Seoul Biennial
The First Seoul Biennial, Leaflet, 1974, MMCA Art Research Center Collection

Seoul Biennial

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The Seoul Biennale was a group exhibition organized by the Korean Avant Garde Association (AG) and held at the National Museum of Modern Art (now MMCA) on December 12, 1974. The AG is an art collective that several artists including Ha Chonghyun founded in 1969 along with art critics Kim Inhwan, Oh Kwang-su, and Lee Yil. Bringing the avant-garde concept to the forefront and searching for a new visual order, the members of AG published four volumes of its bulletin AG and held thematic exhibitions (print exhibition in 1974) from 1970 to 1975 and the First Seoul Biennale in 1974 to create the most cutting-edge art of the time. The 1975 exhibition, which organized by AG, had only four of its members participating, making it meaningless as a group exhibition. Thus, the Seoul Biennale was de facto AG’s last exhibition. Lee Yil, an art critic who belonged to AG, defined the Seoul Biennale as an exhibition that focused on the younger generation who presented their own ideologies, explored their own methodologies, and pursued the spirit of resistance and subjective criticism. The first Seoul Biennale, which was planned to be an international exhibition held biannually with the goal of establishing Korean art in the world, had sixty-nine participants, including eleven AG members and fifty-eight artists selected by Lee Yil, the commissioner of the artist selection committee. However, due to the dissolution of AG, the biennale was held only once in 1974.
* Source: MMCA

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