- 1980s: Social Engagement and Feminist Art

The 1980s was the decade in which artists began to reject conformity of the preceding decade. First, the Korean National Art Exhibition ended its 30-year run in 1981; in its place emerged private exhibitions sponsored by newspaper companies. The number of art museums and galleries began to grow, with more well-known galleries beginning to participate in international art fairs. Satellite installations like Good Morning, Mr. Orwell (1984) and Bye Bye Kipling (1986) by Paik Nam-june became a source of inspiration for the Korean art world. As artists were breaking away from the conformity of modernism, early 1980s society in general was pervaded with the idea of anti-Westernism and de-Westernization. Instead, people began emphasizing the importance of national consciousness, and even expressing their hopes for the unification of North and South Korea. In both aesthetical and ideological terms, Minjung Art (minjung being a Korean word for "the masses") was the opposite of 1970s modernism. Just a few years earlier, the focuses of art were on purity and autonomy, and on the importance of the artist's subjective and personal approach. The younger generation of the 1980s emphasized an artist’s engagement with the real world through a collectivist approach. Modernist artists had also been interested in tradition and ethnicity, but where their attention was focused more on spiritual heritage such as ideas of Laotzu, Minjung artists sought to carry on traditions that were linked to the lives of the people. Minjung artists revealed the absurdity of the capitalist world by depicting farmers and workers in a realistic style, deliberately chosen so that people could easily grasp its artistic language. The realist style of Minjung artists ultimately did not have a great impact, but it remains significant in art history as an attempt to overcome Western modernism.

In mid-1980s, art groups that supported de-genre art but rejected both the formal aesthetics of modernism and the excessive engagement of Minjung art began to appear. Groups like Nanjido, Meta Vox, Logos and Pathos, and Museum pursued the idea of deconstructive genre by offering a new methodology for installation art. It was a way of differentiating themselves from previous generations with a post-modern sensibility, while rejecting the ideological approach and realist style of Minjung art in favor of a new alternative incorporating objects. Museum, a group developed by artists like Choi Jeong-hwa, Kho Nak-beom, and Lee Bul, deconstructed traditional concepts of painting and sculpture not only in conceptual terms but also in formal ones.

Another significant movement of the 1980s was the emergence of feminist art. Although Korean feminist art began later than its Western counterpart, it became a platform for female artists such as Kim In-soon and Yun Suk-nam to critique issues of social inequality of Korean society in the late 1980s. They were especially interested in the gender inequalities that arose from the country's deep-seated Confucian beliefs. Kim's works showed the twofold oppression faced by female workers, while Yun Suk-nam depicted women suffering under the society's traditional preference for sons over daughters, and showed the artist's respect for mothers who sacrificed themselves on the altar of patriarchal male ideology.

Kim Sooja, 'Cities on the Move – 2727km', 1997, Bottari Truck, performance video around Korea. Courtesy the artist.

- 1990s: Diversification, Internationalization, and the Rise of Art Discourse

In the 1990s, dynamic cultural changes were taking place as the conflict between ideologies died away. These changes were closely linked not only to the fall of the Eastern Bloc and the international environment, but also in domestic conditions, including the liberalization of oversea travel after 1988 Olympics and an increase in the number of people studying abroad. The generation who had gone overseas to study dismantled deep-rooted "school ties" system in Korean art. This new cohort disinterested the ideologies of nationhood and statehood that their predecessors had believed in, but rather focused on the global art movements, in their own interests and individuality. Their focus was on how to connect with the world, and how to live as a member of the global community in an information-oriented age. Members of the so-called "Generation X" were unabashed about expressing their materialist and consumerist desires - an approach that led to a rapid shift toward kitsch and cult. The materials used for the artworks also changed. Instead of traditional materials such as paint, rocks, and wood, artists used technology: photographs, computers, videos, and so forth. Development of high technology in Korea and Nam-june Paik’s retrospective exhibition Nam June Paik.videotime.videospace held in 1992 at the National Museum of Contemporary Art further spurred these changes.
Paik's work during the 1990s excited great interest in Korean art among international curators, helping to lay the groundwork for other professionals to work on a global stage. Furthermore, Korea became host to its own major international exhibition in 1995 with the establishment of the Gwangju Biennale; the inclusion of a Korean pavilion at the Giardini for the Venice Biennale was another noteworthy development. The global work of artists like Lee Bul, Kim Soo-ja, and Suh Do-ho was also instrumental in building the country's prestige. Rather than focusing on conveying "Koreanness" through their art, Korean artists kept up with global trends, working under the concepts provided to them by curators when they were invited for international exhibitions. It was a sign that the artists of the day were members of a global community, communicating with the rest of the world in an information-driven age.

The time when art was dominated by college professors had passed; the new emerging leaders are the artists committed to creativity. It was a change stemming both from the growing financial support of the central and local governments and from a newly revitalized art market. Moreover, as large corporation began to support creative activities and run their own art museum, methods of artist sponsorship has also changed; if they were previously more interested in purchasing finished products, now the corporations started offering the support to cover the funds as artists put high technology to use in their artwork.
An outpouring of post-modernist discourse began to place new significance on the roles of the art theorist and art critic. Once they were responsible for simply introducing the work of artists, in the 1990s they began to assume a new role as creators of discourse, altering the very trends of art as a field. It would also be remiss not to remark on the role of exhibition curators. The Korean art of today is incomparably more dynamic than that of the past. Curators have become every bit as important as the artists and critics, marking a new era where new forms and new art movements emerge from the act of curating.

Kim Yi-soon / Professor, Art History, Hongik University

Professor of Art History at Hongik University, Ph.D. in Korean Modern and Contemporary art history