November Horizon of Korean Photography, Invitation letter, 1991 Image provided by Total Museum of Contemporary Art
Horizon of Korean Photography
* Source: Multilingual Glossary of Korean Art. Korea Arts Management Service
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Walker Hill Art Center
A private art museum established in 1984 by Park Gye-hui, the wife of the owner of the SK group, known as the Sunkyong Group at the time. The group held numerous exhibitions of Korean contemporary art such as Korean Contemporary Art in the 60s-Informel and its Surroundings and The New Wave of the Photography. The museum organized solo exhibitions for well-established international artists such as Andy Warhol, Armand Pierre Fernandez, Dennis Oppenheim, Anthony Caro, Kathe Kollwitz, and Louise Bourgeois. In addition, the museum held exhibitions on photography, print, textile art, metalwork, posters, accessories, and holography as well as performing arts such as Kim Geum-hwa’s Gut (traditional shaman performance), Japanese Traditional Music, Shakti’s Indian Dance, Kim So-hui-Heungbuga, Lee Saeng-gang Daegeum Performance, Kim Deok-su’s Samulnori (traditional dance and music performance), and the International Performance Art Festival.
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Contemporary photography
Contemporary photography differs from a modernist approach to photography that highlighted the technical qualities of the image. Robert Frank’s photograph collection The American published in 1959, is considered a turning point in indicating a new style based on idiosyncratically cropped images and unusual focus. Contemporary photography became prevalent when conceptual art emerged between the 1960s and the 1970s. The New Wave of the Photography exhibition, which opened at the Walker Hill Art Center in Seoul on May 18th, 1988, is considered as marking the starting point of Korean contemporary photography. The Horizon of Korean Photography exhibition at the Total Museum of Contemporary Art in Jangheung, Gyeonggi-do in November 1991 provided a further turning point. The founding of galleries specializing in photography, including the TS Gallery, Pine Hill Gallery, and Hanmadang Gallery, has also contributed greatly to the popularity of contemporary photography in Korea. Over the last 30 years, many foreign-educated photographers like Koo Bohnchang, Kim Daesoo, Lee Juyong, Lim Youngkyun, Han Okran, and Choi Kwangho have returned to Korea and released works reflecting new trends in the medium and further enhancing its national status as a contemporary art form.
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Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA)
Korea’s first municipal art museum, the Seoul Museum of Art was established at the site of the Gyeonghui palace park, where Seoul High School used to be located, in 1988. On May 17, 2002, the museum moved to Jung-gu, Seoul, to the former location of the Supreme Court of South Korea. In addition to the main branch, the Seoul Museum of Art also operates the Seoul Museum of Art (South), which opened on September 2, 2004; Seoul Museum of Art (North), which opened in September 24, 2013; SeMA Nanji Residency, which opened in April 2006; SeMA Warehouses, which opened in August 2016; Nam June Paik Memorial House, which opened in March 2017; and SeMA Bunker, a multipurpose art space that opened in October 2017. Notable exhibition projects of the museum include the Seoul Mediacity Beinnale, a biennial media art event held since 2000, and the Seoul Photo Festival, an annual event held since 2010.
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