10 🇰🇷 Korean Names in Art to remember

Art movements that make ‘Korean modern art’ emerged in reaction to the socio-political events that marked the country, such as the Japanese occupation, the division of the peninsula, the Korean War that followed and the Gwangju Massacre at the time of Chun Doo-hwan’s dictatorship, when 200 peaceful protesters were shot to kill (👋 Tiananmen 🇨🇳 and 🇺🇿 Andijan). This was the case for Minjung and Dansaekhwa. A shared trait in contemporary art movements in South Korea is the integration of traditional art, patterns and techniques.

1. The Victor Hugos of Korean Art, Minjung: the Minjung art group (1980s — 1990s), which used art to convey socially engaged messages to the viewer, advocating for democracy and Korean reunification. The name of the movement speaks for itself, as Minjung translates into ‘Art for the People’ from Korean. The group’s media of choice included walls (for murals), banners and pamphlets. Just like Western post war art, Minjung group’s works reflect the social trauma and dehumanisation in the disfigured and crooked bodies. Some famous examples are: O Yun’s ”General Green Pea”. Green Pea was the mocking nickname given to General Chun and the Socialist Realism-inspired banner ”Kabo Peasant’s War”.

“The Kabo Peasants’ War”

2. The record breaker, KIM Whan-ki: One of the first Korean abstract artists who conquered the international art scene and broke his own record four times at Korean Art auctions in 14 months. To this day, the top 5 most expensive sales for Korean art are all paintings by him. I feel very blessed and lucky as I personally assisted the 20th Seoul Auction held at the Grand Hyatt in Hong Kong in 2015. That day, Kim’s 1970 painting “12-V-70 #172” was sold for $5.3m and it is still the most expensive Korean art painting sold. Color is also what made this painting special, as most of his paintings are in blue shades, like the deep cobalt dots in 05-IV-71 #200 (Universe), which is his only diptych and one of his most recognisable paintings.

Another interesting fact is that his works also integrate traditional Korean art practices and patterns, such as literati ink paintings drawn by Confucian scholars from the late Koryeo period through to the end of the Joseon period, white porcelains of the Joseon-dynasty (1392–1897) and celadon of the Goryeo dynasty (918–1392).

3. The Leader of Dansaekhwa, LEE Ufan: one of the most well known Korean artists and leader of the Dansaekhwa art group, promoting monochrome and minimalism as suggested by the title. The term Dansaekhwa itself means “monochrome painting” in Korean. This can be seen in Lee Ufan’s Correspondance, his first series of paintings, which consist of just one or two grey-blue brushstrokes of a mixture of oil and crushed stone pigment applied onto a large white canvas. In the same manner, but more colorful is his Dialogue series. It can also be seen in his sculptural series Relatum, which are constructions formed from one or more light-colored round stones and dark, rectangular iron plates. By the way, there is a chance you can bump into him on the streets of Kamakura and Paris.

Driven by the desire to rebuild a Korean national identity, which was lost and shaken by the demoralising Japanese occupation and later by the division of the peninsula, Dansaekhwa art seeked to articulate a distinctive Korean art tradition. The media of choice would be traditional Korean ink portraits and traditional Korean materials such as Hanji paper, a traditional Korean paper hand-made from mulberry bark. This can be seen in the works of Park Seo-bo.

4. The Godfather of Dansaekhwa, PARK Seo-bo: another prominent member of the Dansaekhwa movement, best known for his series, ”French: Ecriture”, characterised by the repeated incision of pencil lines into a still-wet monochromatic painted surface and also the application of Hanji paper onto the canvas. In 1961, he won a UNESCO scholarship and went to Paris to study in Sorbonne. There he explored the Art Informel, characterised by aggressive brushstrokes, dark hues, and amorphous forms, which in turn influenced Park’s first series of paintings, Primordialis.

5. The Pipes Artist, LEE Seung-Jio: He uses a structure of cylindrical bands resembling pipes as the foundation of his works and his distinctive feature. He uses these pipe-like forms to play with optical illusion and create geometric abstractions. Lee co-founded the Korean Avant-Garde Association and the Origin Group along with Choi Myoung-Young and Suh Seung-Won. Together the Origin group explored the concepts of control, moderation, flatness, and objectivity in abstract painting.

6. The Cyborg Lady, Ms. LEE Bul: This talented woman explores the cyberworld and technology through performance, sculpture, painting, installations and videos. Born to dissident parents who fled the military dictatorship of Park Chung-Hee, Lee Bul’s art also reflects her experience of political persecution, like the artists mentioned in Part 1. At the same time, her art explores the ideas surrounding gender roles and social expectations. She gained international fame with three projects. (1) The Cyborg series, which feature headless robot-like statues, often missing an arm, a leg, or both. (2) The Monsters, which are statues with tentacles, and fresh-like color and texture. (3) Provocative performances, such as the ‘Hwa Um, Majestic Splendor’, which consisted of pinning freshly caught fish to the walls of major museums, including the MoMa The title Hwa Um comes from the Sanskrit Avatamsaka, one of the major Buddhist sutras and refers to the state of spiritual enlightenment attained through sacrifice for others.

7. Hiding in Plain Sight, Ms. KANG Suki Seokyeong: Alumni of London’s Royal College of Art, Kang is a Korean visual artist who explores the use of space, the perception of common objects and the two and three-dimensionality through sculpture, painting, video, performance, and multimedia installations. Kang’s primary differentiating trait is the modern reinterpretation of traditional elements of Korean heritage, including cultural practices and craftsmanship. For instance, in the work that you can see on slide 8 the main object of art is hwamunseok, which are handwoven sedge mats used in chunaengmu, a traditional Korean court dance. Each rectangular unit is backed with dyed hwamunseok and shifts forward through threaded compositions of grids. Overall, the form also echoes the jeongganbo, a Korean musical notation.

8. The ‘Stone and Water’ Artist, PARK Hyun-ki: he became famous for his minimal videos, often presented in combination with a sculpture made of stones and a television monitor. In fact, creating art from a TV monitor, a pile of stones and images of water, Park’s work parallels the logic behind Marcel Duchamp’s found art, Japanese Mono-ha, along with the Italian Arte Povera, which consists in reinterpreting vernacular objects and presenting them as forms of art in and of itself. Rumor has it, the combination of stones and water echoes the legend around Chinese poet Li Bai’s death, who drowned in the waters of the Yangtze river while trying to catch the reflection of the moon. Park Hyun-ki was most prominent in the 1980s, when he took part in the Korean Daegu Contemporary Art Festival, as well as abroad in the Biennale of São Paulo, the Biennale of Paris and in a number of art fairs in Japan.

9. The Modernist, CHANG Ucchin. Being born in Korea under Japanese colonial rule, Chang’s art was strongly influenced by Japanese culture. Before developing his unique manner of almost childlike painting, he practiced various styles like oil painting, Chinese ink painting, drawing with a marker, painting on ceramics, screen printing, copper plate printing and woodblock printing. In the later period of his artistic career, his fast paced strokes reflected both his introverted personality and a heavy drinking habit, which distanced him from working with his contemporaries such as Kim Whan-ki. Amongst the recurrent motifs in Chang’s paintings are folklore style episodes and scenes from daily life, depicted in bright colors and simplified forms.

10. The photographer, CHO Gi-Seok (a 1992 liner!): Cho started off as a graphic designer and fashion photographer. Today he is also recognised as an art photographer, who puts great attention to detail into set dressing to create a surrealist atmosphere, interlacing the fauna, the flora and the human body as a reference to the idea that everything is interconnected in Nature. “Coexistence,” Cho’s first major exhibition, which was on view at Fotografiska New York last month, shows an array of portraits, where some have tulips sprout out of a torso and Birds covering a human face in the spirit of Magritte’s Son of Man. Fusing fashion, photography and art, Cho also launched his own clothing brand, Kusikohc.