Figurative art
Figurative art refers to a style that depicts objects, both real and imaginary, in a realistic manner. It became popularized within Western Art in parallel with the emergence of Modernist abstract art during the early 20th century. In the Korean art community, discourses on figurative art began when the Western Art division of National Art Exhibition (Gukjeon) was separated into the figurative, semi-abstract, and abstract categories in 1961. In 1969 the Western Art division of the Grand Art Exhibition was reorganized into the figurative and non-figurative categories. At this point the idea of figurative art was established within the Korean art community to primarily refer to painting and sculpture created in an Academic realist style.
Modern and contemporary sculpture
The term “modern and contemporary sculpture” refers to sculptural works that go beyond conventional materials such as wood, marble, and bronze and the materialization of traditional realism, and adopts instead non-figurative representations and new materials from the industrialization era. As the development of Neo-dada, Pop Art, Minimalism, Land Art, and Conceptual Art gradually diminished the importance of genre and medium in the second half of the twentieth century, modern and contemporary sculpture became increasingly marginalized.