Korea’s first generation of modernist painters came of age in a country shattered by colonization and the Korean War (1950-53), long before K‑culture became a global brand and art auction records made headlines.

For Park Re-hyun, Rhee Seund-ja and Kim Whanki, making art meant reinventing both themselves and their nation’s visual language while navigating poverty, patriarchy and exile in post-war Korea.

Their works, now showcased at Global Sae-A Art Space in Seoul, trace how a modern Korean identity was rebuilt on canvases long before it was projected on global streaming platforms and pop stages. The works also reflect their personal struggles, especially for the two women artists.

Exhibition “Highlights of Modern Korean Painting: Modernism and its Challenges” at Global Sae-A Art Space in Seoul / Courtesy of Global Sae-A Art Space

Modernism's arrival in a broken country

Modernism was an art movement that emerged in the West in the late 19th and early 20th century, rejecting traditional authority and pursuing rationality and autonomy on the basis of reason and individualism.

After liberation from Japan, Korea’s art scene came into direct contact with the spirit of Western modernism, and "the realistic, academic painting style of the colonial period disappeared,” Park Mi-hwa who curated the exhibition, “Highlights of Modern Korean Painting: Modernism and its Challenges," said in a recent statement released by the gallery.

In the mid-1950s, barely a decade after World War II and only a few years after the Korean War (1950-1953), a new generation of artists began to push beyond the styles they were used to in search of abstraction.

“Abstraction was the defining keyword and central question of modernism” in Korea, according to Park. “This huge wave of abstraction reached Korean art without exception, profoundly affecting artists who devoted themselves to developing their own unique styles and visual languages."

Artists found themselves caught in a "double position” where they absorbed Western modernist perspectives while feeling compelled to preserve Korean tradition. This resulted in experiments like combining ink-and-wash techniques, landscape motifs and ceramic forms with radically new compositions. Some artists left Korea for France, then considered "the holy land of contemporary art," Park explained.

Source: Korea Times News