5페이지 내용 : Newly Emergent Artist Groups of the Late 1950s and Their Signi cance 264 2. The Categorization of the Newly Emergent Artist Groups In 1957, with the successive emergence of new artist groups in the art scene, attempts were made to categorize these collectives. This process involved di erentiating their characteristics, grouping similar collectives together, and sketching an overall distribution of tendencies. One such approach was to classify the groups according to their stance toward the National Art Exhibition. For example, in an essay published in 1957, Kim Youngjoo identifed three key tasks for groups to address when producing works underpinned by ideologyfrst, the establishment of a movement of thought; second, the refection and renewal of artistic culture and the artist’s own method; and third, the clarifcation of the relationship between the feld of plastic arts and contemporary society. On this basis, Kim grouped the new groups according to how they sought to implement these tasks. In his view, the Modern Art Association sought to tackle these tasks from an “attitude of resistance,” while the Hyundae Fine Artists Association pursued them out of “irrational fervor.” Despite such differences, he noted that both shared a comparable position in that they “chose avant-garde methods outside the fence of the establishment.” By contrast, the Creative Art Association “took the position of pursuing internal reform from within the established fence.” According to Kim, its members, including Lee Bongsang, Choi Youngrim, Ryu Kyungchai, and Lee Joon, sought to remain within the established by way of “realizing works with new sensibilities as their axis.” It was from this perspective that he categorized the association as “a group of artists pursuing new sensibilities.”31 According to Yu Jun-sang, the Creative Art Association was not an “outsider” group in that most of its founding members already occupied relatively secure positions in the art world and regularly exhibited at the National Art Exhibition. He saw that the group’s signifcance lay in forming “a small collective within the institution of the National Art Exhibition” in order to spark reform from within.32 Kim Youngjoo’s approach of distinguishing between “avant-garde methods” and “methods of internal reform” thus rested on the groups’ respective attitudes toward the National Art Exhibition. A 1958 newspaper article noted that those artists “organized enough to hold club exhibitions” tended to reject the national exhibition, turning their backs on it and “fashioning their own new domains.”33 In fact, most of the groups that emerged in and around 1957 adopted an anti-National Art Exhibition, anti-academic stance. The Hyundae Fine Artists Association, which took as its ethos an “antithesis against lingering feudal elements”; the Modern Art Association, which demonstrated an uncompromising “anti-National Art Exhibition and neo-plasticist ideology” through independent exhibitions and self-driven practices; and Sinjohyeongpa, which raised the banner of “anti-academicism,” were prime examples of groups described as “independent,” “non-institutional,” or “outside the mainstream.”34 For instance, critic Bang Geun-taek introduced the Modern Art Association as a group of artists in their 40s who, regardless of the National Art Exhibition, “contributed modest works of their free choosing to a jointly-hosted exhibitive platform”35 Such distinctions—between “National Art Exhibition groups” and “outsider groups,” or “the academic” and “the avant-garde”36—were frequently invoked in the early 1960s as evaluative criteria or in dichotomous frames, with critics generally regarding the latter more highly.37 This context disadvantaged the Creative Art Association, which sought renewal from within the establishment. As some critics observed, 31 Kim Youngjoo, “The Collective with New SensibilitiesA Comprehensive Review of the First Creative Art Association Exhibition,” The Chosun Ilbo, May 31, 1957. 32 Yu Jun-sang, “Creative Art Association,” in Encyclopedia of Korean Arts IIEncyclopedia of Korean Fine Art The National Academy of Arts, 1985 , 533. 33 “Art WorldThe Roaring, Surging Current,” The Kyunghyang Shinmun, December 17, 1958. 34 “Diverse ActivitiesThe Distribution and Ideologies of Contemporary Art Groups,” The Dong-A Ilbo, June 15, 1958. 35 Bang Geun-taek, “The Intention of Transitional DeconstructionA Review of the Modern Art Association Exhibition,” The Dong-A Ilbo, November 25, 1958. Han Mook, a founding member of the Modern Art Association, argued in a 1954 written work that the development of artistic culture depended on “the question of mentality determined by ideology,” and that new ideological development could be anticipated in a “movement for an avant-garde mentality.” If artistic culture was to progress, he asserted, a “progressive avant-garde cultural movement organization” was necessary. According to Han, the avant-garde mentality was possible only through “a high degree of intellect and resolute determination,” and the art movement had to serve as “the works’ matrix,” possessing “avant-garde superiority both in quantity and quality.” Han Mook, “Confrontation with Established ConceptionsA Proposal for the Inauguration of an Independent Exhibition,” The Kyunghyang Shinmun, December 23, 1954. 36 Su 秀 , “A Distribution Map of Korean ArtFocusing on Artist Collectives by Faction,” The Chosun Ilbo, March 26, 1963. 37 Kim Byungki and Lee Kyungsung, “DialogueThe Confrontation between Academicism and Avant-Garde Art,” The Chosun Ilbo, December 16,1960.
6페이지 내용 : Newly Emergent Artist Groups of the Late 1950s and Their Signi cance 265 the group, “composed of National Art Exhibition participants and members of the Great Korean Art Association,” was “inherently self-contradictory as an outsider collective.”38 Accordingly, critics were more inclined to highlight the signifcance of the Modern Art Association or the Hyundae Fine Artists Association over the Creative Art Association. For example, Lee Kyungsung explained that 1957 marked “the starting point of contemporary art in Korea,” precisely because new artists began their activities in earnest that year. Among these, he singled out the Hyundae Fine Artists Association, which “introduced a new aesthetic,” and the Modern Art Association, which “relaunched itself as a younger generation collective,” as “the most prominent forces.”39 Another method of categorization was generational. In a 1958 essay surveying a “cross-section of the art world,” Park Kosuk divided the scene into three currentsthe older generation centered on the National Art Exhibition, who prioritized authority and orthodoxy; the middle generation seeking a recalibration of their consciousness and stance to overcome complacency; and the “young generation,” rising with vigor and determination.40 Critics employing a generational framework tended to privilege the young over the mid-career or older, o en championing the Hyundae Fine Artists Association in particular. Bang Geun-taek described the Modern Art Association as a group of mid-career artists in their 40s while discussing the limitations of 40-something artists. He argued that, from what he had seen, their works were “largely imitative extensions of Japanese painting styles” and that the key for them was to break free from this legacy in a way that agreed with the present. He found the association’s exhibitions unsatisfying, remarking that even the most independent among the 40-something artists appeared “unable to escape the inevitable fate of their generation.” He singled out Kim Kyung, Jung Jeumsik, Han Mook, and Yoo Youngkuk as bound by the fate of a generation that “cannot fully discard form.” In his view, these artists “incapable of producing a painting without fgurative form” exemplifed “an ambiguous style compromising fguration and abstraction.”41 In contrast, Bang lavishly praised the Hyundae Fine Artists Association, a collective of 30-something artists, as embodying a “distinct artistic character marked by the latest tendencies.” Describing their ensemble as “adamant yet varied, rarely found elsewhere,” he wrote that their annual exhibition exerted “a sensational infuence, refecting the epoch-making progress in the art scene.”42 Lee Kyungsung likewise described the Hyundae Fine Artists Association’s frst exhibition 1957 as “works by the young” marked by “the solitary creative spirit, infused with a despair of mistrust that sublimated into transparent action, overfowing with the vital pulse of youth.” He observed in their works action rather than contemplation, pioneering rather than ordering, advancement rather than stability, and expansion rather than completion43. Writing on their second exhibition that same year, he praised their “pulsing vitality,” “keen wildness and pioneering spirit,” and “robust assimilative power.” He argued that their impetus lay in “the fear borne by the orphans of modernity” and “a necessary demand of life to escape the sense of anxiety.” Lee evocatively described them as “nomads of beauty, wandering in search of an aesthetic homeland from the mountainous terrain of modernity to the fertile valleys of the contemporary.”44 His use of expressions such as “solitary,” “despair of mistrust,” and “orphans of modernity” is worth noting, as it denies 38 Kim Youngjoo, “From Transition to New FrontiersThe Art World of 1957 Part II ,” The Chosun Ilbo, December 21, 1957. 39 Lee Kyungsung, “Korean Contemporary Art of the 1950s and Its Retrospect,” in Korean Contemporary ArtThe 1950s, ed. by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea Koryo Books, 1979 , 176. 40 Park Kosuk, “Groping in the Dark AgainThe Art World in the 10 Years since the Founding of the Republic,” The Dong-A Ilbo, August 9, 1958. 41 Bang Geun-taek, “The Intention of Transitional DeconstructionA Review of the Modern Art Association Exhibition,” The Dong-A Ilbo, November 25, 1958. 42 Bang Geun-taek, “Our ArtThe Door Opens to Participation in International Exhibitions,” The Chosun Ilbo, December 5, 1960. 43 Lee Kyungsung, “The Power to Overcome BeautyA Review of the Hyundae Fine Artists Association Exhibition,” The Chosun Ilbo, May 11, 1957. 44 Lee Kyungsung, “Nomads of BeautyA Review of the Second Hyundae Fine Artists Association Exhibition” 1957 in Collection of Art Criticism by Lee KyungsungThe Status of Korean Contemporary Art Iljisa, 1976 ,98–99.