How provocateurs of Korean experimental art wrestled with rapid modernization, authoritarian state

Installation view of "Only the Young: Experimental Art in Korea, 1960s-1970s" at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA) in central Seoul. The survey of over 95 works by 29 representative avant-garde practitioners of the period has been co-organized by the MMCA's senior curator Kang Soo-jung and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum's associate curator Kyung An. Courtesy of MMCA

By Park Han-sol

• Published Jun 29, 2023 3:44 PM KST
• Updated Jun 30, 2023 4:43 PM KST

'Only the Young: Experimental Art in Korea, 1960s-1970s' to tour New York, Los Angeles after Seoul run

By Park Han-sol

The experimental art scene that struck post-war Korea in the 1960s and 1970s like a meteorite is a buried chapter of history that deserves to be revisited ― or, for most of the world, newly discovered.

At a time when the authoritarian government of Park Chung-hee was propagating “chonghwa dangyeol,” or “unifying as a whole,” as a state motto to push for the country's high-speed industrialization, young artists chose to break away from such a regimented, collectivist mentality and instead went on a hunt to find a language of creative subversion ― however “bizarre and deranged” it seemed to the rest of society.

These provocateurs took cues from modern Western cultural movements such as Neo-Dada, conceptual art and pop art, which were available via heavily limited channels due to state censorship. But they focused on recontextualizing these styles so that their avant-garde art could reflect distinctly local concerns ― namely, the military dictatorship, breakneck economic growth and the postcolonial search for authentic “Koreanness.”

What emerged as a result was a genre-defying mix of visceral performances, temporary happenings and process-oriented works that helped the spirited creators find their voice of resistance, albeit momentarily, within a tumultuous sociopolitical landscape.

“It was certainly a lonely and unappreciated road to walk, especially for the artists coming of age who lacked the actual power to change the system,” Kang Soo-jung, senior curator at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA), told The Korea Times. “They carried on nonetheless.”

The museum is hosting “Only the Young: Experimental Art in Korea, 1960s-1970s,” a survey of over 95 works by 29 representative avant-garde practitioners of the period, co-organized by Kang and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum's associate curator Kyung An.

Following its run in Seoul, the show will travel to the Guggenheim in New York in September ― as the first North American museum exhibition dedicated to these artists ― and the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles in February 2024.

Here are some of the show's highlights that may be worth checking out during a visit to the museum in Seoul ― or perhaps, in New York or Los Angeles.

Jung Kang-ja and the first feminist performance in Korea

Jung Kang-ja (1942-2017) was among a very few female artists who were active in the Korean experimental art scene during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

In an attempt to take a jab at the academicism tacitly espoused by the “Kukjon” ― the juried National Art Exhibition held annually since 1949, which, for its first edition, barred a female nude painting from going on display citing public indecency ― she and her fellow artists Kang Kuk-jin (1939-92) and Chung Chan-seung (1942-94) staged what turned out to be the first feminist performance in Korea: “Transparent Balloons and Nude” (1968).

At C'est Si Bon, a live music hall in downtown Seoul, audiences were invited to attach balloons to Jung's semi-naked body and then pop them later on. This happening sent shockwaves immediately through society, with some calling it “outright insane.”

Here, her body was no longer seen as a sex object but as a cultural agent capable of challenging conservative, preconceived aesthetic tastes and suggesting new artistic perceptions, curator Kang noted.

“Murder at the Han Riverside” (1968), performed by the trio, is another project that takes a more visceral form in its critique of the institutionalized Kukjon. Under the present-day Yanghwa Bridge, Jung, Kang and Chung dug holes in the sand to partly bury themselves and had water poured over them. After coming out of the pits, they went on to write condemning phrases on vinyl clothing ― “cultural fraudster” (pseudo-artist), “illicit money maker” (bogus great master), “cultural acrobat” (opportunist bandwagon jumper) ― before burning and burying them in the ground.

Such performances and happenings that largely took place outside of the sanitized, white-cube contexts ushered in the advent of a new youthful vision that later came to be known as experimental art.

Kim Ku-lim and his tour de force, 'The Meaning of 1/24 Second'

Kim Ku-lim presents a striking cross-section of modern men living in 1960s Seoul, a rapidly industrializing metropolis, through his experimental film “The Meaning of 1/24 Second” (1969).

The nine-minute video consists of a quickly edited collage of shots depicting elevated expressways, newly built city landmarks, billboards, overpasses and mass-produced consumer goods ― visual records of the dynamic reconstruction of the country that was ravaged by war just over a decade earlier.

But occasionally, out of the blue, the film is interrupted by scenes of artists exaggeratedly yawning, smoking languidly and spacing out ― actions that show they refuse to assimilate into the urban montages moving at a dizzying speed.

“The sudden appearance of these young creators in the video proactively puts the brakes on the headlong pace of urban growth, thereby visualizing what the true role of art and artists could be in our society,” the curator explained.

Kim also helmed the short-lived yet radical avant-garde collective called the Fourth Group, best known for choreographing “A Funeral for the Established Art and Culture” (1970).

To declare Korea's cultural independence from “the outdated ideology of the establishment,” the members staged a funeral procession in Seoul's Gwanghwamun on Aug. 15 National Liberation Day, carrying a coffin and Korean flags throughout the march. But before they could finish the proceeding, police intervened and arrested the participants for violating traffic laws.

This unfinished march came to have surprisingly significant repercussions at a societal level, Kang noted.

As Park's authoritarian Yushin regime deemed these youth-led cultural events as degenerate and subversive threats to the systemic power, its censorship began to target not only art, but also popular music, literature and cinema. The government even went as far as issuing a notorious decree on Aug. 29, 1970, just two weeks after the Fourth Group's funeral performance, to mandate limits on the length of men's hair and women's miniskirts ― the symbols of the so-called “decadent” youth culture.

Lee Seung-taek's use of tradition as avant-garde tool

One of the unique characteristics of Korean avant-garde art is its relationship with tradition, according to the curator.

“The essence of avant-garde lies in its radical departure from tradition,” Kang said. “However, in Korea, the opposite happened, where some experimental artists found a breakthrough via their rediscovery of their cultural heritage.”

This was made possible due to the country's early 20th-century history, whereby the people were forcibly cut off from their traditional heritage due to the 1910-45 Japanese occupation, rapid modernization and the influx of Western culture.

Lee Seung-taek is one of the masters who forged his well-known practice of “non-sculpture” by visually reinterpreting traditional folk items such as earthenware and sickles.

The 1960s and 1970s were a time when the government aimed to determine which sculptural subjects and practices should be deemed appropriate in order to project to its people and the world a desirable cultural image of Korea. The statue of Admiral Yi Sun-shin at Gwanghwamun Plaza is one prime example. At the same time, it strove to eradicate folk traditions and shamanism, regarding them as primitive obstacles to the nation's modernization.

But Lee put multiple creative twists on such doctrines in his pieces like “Untitled” (1962) and “Untitled (Sprout)” (1963) as he not only actively incorporated folk items into his installations but also challenged the notion of sculptures' “material fixedness” or hardness by having them bear the marks of rope binding.

Sung Neung-kyung and Space and Time (ST) collective

Space and Time (ST), an avant-garde group formed in 1971 that lasted for a decade, had foremost champions of performance art as its members, including Lee Kun-yong and Sung Neung-kyung.

Sung's magnum opus, “Newspaper: After 1st of June, 1974” (1974), was born at the third group exhibition of ST.

Every morning for the duration of the month-long show, he would arrive early at the museum to pick up the newly delivered newspaper and cut out all blocks of printed text with a razor blade, leaving only the blank margins, images and advertisements. He would attach the tattered pages to the wall, while dumping the cut-out portions of text in acrylic boxes. The next day, he threw out the remaining paper skeleton in another box and repeated the process.

The whole act was a tacit commentary on the authoritarian government as the artist crudely mimicked the process of state-led censorship of news media. Despite the looming fear of arrest, he carried on with what he called “a silent protest” against the country's political climate and the eroding freedom of expression.

A related performance work, “Reading Newspapers,” was reenacted at the MMCA recently, along with two other performances ― Kim Ku-lim's “From Creation to Dissolution” and Lee's “Snail's Gallop.” The three will also be restaged at the Guggenheim.

“When I first performed the piece in the 1970s, because it was during a time of political turmoil, my very act of cutting out and reading the newspaper out loud was already layered with a heavy sense of tension,” Sung told The Korea Times. “But now, in 2023, it has an entirely different effect since it can finally be viewed outside of the political context and within the purely artistic, performative realm. It should have been that way from the beginning but our reality just didn't permit that to happen until now.”

Lee similarly highlighted the changes in the audience's reception of his performance “Snail's Gallop.” “I, as an artist, remain the same, because I was 'playing' back then and am 'playing' now. But the audience's perceptions of it seem different. The spectators back then were much more stiff and solemn. Nowadays, however, they are much open to the idea of interacting casually with the performer.”

The exhibition culminates with Sung's “An Upside-Down Map of World” (1974) as the finale ― and for good reason.

A standardized modern world map, which used to hang at every government office and school in Korea, has been cut into 300 rectangular pieces by the artist. At every show, he rearranges them in a different order along with the remaining paper skeleton.

The piece visualizes his desire to destabilize the previously established order and norms and restructure them in his way.

“I believe it summarizes the efforts that all young Korean artists featured in the exhibition made over five decades ago ― to reimagine an alternative world with their ideas, performances and creativity,” Kang noted.

“Only the Young” runs through July 16 at the MMCA. It will open at the Guggenheim, Sept. 1.