Unearthing Korea’s forgotten Surrealists
Surrealism officially took root in Paris in 1924, with the publication of poet Andre Breton’s “Surrealist Manifesto.” More than an artistic rebellion, it sought to liberate the human spirit from the chains of reason and tradition, both profoundly shaken in the aftermath of World War I. It instead turned to the raw, untamed visions of the subconscious, and within a few years blossomed into an international movement of intellectual and political defiance. In Korea’s art world, the first stirrings of Surrealism surfaced in the late 1930s, taken up by artists like Kim Whanki, Lee Jung-seop and Yoo Young-kuk — students trained in Japan who returned home bearing radical new visions. Yet, under the heavy shadow of 1910-45 Japanese colonization and the 1950-53 Korean War, these early experiments failed to crystallize into a lasting movement and gradually faded into obscurity. For a time, Surrealism in Korea was even treated as something that had never existed at all. But within that prolonged absence, there were individuals who carried the spirit forward silently and in solitude. It i
Jun 13, 2025By Park Han-sol
