An avant-garde Korean art movement resurfaces in LA
LA's Hammer Museum gets its teeth into avant-garde Korean art with ‘Only the Young: Experimental Art in Korea, 1960s–1970s’
A groundbreaking exhibition dedicated to the avant-garde artists that emerged after the Korean War is currently on show at UCLA’s Hammer Museum. ‘Only the Young: Experimental Art in Korea, 1960s-1970s’, which debuted at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Korea last summer before travelling to LA via the Guggenheim in New York, shines a spotlight on a moment of unprecedented creative energy in the country’s art history.
Experimental Korean art comes to LA
Confronted by a period of intense cultural transition, these young experimental artists worked both collectively and as individuals in pursuit of an artistic process and a language of resistance that could respond to the rapidly evolving socioeconomic, political and material landscape of the new South Korea.
The exhibition features nearly 80 works – in mediums ranging from painting, sculpture and ceramics to photography, installation and film – by 26 artists, centring on the likes of Ha Chong-Hyun, Jung Kangja, Kim Kulim, Lee Kang-So, Lee Kun-Yong, Lee Seung-taek, and Sung Neung Kyung.
Highlights include Sung’s 1976 work Apple, a row of 17 gelatin silver prints depicting the artist taking bites from an apple, and Jung’s 1967 mixed-media, mouth-shaped installation Kiss Me, one of a number of Jung pieces that challenged the gender politics that defined Korean society at the time. This generation lost momentum in the late 1970s, but would gain wider recognition in the early 2000s when the art historian Kim Mikyung revisited the period, referring to the movement as ‘Korean experimental art’.
Ann Philbin, director of the Hammer Museum, says, ‘LA is a city with deep connections to Korean culture, and home to the largest population of Korean descendants in the nation. The artists featured in this exhibition represent a particularly important and compelling era within the recent history of Korean art, and add greater dimension to the study of art made around the world in the last 60 years.’
Adds Kyung An, the Guggenheim’s associate curator of Asian art, says, ‘The exhibition has been in the works for five years and it is fortuitous that there is so much attention on Korean culture – be it film, music, art or food – right now. While most people are interested in what is happening today, the exhibition highlights a particular moment in history that allows us to ground these moments of celebration and bring to the fore figures and stories that would otherwise remain unknown to a wider audience.’
‘Only the Young: Experimental Art in Korea, 1960s-1970s’ runs until 12 May 2024 at Hammer Museum, LA, hammer.ucla.edu
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
Anne Soward joined the Wallpaper* team as Production Editor back in 2005, fresh from a three-year stint working in Sydney at Vogue Entertaining & Travel. She prepares all content for print to ensure every story adheres to Wallpaper’s superlative editorial standards. When not dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s, she dreams about real estate.
-
‘I was captivated by the idea of merging two iconic brands’: Nigo on his collaboration with Moncler and Mercedes-Benz, which features a 1990s-inspired riff on the G-Wagon
Unveiled at Moncler’s ‘The City of Genius’ event in Shanghai this past weekend, Japanese fashion designer Nigo unpacks his three-way collaboration with Moncler and Mercedes-Benz, which includes a play on the G-Class alongside a fashion collection in his eclectic style
By Jack Moss Published
-
Cathay Pacific’s new business class Aria Suites take flight
Cathay Pacific raises the bar for business-class travel with the launch of the much-anticipated Aria Suites
By Lauren Ho Published
-
Volvo’s ultra-efficient EX30 compact EV gets its first real competition, the new Smart #3
We experience the highly rated Volvo EX30 and Smart’s most recent foray into pure electric cars, the #3. Which is the best executed small SUV?
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
The lesser-known Los Angeles galleries contributing to a vibrant art scene
Outside of LACMA, MOCA and The Broad, these independent LA galleries are major players in the art world
By Kevin EG Perry Published
-
Mona Kuhn’s love affair with Rudolph Schindler’s modernist LA home
‘The Schindler House: A Love Affair’ features artist Mona Kuhn’s surreal-inspired silver prints evoking an impossible love
By Hunter Drohojowska-Philp Published
-
Crisis point: Josh Kline's world is wiped out by climate change
Josh Kline's dystopian show is currently on at MOCA in Los Angeles
By Hannah Silver Published
-
‘Gas Tank City’, a new monograph by Andrew Holmes, is a photorealist eye on the American West
‘Gas Tank City’ chronicles the artist’s journey across truck-stop America, creating meticulous drawings of fleeting moments
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
Intimacy, violence and the uncanny: Joanna Piotrowska in Philadelphia
Artist and photographer Joanna Piotrowska stages surreal scenes at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania
By Hannah Silver Published
-
First look: Sphere’s new exterior artwork draws on a need for human connection
Wallpaper* talks to Tom Hingston about his latest large-scale project – designing for the Exosphere
By Charlotte Gunn Published
-
Marc Hom reframes traditional portraiture in Cooperstown, NY
‘Marc Hom: Re-Framed’ has taken over the grounds of the Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, planting Samuel L Jackson, Gwyneth Paltrow and more ‘personalities of the world’ into the landscape
By Hannah Hutchings-Georgiou Published
-
Alexander May, founder of LA studio Sized, on the joys of creative polymathy
Creative director Alexander May tells us of the multidisciplinary approach that drives his LA studio Sized and its offspring, a 5,000 sq ft event space and an exhibition series
By Hannah Silver Published