1953-1959: The Post-war Formation of Contemporary Art

After ceasefire of the Korean War in July 1953, Korean art history was reorganized into art centered on South Korea rather than art of the Korean peninsula. In the midst of the Cold War, the South Korean art world began to lay the foundation for post-war contemporary art within the framework of a state-led art and culture policy centered on anti-communism. The older generation, who benefitted from the national art and culture policy, established the academism of the National Art Exhibitions [Daehanminguk misul jeollamhoe, also known as Gukjeon], while new generations, who rebelled against it, designated the art of older generations as “modern” [geundae], and to define contemporary art, began to advocate “abstraction,” the “avant-garde,” and “internationalization.” The art world of the 1950s was a “period of transition to contemporary art,” filled with the desire to move beyond modernity.

Dispute over the State-led Art System and the National Art Exhibition
After the armistice of the Korea War, Korean society entered a period of post-war recovery. The Korean art world began to be reorganized, with artists, who fled to Busan, Daegu, and other places during the Koran War, returning to Seoul, alongside artists defecting to South Korea from North Korea, who filled the void left by artists who defected to North Korea. The Great Korean Art Association [Daehan misul hyeophoe], led by right-wing artists under the leadership of Ko Huidong, took on the character of a cultural organization that disseminated the ideology of liberal democracy and anti-communism. The National Academy of Arts, Republic of Korea, launched in accordance with the presidential decree announced at the beginning of the New Year in 1954, and the National Art Exhibition (Gukjeon), which resumed after the war, became established as key institutions dominating the art world since the 1950s. Just as the Joseon Art Exhibition [Joseon misul jeollamhoe] during the Japanese colonial period was the only gateway for artists, the National Art Exhibition was still the only portal for artists and a means of guaranteeing social reputation and status. However, because the right to select judges for the National Art Exhibition rested with the National Academy of Arts, Republic of Korea, the National Art Exhibition became the epicenter of artists’ struggle for hegemony. Disputes surrounding the judging of the National Art Exhibition, including the division between the Great Korean Art Association and the Korean Fine Arts Association [Hanguk misul hyeophoe], the boycott of the National Art Exhibition, and the exhibition of rejected works from the National Art Exhibition, reached their peak in the late 1950s.

Opposition Between Figuration and Abstraction
Until the early to mid-1950s, the dominant style of the National Art Exhibitions was figurative art. As the anti-National Art Exhibition tendency began to form in the late 1950s, artists critical of this pursued abstraction or non-figurative art as the new avant-garde, in opposition to realism and figurative art. The Neoplastics [Sinjohyeongpa] formed in 1956, the Four Artists Exhibition (1956) organized by artists graduated from Hongik University who declared their oppositional stance against the National Art Exhibition, the Creative Arts Association [Changjak misul hyeophoe] and the Modern Art Association [Modeon ateu hyeophoe], and the Contemporary Art Exhibit (1957) hosted by the Chosun Ilbo newspaper company, among others, led this trend. It reached a peak during the third and fourth exhibitions of the Hyundae Fine Artists Association in 1958. The younger generation, fresh out of university, filled the exhibition with enormous screens of rough brushstrokes, matières, and intensely colored abstracts. Labeled as “the aesthetic vanguard,” they referenced Abstract Expressionism and Art Informel, introduced through Japan and the U.S. On account of this, there was criticism from art critics that it was nothing more than an imitation of the West. Nevertheless, their unrestrained experimentation with technique and expressionistic abstractions secured legitimacy as an expression of the existential anxiety of the Korean War generation, and as the shared global language of form in line with the subjective traditions of the East, to become established as the representative trend in the art world of the late 1950s. The opposition between figurative vs. abstract or non-figurative art, which began in the 1950s, took on the form of modern vs. contemporary, and conservative vs. progressive oppositions. However, in the 1960s, abstraction was incorporated into the National Art Exhibition, and in 1962, as separate figurative and non-figurative sections became established within the National Art Exhibition, abstraction also became part of the academicism of the National Art Exhibitions.  

International Exchanges and Korean Artists Studying Abroad
The 1950s was also the first time Korean art expanded overseas and international exchanges became active. In the Cold War system after WWII, international cultural exchanges were used as one kind of diplomatic tool. Sponsorship by the United States International Cooperation Agency (ICA), which was an American aid agency for developing countries, the American-Korean Foundation (A.K.F.), and the Rockefeller Foundation played important roles in the overseas expansion of Korean art and international exchanges. The Korean Plastic Arts and Culture Research Institute (Hanguk johyeong munhwa yeonguso) that was operated by the National Museum of Korea with a three-year grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, ICA support for the Korean Handicraft Demonstration Center, and the exchange exhibition between the University of the Minnesota and Seoul National University, the National Museum of Korea’s touring exhibition of Korean art in the U.S., and exhibitions such as Contemporary Korean Paintings (1958) held at World House Galleries in New York, and support for Korean artists to study abroad in the United States—such activities were all carried out as part of the U.S. aid or exchange policy during the cultural Cold War. Yoo Kangyul and Chung Kyu, who worked at the Korean Plastic Arts and Culture Research Institute, learned graphics, ceramics, and printmaking in the U.S., and sculptor Kim Chungsook also learned silkscreen printmaking techniques along with sculpture and introduced them to Korean university education for the first time. The reason why exchanges in the fields of printmaking and crafts were particularly prominent was because U.S. aid to developing countries was tied to the practical aim of industrial development. Eight American Contemporary Artists (1957) and The Family of Man (1957), which were held in direct or indirect connection with the United States Information Agency (USIA) and the United States Information Service-Korea (USIS), not only served as an opportunity to spark interest in American contemporary art and photography among the Korean masses, but also influenced the domestic spread of Art Informel and the rise in realist photography. 

However, the overseas expansion of Korean artists in the 1950s was not only led by the state or limited to the U.S. For example, studying abroad in France was an object of envy for many artists. During this period, many artists began to leave to study in Paris despite difficult circumstances, either with the help of religious organizations or through personal connections. After the Korean Community in Paris (La Communauté coréenne de Paris) was launched with the approval of the diocese in 1954, Kim Yeong-seon, Kim Sou, Na Hikyune, Kim Whanki, Kwon Okyun, Moon Shin, and Lee Ungno left for Paris, led by Nam Kwan. The dobuljeon (translated as the exhibition held right before departing for France) became a synonym for studying abroad, and their return exhibitions, along with contributions in newspapers about the Parisian art scene, became primary channels for introducing contemporary Western art to Korea. The fact that most of these artists were of the generation that had already experienced studying abroad in Japan can be said to be a characteristic of the 1950s that was different from the 1960s and later. Just as Kim Whanki went to Paris and came to reconsider the tradition of Korean art, the problem of overcoming the time gap between Korean art and global art through comparisons with global art, and within that, the question of how to secure the unique identity of Korean art beyond imitation became two major challenges that artists were faced with for the future development of Korean art.