Founding Exhibit for Walker Hill Art Center, Korean Contemporary Art of the 60’s: The outskirts of Informel, Catalog, 1984, Image provided by Kimdaljin Art Archives and Museum
Walker Hill Art Center
* Source: Multilingual Glossary of Korean Art. Korea Arts Management Service
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Art Center Nabi
Art Center Nabi opened in December 2000 in Jongno-gu, Seoul as an art museum specializing in digital and media art. It was modeled after the Walker Hill Art Center. The center aims to explore the possibility of new art within the convergence of art, science and technology, and media, as well as to introduce and foster creative work activities. Major activities include the Nabi Hackathon program, which combines intensive hi-tec design ‘hackathon’ culture and creative workshops, the Nabi Lab program that seeks to exchange and collaborate art with various fields such as robotics, artificial intelligence, and data science, and the Nabi Edu program that fosters digital content creation. It has also conducted the Nabi artist residency program that supports creative space and exhibition by selecting one or two domestic and foreign artists every year. To introduce the latest media art to the public, the center holds the Urban Screen exhibition to install audio visual works in the SK office.
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Lee Kyungsung
Lee Kyungsung (1919-2009, pen name Seoknam) was born in Incheon as the first son of Lee Hak-soon and Jin Bo-bae. He graduated from Changyeong Elementary School (1926-31) and Gyeongseong Commercial School (1934-36). In 1937, he moved to Japan and graduated from the Department of Law at Waseda University in 1941. After his return to Korea, he worked as a clerk at the Gyeongseong Court. Later, he returned to Japan to study art history at Weseda University. After independence, he was appointed as the first director of the Incheon City Museum, a director of Hongik University Museum, Walker Hill Art Center (1981-83), and the MMCA (1981-83, 1986-92). He strived to improve the structure of Korean art museums and also trained professional curators. During his appointment as a professor at Ewha Womans University (1957-60) and Hongik University (1961-81), he also served as a chair of the Korean Art Critics Association and published several important books that contributed to the foundation of a modern Korean art history. He established the Seoknam Art Culture Foundation in 1989 and the Seoknam awards for art and art theory. After his retirement, he focused on his art and held numerous solo exhibitions.
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Performance Art
Performance Art refers to art that uses the human body and expressive body movements as an artistic medium. Since its first appearance in 1967, South Korean performance art has been called various terms such as “happening,” “event,” “performance art,” and “performance.” These various terms have resulted from performance art, a foreign art form, being redefined several times in South Korea in accordance with the conditions of a particular era. Therefore, each term implies the Korean peculiarity of a certain period. In particular, “haengyu misul (performance art)” was interpreted as a major experimental art trend in South Korea until the mid-1980s. In the late 1980s, as collaborative activities with other art genres accelerated, the term “haengyu yesul” or “performance” was actively used and replaced the previous term, “haengyu misul.”
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The New Wave of the Photography
The New Wave of Photography was a major exhibition in the history of Korean photography curated by Koo Bohnchang and held from May 18 to June 17 in 1988 at the Walker Hill Art Center in Seoul. Kim Daesoo, Lee Kyuchul, Lee Ju-yong, Lim Youngkyun, Choi Kwangho, Ha Bongho, Han Okran, and Koo Bohnchang participated in the exhibition. They were all emerging artists who were either studying abroad or had returned from studying abroad. In The New Wave of Photography exhibition, they sought to experiment with various forms freed from the conventional practices of documentary or straight photography. Koo Bohnchang, Kim Daesoo, and Lee Ju-yong tried new modes of expression by applying painterly and manual processes to photographic emulsions and prints; Lee Kyuchul presented a three-dimensional installation of spherical sculpture created by stitching together photographs; and Choi Kwangho connected the corners of the exhibition space with dozens of high-contrast black-and-white photographs reflecting his personal memories and stretched them out like a long horizontal line. Their attempts were hailed for the experimental spirit of the young generation, whereas they were criticized for their irresponsibility in introducing formats indiscriminately and weakening the nature of the photographic medium. Despite the differing views on the exhibition, The New Wave of Photography was one important signal marking the opening of contemporary Korean photography. It is also significant in that it formed the intersection of art and photography in the 1990s and changed the status of photography within the art system.
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