’72 Print Exhibition of AG, Invitation, 1972, MMCA Art Research Center Collection
’72 Print Exhibition of AG
* Source: MMCA
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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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Korean Avant Garde Association (AG)
An art group formed in 1969 and active until 1975 that promoted avant-garde art. The group elevated the concept of avant-garde to the forefront of Korean contemporary art. It’s members explored and developed new style of sculpture, and sought to contribute to the development of a new Korean art culture. The group published the periodical AG, which centered on artists, sculptors, and art critics in their thirties, and through the periodical, the group introduced new oversea trends to Korea and explored the theory and concepts behind avant-garde aesthetics. The group is regarded as responsible for introducing conceptual and formal diversity to Korean contemporary art, through a transition of artistic values, the active use of new materials, and helping to foment a wider public understanding of new trends within contemporary art.
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Lee Seungjio
Lee Seungjio(1941-1990) is known for his painting series Nucleus that features various cylindrical shapes reminiscent of pipes. In 1962, Lee formed the group Origin Fine Arts Association with fellow young artists to challenge the established art revolving around the National Art Exhibition (Gukjeon) and Art Informel abstract painting. At the Union Exhibition of Korean Young Artists held in 1967, he presented geometric abstract paintings. In subsequent years, he began to produce his distinctively clear and intelligent abstractions of cylindrical shapes in various compositions, including Nucleus 77, which earned the grand prize at the first International Grand Art Exhibition of Dong-A in 1968. Throughout the 1970s, he continued to explore geometric abstraction by actively engaging in avant-garde art organizations like the Korean Avant Garde Association (referred to as AG). He also participated in several exhibitions, such as the first Daegu Contemporary Art Festival (1974), the first Seoul Biennale (1974), the eleventh São Paulo Biennale (1971), and the seventh International Festival of Painting Cagnes-sur-Mer (1975). Meanwhile, Lee performed remarkably at the National Art Exhibitions. In 1968, he won the Minister of Culture and Information Award at the seventeenth National Art Exhibition for his Nucleus G-99, which was praised as “an avant-garde work that would never have been considered for even an honorable mention in the history of the National Art Exhibitions.” He submitted his work to the National Art Exhibition every year until 1981. The picture planes of the Nucleus series began to be gradually dominated by black hues in the late 1970s. By the mid-1980s the size of the canvases became larger. After his trip to the U.S. in 1988, he moved onto new experiments in which cylindrical images were presented on aluminum or wooden panels. Today, Lee Seungjio is recognized as “an artist who pursued a practice of strict geometric abstraction that is rarely seen in Korean painting circles” and maintained “a prominent and refreshing presence in Korean contemporary art, which lacks traditions or experiences of logical practices.”
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