Modern Art Association
The Modern Art Association was an art association established on January 5th, 1957 by several veteran artists. They aimed to establish a wholesome art culture in Korea after a dispute over the 1956 National Art Exhibition (Gukjeon). The five founding members were Lee Kyusang, Park Kosuk, Yoo Youngkuk, Han Mook, and Hwang Yeomsoo. Other artists, including Chung Jeumsik, Lim Wangyu, Chung Kyu, Moon Shin, Kim Gyeong, and Chun Kyungja, joined after the third exhibition. In Sinmisul magazine, they explained that the group “aims to solve the problems of contemporary painting and to maintain independence as the avant-garde of the movement.” They hosted their first exhibition in April 1957, followed by exhibitions in November 1957, June 1958, November 1958, December 1959, and their final exhibition in July 1960. There was a dispute among members regarding participation in the Invitational Exhibition of Contemporary Artists sponsored by Chosun Ilbo in 1959, and the group was disbanded after Han Mook and Moon Shin left for France. The group played a pivotal role in the 1950s Korean art community by advocating for an avant-garde spirit to drive the modern art community.
Korean Art Critics Association
Korean Art Critics Association is an organization founded by art critics in 1956. The founding members include; Choi Sunu, Lee Hangsung, Lee Kyungsung, Chung Kyu, Bang Geun-taek, Bae Gilgi, Chun Seung-bok, Kim Byungki, Kim Youngki, Kim Chung-up, and Kim Youngjoo. Lee Yil, a subsequent president of the group, established the quarterly art magazine Korean Journal of Art Criticism in 1986, and created the Korean Art Critics Association Award in 2009. Through this platform, the association continues to support artists and art writers.
Abstract art
A term which can be used to describe any non-figurative painting or sculpture. Abstract art is also called non-representational art or non-objective art, and throughout the 20th century has constituted an important current in the development of Modernist art. In Korea, Abstract art was first introduced by Kim Whanki and Yoo Youngkuk, students in Japan who had participated in the Free Artists Association and the Avant-Garde Group Exhibition during the late 1930s. These artists, however, had little influence in Korea, and abstract art flourished only after the Korean War. In the 1950s so called “Cubist images,” which separated the object into numerous overlapping shapes, were often described as Abstractionist, but only with the emergence of Informel painting in the late 1950s could the term “abstract” be strictly used to describe the creation of works that did not reference any exterior subject matter. The abstract movements of geometric abstractionism and dansaekhwa dominated the art establishment in Korea in the late-1970s. By the 1980s, however, with the rising interest in the politically focused figurative art of Minjung, abstraction was often criticized as aestheticist, elitist, and Western-centric.