Paik Nam June, The More, The Better, 1988, Video installation; four-channel video, color, sound; 1,003 monitors, steel structure, 1,850×1,100×1,100cm. MMCA collection ⓒNamgoong Sun
Video art
* Source: Multilingual Glossary of Korean Art. Korea Arts Management Service
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Technology art
The convergence of, or the attempts to fuse, art and science, which particularly arose as advances in scientific technology after World War II inspired artistic creation. Cybernetics and system theory, based on idealist thinking that emerged in the 1960s, and held that “scientific technology will accelerate human progress”, greatly influenced the creation of art based on modern technology. Later, this interest would expand into the realms of internet art, laser art, and holographic art. Toward the later 1970s, technological approaches to art merged with popular art, which led to the development of video games, cyberpunk novels, techno music, and deconstructionist graphic design. In Korea, Kang Kukjin’s 1967 work combining neon and stainless steel and AG group’s Kwak Hoon’s optical installation using electronics in his solo exhibition at Shinmoon Center in 1968 are representative works of early Korean digital art. In 1976, Kim Soungui videotaped his performance during his stay in Paris, and Park Hyunki and Lee Kangso submitted digital technology works to the Daegu Contemporary Art Festival in the mid-1970s.
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Performance
Performance is a genre within which artists use their voice, body, and objects to express their artistic vision through live action. It became popularized after World War II as an experimental genre through the work of John Cage and Merce Cunningham. Performance can be related to other movements of the period such as action painting, body art, happening, process art, Fluxus, and conceptual art. It is characterized by audience participation, improvisation, spontaneity, and provocativeness. The first work of performance in Korea is widely considered to be The Happening with Plastic Umbrellas and Candle Lights performed by Kang Kukjin, Chung Chanseung, Kim Youngja, Jung Kangja, Shim Sunhee, and Kim Inwhan during the Union Exhibition of Korean Young Artists held at the Korean Information Service Gallery in December 1967.
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Media art
Media art refers to artworks produced using media scientific technology. It is also called new media art. The term became popularized as it was used by Les Levine in the Software exhibition held at the Jewish Museum in New York in 1970. Media art utilizes as its main media the primary means of communication in contemporary society, including books, magazines, newspapers, films, radio, televisions, videos, and computers. In and after the 1980s, a vast body of works that were based on computer technology and emphasized interaction between them and the audience were created, leading to the emergence of interactive art.
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Performace Video
Performance video is performance art recorded on a video medium. Performance art refers to art that is created by physical actions of artists or other participants and presented to the audience. It is fundamentally related to the performing art genres like music, dance, and theater in so far as it is predominantly a non-narrative performance produced in the context of fine art where the performer and the audience establish the meaning of a work by occupying a specific time and space and interacting with each other. Performance as art can be presented in real time or recorded with photographic and video media for later publication. It also can be improvised or practiced according to a planned script. Moreover, it may be the solo act by an individual or artist collective or require the participation of the audience. As Sony’s portable video camera “Portapack” became available to the public after 1965, many performance artists incorporated video cameras and monitors into their works, either to document their bodies and actions or to display the resulting footages. Their works soon evolved into using video as an aesthetic and conceptual element of performance. In the early days of video art, artists focused on characteristics of the video medium, particularly its feedback function, because they found the simultaneous recording and projection of images to be an effective way to explore issues of visibility. This was no exception for performance artists. Accordingly, their choice of video went beyond the role of a mere documentation medium and endowed their performance pieces with simultaneity that “turned live actions into images and images into live actions.” Furthermore, because recorded videotapes could be replayed over and over again, the works themselves pushed the boundaries of this art form while rethinking ephemerality, the essence of performance art.
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1993 Whitney Biennial in Seoul
An exhibition held from July 31 to September 8, 1993 at the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea (now MMCA), which was a travelling show of the New York, Whitney Biennial. The Seoul exhibition was the first Whitney Biennial exhibition to be held outside of the United States. The Whitney Biennial, which was held from March 4 to June 20, 1993 at the Whitney Museum of American Art, chose the topic of “cultural diversity” and focused on art based on categories of identity—race, culture, gender, and region. In terms of the different types of art, the exhibition included numerous installations, as well as video and film. The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art stated that they hosted the Whitney Biennial to “explore a new possibility of expression for art,” because the exhibition “expressed the contradictions, discord, and prejudices of modern American society from a very sincere and forward-looking perspective.” However, the Seoul and New York exhibitions were slightly different in their construction. The New York exhibition featured 82 artists and 150 works of art, while the Korean exhibition featured 61 artists and 107 works of art. In consideration of transportation costs and difficulties, the larger artworks of Charles Ray and Gary Hill were replaced with other artworks, and the work of artists such as Nan Goldin and Cindy Sherman was also excluded based on the judgment of the museum concerning “Korean sensibilities,” which caused a controversy over censorship. The shocking style and themes displayed within the artworks had a significant impact on Korean art.
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Park Hyunki
Park Hyunki (1942-2000) was a pioneering Korean video artist whose work focused on natural objects, such as water and stone, primarily using the medium of video. His oeuvre encompasses drawing, installation, performance art, and photography, among other genres. Born in Osaka, Japan, the artist returned to Daegu, his family’s hometown, in 1945 and settled in the city. He enrolled in the Department of Painting in the College of Fine Arts at Hongik University in 1961, but later changed his major to architecture. After graduation, he engaged both in the interior design business and artistic endeavors. Park has participated in the avant-garde art exhibition Daegu Contemporary Art Festival in Daegu since 1977. He was the first to experiment with video as a medium, thus significantly contributing to the development of Korean video art and the regional dissemination of experimental art. At the same time, he continued to join international exhibitions. The Water Tilting Performance featured at the Fifteenth São Paulo Biennale (1979) and Untitled (TV Stone Tower) submitted to the Eleventh Paris Biennale (1980) are the artist’s notable works that merge nature and media. In 1981, he also presented the performance project Pass through the City, in which he traversed the city center of Daegu with a giant stone to which a large mirror was attached on a trailer over sixteen meters long. From the 1990s onward and until his death, he continued his exploration of innovative mediums by working in photo-processing practice that he called “photo-media” and creating the installation The Mandala (1997), which composed geometric forms by assembling pornographic photos, and Presence and Reflection (1999), a video filming the movement of flowing water.
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