Artists Meet by Chance in Wartime Busan, Envision Korean Modernism
Creatrip Team
2 months ago
During the Korean War, Busan became a refuge where artists from across the country gathered. Five painters — Park Go-seok, Yoo Young-kuk, Lee Kyu-sang, Han Mook, and Hwang Yeom-su — met there and formed the Modern Art Association (Modan A-teu Hyuphoe) to move away from the realist, government-favored styles promoted by the National Art Exhibition (Gukjeon). From 1957 to 1960 they held six group shows, exploring abstracted forms of everyday subjects influenced indirectly by Cubism, Expressionism, and other modern movements they encountered during study in Japan. Works ranged from Park’s Cézanne-like still life with eggplant to Jeong Jeom-sik’s silhouette figures and Yoo’s semi-abstract fish. The group dissolved as younger artists pursued radical abstraction (e.g., Dansaekhwa, Informel), and members later developed popular representational reputations (such as Hwang’s “rose” paintings or Cheon Gyeong-ja’s “beauty” portraits). The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art’s Cheongju branch presents “Encounter: Modern Art Association 1957–1960,” highlighting this collective’s role in articulating a Korean modernism; the show runs through March 8 next year. (Gukjeon: government-run National Art Exhibition; Dansaekhwa: Korean monochrome painting movement)
