한국현대미술에서 예술적 아방가르드는 물론 정치적 아방가르드의 시대로 1960년대를 주목한다. 그 시작점의 4․19 혁명은 한국 민주주의의 이정표와 같은 사건이었고, 청년 작가들이 정치적 목소리를 낼 수 있는 계기였다. 정치 주체로 성장했고 또한 좌절했던 청년세대가 사회적 억압의 탈출구로서 미술현장에서 폭발시킨 매체 다양성은 반예술 담론으로 확장 가능성을 갖는다. 하지만 ‘저항’의 시기에 모더니즘 비평은 미술과 사회를 분리하며 시대의 전위에서 사회적 의미를 축소시켰다. 1960년 《벽전》에서부터 1970년대를 문 연 AG에 이르기까지 일관되게 고수된 모더니즘적 주류 비평에 대한 문제의식에서 본 논의는 시작된다. 저항의 시기에 평론가 이일이 제시한 ‘참여’의 화두를 중심으로 현실 인식의 간극을 살펴 ‘전위’의 의미를 환기한다.

연구자는 1960년대 후반, 한국의 미술가들이 자신의 신체를 이용하여 퍼포먼스에 대한 실험 성을 펼친 사례를 청년작가연립전에 참여한 작가들이 시도한 해프닝, 1970년대 중반의 이건용 과 이강소를 중심으로 살펴본다. 한국의 퍼포먼스 아트에서 처음으로 신체를 ‘매개’로 사용한 점 을 분석하며 예술가의 몸과 일상을 서로 중재해 나가는 예술적 과정과 실천을 검토한다. 초기 한국 의 퍼포먼스 아트에서 정강자와 같은 여성 퍼포머를 바라보는 방식, 이건용의 ‘로지컬-이벤트’에서 는 언어의 개념과 상황을 매개하는 예술가의 몸과 타자성, 이강소의 1973년 <선술집>을 설명한다. 1960-70년대 한국의 퍼포먼스 아트는 미술가들의 신체가 갖는 불확정성, 비결정성을 중심으로 처음으로 ‘미술가의 몸’을 중요한 개인, 사회, 정치적 사이트라는 문화적 (콘)텍스트로 인식하는 한 국 아방가르드의 특징을 구축했다.

This paper examines a number of Korean artists-Whanki Kim, Po Kim, Byungki Kim, Lim Choong-Sup, Min Byung-Ok and etc-working in New York in the 1960s and 1970s, focusing on their motivations to head for the U.S. and their life and activity in the newly-emerged city of international art. The thesis was conceived based upon the fact that New York has been one of the major venues for Korean artists in which to live, study, travel and stay after the Korean War. Moreover, the United States, since 1945, has had a tremendous influence upon Korea politically, socially, economically, and, above all, culturally. This study is divided into three major sections. The first one attends to the reasons that these artists moved out of Korea while including in this discussion, the long-standing yearning of the Korean intelligentsia to experience more modernized cultures, and American postwar cultural policies that stimulated them to envision life beyond their national parameters, in a country heavily entrenched in Cold War ideology. The second part examines these artists' pursuit of abstraction in New York where it was already losing its avant-garde status as opposed to the style's cutting edge cache in Korea. While their turn to abstraction was outdated from New York's critical perspective, it was seen to be de rigueur for Koreans that had developed through phases from Art Informel in the 1960s to Dansaekhwa (monochromatic paintings) in the 1970s. The third part focuses on the artists' struggle while caught between a dualistic framework such as Korea/U.S, East/West, center/margin, traditional/modern, and abstraction/figuration. Despite such dichotomic frames, they identified abstract art as the epitome of pure, absolute art, which revealed their beliefs inherited from western modernism during the colonial period before 1910-1945. In fact, their reality as immigrants in America put them in a diasporic space where they oscillated between the fixed, essentialist Korean identity and the floating, transforming identity as international artists in New York or Korean-American artists. Thus their abstract and semi-abstract art reflect the in-between identity from the diasporic space while demonstrating their yearning for a land of political freedom, intellectual fulfillment and the continuity of modern art's legacy imposed upon them over the course of Korea's tumultuous history in the twentieth century and making the artists as precursor of transnational, transcultural art of the global age in the twenty-first century.

Historian Eric J. Hobsbawm once said “the task that historians have is to analyze the meanings of the past within the context of society and to track the changes and implementation.” It would not be too far of a stretch to apply Hobsbawm's quote to art historian since art history, although quite specific, is still history. In addition, Hobsbaum also asserted that, “a mold called the past continuously forms the present or at least thought to be.” It is my recognition that the major westernization of the last century took place under the Japanese colonization which served as the channel to usher in western art; however, the current 20th- century Korean art history fails to recognize that the mold of the past, namely western art in this case, has formed the modern art of the present. Based on this recognition, attention was given to what lacked in the analysis of the current 20th-century Korean art history in terms of “Informel” which was identifed as the turning point towards “modern art” in the Korean art history as well as the following “experimental art.” My belief is that the art history of Korea has to be reassessed from , a socio-cultural perspective as well as adopting multi-level and diachronic understanding. However, the existing Korean art, especially the one between the end of 1950s to the 1970s was based on the perspective of “severance”; thus, raising the needs for the starting point of a new perspective. It is my conviction that meta perspective on writing is most essential in order to lay a solid basis for the Korean art scene to have a productive discussion. I feel the utmost necessity to reinterpret the typifed history analysis and criticism which stemmed from the trauma under the Japanese colonization. The most urgent task is to avoid academic closeness and to share the research. Painting is an individual expression of the artist, but the act of expression is not free from the cultural and societal infuence to which the artist belongs.

Contemporary Korean art in the 1960s and the 1970s reflects the social and political contexts in Korea from the 5ㆍ16 revolution through the Yoo Shin period. This paper investigates whether art has been free from power or not. It examines the power embedded in contemporary Korean art in the 1960s and the 1970s. This paper examines the historical moments of the Korean Art Exhibition, focusing on the complications between the abstract and figurative artworks of the 1960s. One of the significant art exhibitions since the 8ㆍ15 liberation of Korea, the Korean Art Exhibition witnessed conflict among Korean artists who wanted to have power in the art world of Korea. Institutional contradiction based on factionalism and conservatism prevailed in the Korean Art Exhibition was attacked by the avant-garde young artists in the 1960s. With the contact of Abstract Expressionism, young artists’ generation participated in the The Wall Exhibition. This exhibition challenged and established moral principles and visualized individual expression and creation similar to the Informal movement in the West. In the world of the traditional painting of Korea, the Mook Lim Exhibition of 1960, organized by young artists of traditional painting, advocated the modernization of Soo Mook paintings. Additionally, abstract sculptures in metal engraving were the new trends in the Korean Art Exhibition. In the 1970s, the economic development and establishment of a dictatorial government made the society stiffen. Abstract expression died out and monochrome painting was the most influential in the 1970s. After the exhibition of Five Korean Artists, Five White Colors in the Tokyo Central Art Museum in 1976, monochrome paintings were formally discussed in Korea. ‘Flatness’ ‘physicality of material’ ‘action’ ‘post-image’ ‘post-subjectivity’ and ‘oriental spirituality’ were the critical terms in mentioning the monochrome paintings of the 1970s. ‘Korean beauty’ was discussed, focusing on the beauty of white which was addressed by not only Yanagi Muneyoshi but also the policy of national rehabilitation under the Yoo Shin government. At this time, the monochrome paintings of the 1970s in Korea, addressing art for art’s sake, cutting of communication with the masses, and elitism, came to be authorized.