The First Epoque, Leaflet, 1965, Gwangju Museum of Art Collection
Epoque
* Source: Multilingual Glossary of Korean Art. Korea Arts Management Service
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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.
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Gwangju Contemporary Art Festival
The Gwangju Contemporary Art Festival was a group exhibition held from 1976 until 1988 in Gwangju. In the mid-1970s, regional contemporary art festivals began to burgeon in Daegu, Busan, Gangwon, Gwangju, and other regions in opposition to the centralization of Korean art. In this context, the first Gwangju Contemporary Art Festival was hosted by the Epoque, an abstract art organization in Gwangju. The festival was held from September 15 through 21, 1976 at the Jeonil Museum of Art in Gwangju. At the festival, sixty-five artists presented mainly two-dimensional works. The second edition was held October 24 through 30, 1977 at the Jeonil Museum of Art, and 125 artists showcased paintings, sculptures, and prints. The third edition, comprised of both outdoor and indoor exhibitions, was organized under the theme of “nature + three-dimensionality.” It was staged as an outdoor exhibition on March 3, 1985, in the Gwangju National Museum grounds and as an indoor exhibition from March 17 through 30 at the Hyeonsan Museum of Art. A total of twenty-three artists participated in the third edition. Most of displayed works were experimental installations. In his essay “Transformation through New Experiments” in the catalogue, Chang Sukwon wrote that the participating artists would bring newness once again after the Epoque generation. In the fourth edition held from June 25 through 29, 1986 at Gwangju Namdo Art Hall in Gwangju, forty artists participated. The festival was dominated by two-dimensional abstract works. The fifth edition was held from February 8 through 13, 1988 at Gwangju Namdo Art Hall in Gwangju under the theme of the “On the Paper Wave,” and thirty-eight artists took part in it. The Gwangju Contemporary Art Festival discontinued afterward. However, it introduced Gwangju artists in the 1970s and 1980s. Its fresh attempts made in the third and fifth editions enriched local art history.
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