought about this unsavory incident is a situation where their position still generally remains, for all their numbers, secondary. If the “beta” figures represent the majority, then they can join together and change their dynamic with the “alphas.” Even as I write this, a statement against sexual violence in the art world is circulating, drawing participation from many artists and bringing stories out of the shadows and into public discussion.

Events in 2016 left the Korean people in a state of panic, and the art world was no exception. Much of the budget money that should have been used for art may have gone up in smoke because of abuses, and artists may have to suffer a colder New Year as a result. In addition to the site-based art that drew wide participation at the candlelight demonstrations, statements have also been issued in the institutional setting of the arts college. On November 23, the University of Arts Association of Korea (under chairperson Lee Sang-bong) released a statement and pledging to “protect an arts education environment that has been left devastated under the guise of the ‘creative economy’ and ‘cultural convergence.’” Works of art are arguable just as importance as engagement in civil society campaigns and statements. Art makes artists most themselves, retaining its strength and density while speaking out toward society at large.

I would therefore like to end this short look back at the year in the art world by mentioning two significant exhibitions related to the events that assailed us in 2016. They have in common their having been staged in rather unusual settings: a website and a university museum. One was artsolaris.org, a website put online early this year by the media artists Mioon (Min Kim and Moon Choi). It’s a rendering of the art community power landscape in the form of a constellation. Consisting of hundreds of pieces of information about publicly funded exhibitions and the hundreds of artists involved, it offers empirical evidence of the concentration of art community power with a handful of shining stars, raising questions about the public nature or art in the process. The other was the feature exhibition “Face, Opposing” at the Sungkyunkwan University museum. It opened quietly enough on October 5, but the popular response to its theme—which meshes excellently with the political situation unfolding in Korea right now—led to it being extended past its original closing date at the end of the year and on to March 2017. Reflecting a search by artists who have sensed the acute lack of a true leader in the contemporary climate, it singles out figures like Kim Koo, Shin Chae-ho, and Lyuh Woon-hyung—badly missed “faces” to “oppose” an oppressive present.