Access to Contemporary Korean Art 1980-2010 - Book in English -was conceived with the purpose of providing resources and coordinates for curators and researchers at home and abroad who are interested in contemporary Korean art to help them obtain a critical understanding and continue their inquiry. 

Gim Jonggil, Sohyun Ahn, Hyunjin Kim, Binna Choi, and Seewon Hyun, who have been active in critical and curatorial practices, were invited to join the editorial board. They selected 13 pieces of text by Kim Jiha, Kim Yun-su, Shim Kwang-hyun, Park Chan-kyong, Mo Bahc (Yiso Bahc), Park Shin-Eui, Lee Youngwook, Young Chul Lee, Jang Un Kim, Seo Dong-jin, and Shin Hakchul as key critical texts on contemporary Korean art along with the grounds for the texts’ selection, significance, and the importance. Together, the 17 critical essays and interviews have been translated from Korean into English and included in this volume.

In particular, this publication deals with the criticisms closely related to the field of art practice in an attempt to serve as both a contemporary and historical archive. We present this book in the hope of expanding the perspective of Korean contemporary art criticism beyond a linear historical narrative and into dynamic and diversified views. 

INDEX

About This Book | Heejin Kim

Ⅰ. What Is Realism? A Genealogy of Its Evolution—Selected and Excerpted by Gim Jonggil

WHAT IS REALISM? A GENEALOGY OF ITS EVOLUTION | A Conversation with Gim Jonggil

THE FIRST MANIFESTO OF THE REALITY COTERIE (1969) | Kim Jiha

NEW FIGURATIVE ART TOWARD THE TRUTH OF LIFE—Notes on the Selection of Eleven Young Figurative Artists (1981) | Kim Yun-su

THE REALITY AND UTTERANCE GROUP AND THE PROSPECT OF CRITICAL REALISM (1990) | Shim Kwang-hyun

NOTES ON “CONCEPTUALLY ORIENTED REALISM”―An Editor’s Annotation (2001) | Park Chan-kyong

Ⅱ. The Postmodern Controversy, from Classification to Analysis—Selected and Excerpted by Sohyun Ahn

FROM CLASSIFICATION TO ANALYSIS: THE POSTMODERN DEBATES OF THE 1990S KOREA | Sohyun Ahn

THE MEANING OF POSTMODERNISM AND KOREAN ART (19932) | Mo Bahc (Yiso Bahc)

THE POSTMODERN DEBATES ON ART CRITICISM—The Reception Process and Present Status of Postmodernism in Korean Art (1993) | Park Shin-Eui

THE TYPOLOGY OF THE ART SYSTEM: AN ESSAY ([2008] 2010) | Lee Youngwook

THE STATE OF IDENTITY FROM DISLOCATION TO HYBRIDITY—Reading Mo Bahc’s Work (1995) | Park Chan-kyong

III. Cultural Change, Shift in Criticism, and Globalization After 1989—Selected and Excerpted by Hyunjin Kim

CULTURAL CHANGE AND ART’S RESPONSE—A Critical Note on Artistic Production and Criticism (1992) | Young Chul Lee

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO KOREAN ALTERNATIVE SPACES? ([2005] 2012) | Jang Un Kim

MINJUNG ART AND BEYOND—A New World of Visual Life and the Politics of Art (2008) | Seo Dong-jin 

THE CRISIS OF ART INSTITUTIONS, MORE SERIOUS THAN THE FINANCIAL CRISIS (2009) | Hyunjin Kim

IV. The Language of Criticism, Lost and Forgotten Languages. What Is an Artist? What Is a Practice?—Selected by Binna Choi / Seewon Hyun

A PROJECT IN THE MAKING—AN EMBRACING NARRATIVE | Binna Choi & Seewon Hyun

UNDAMENTAL PERSPECTIVES IN UNDERSTANDING CONCEPTUAL ART, MINJUNG MISUL (PEOPLE'S ART), AND ACTIVISM (1998) | Park Chan-kyong

SHIN HAKCHUL: PAINTING OF THE PEOPLE’S HISTORY (1999) | Interview with Shin Hakchul by Park Chan-kyong

Suggested Further Reading | Heejin Kim

Index

Contributors’ Bio