South Korean Experimental Art at the Guggenheim New York

From September 1, 2023 to January 7, 2024, the Guggenheim Museum in New York presents the exhibition “Experimental Art in South Korea, 1960s-70s”

Source: Guggenheim Museum, New York · Image: Floors in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Image by Alex Proimos from Sydney, Australia. License Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic. Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Floors_in_the_Solomon_R.Guggenheim_Museum(5892484651).jpg

This is the first exhibition in North America to explore the influential art practices, often referred to as Experimental Art (silheom misul), that emerged in South Korea in the decades following the Korean War (1950–53). Spanning the 1960s and the ’70s, it examines a group of loosely affiliated artists whose artistic production reflected and responded to the rapidly changing, globalizing sociopolitical and material conditions that shaped South Korea. The Guggenheim’s show presents the artists’ pioneering approach to materials, process, and performance, and features major historic pieces across various mediums including painting, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, installation, and film to illustrate how artists harnessed the power of contemporary languages of art to explore pressing sociohistorical and metaphysical issues.  Experimental Art in South Korea, 1960s–70s offers an unprecedented opportunity to experience the creativity and breadth of this remarkable generation of Korean artists.

The exhibition is the result of a collaborative research effort between the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA). It is co-organized by Kyung An, Associate Curator, Asian Art, Guggenheim Museum, and Soojung Kang, Senior Curator, MMCA.