[Gallery Stroll] "There, Here, Over There"... Questions of Korean Conceptual Art

National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Opens "This Is (Not) Conceptual Art"

Featuring Lee Geonyong, Kim Yongik, Kim Bum and More: 140 Works by 28 Artists on Display

Highlighting the Shift From “Visual Art” to “Art of Thought”

There is a single circle drawn on the exhibition hall floor. In 1975, Lee Geonyong drew a circle with chalk and, standing outside it, pointed to its center and said, "There." Stepping inside the circle, he said, "Here." He then stepped back outside, pointed over his shoulder at the circle, and said, "There." The same place became different words as the position of the body changed. Art was no longer an object, but became an event.

Lee Geonyong, Logic of Place, 1975, Print on paper, 51 × 61 cm (4). National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art

The special exhibition "This Is (Not) Conceptual Art," which opens on June 19 at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, starts at that very point. The shift is from visual art—something simply seen—to art that speaks, walks, measures, erases, and questions again. The exhibition traces this conceptual transformation in Korean contemporary art from the 1970s to around the 1990s, through about 140 works and archival materials by 28 artists. The show runs until October 11 in Exhibition Halls 6 and 7 and the museum courtyard at the Seoul branch.

At the media preview on June 18, the exhibition did not attempt to make 'conceptual art' easy to explain. Instead, even the title slips away: "This Is Not Conceptual Art." The word "Not" in parentheses is closer to a reservation than outright denial. It signals an intention not to place Korean conceptual art directly into a Western art historical category. Rather than erasing material and leaving only pure language, Korean artists pushed concepts to the limit while clinging to the body, objects, place, and institutions.

As a result, traces of the body appear in the exhibition space before any complex theory. Kim Yongmin, for example, held a wet rag, twisted it, shook it, folded it, and wiped the floor. This was not cleaning, but an event revealing the inner nature of repeated action. Yoon Jin-seop left behind both the face pronouncing syllables and traces of letters written in water. Words emerged from the mouth, but letters disappeared on the floor, passing through the body. The action itself did not remain; instead, photographs, sentences, and memories stood in for the artwork.

At the planned exhibition "This Is (Not) Conceptual Art" held at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Seoul in Jongno-gu, Seoul on the 18th, an attendee is examining Ahn Kyucheol's "Five Questions for Unknown Artists." Photo by Yonhap News

What makes this exhibition intriguing is that the cold word "concept" actually possesses a surprisingly strong materiality. In Ahn Kyucheol's "Five Questions for an Unknown Artist," there are two doors—one labeled "Art," the other "Life." The door to "Art" has five handles, while the door to "Life" has none. Art is something one can enter only by solving questions; life, once entered, is not so easy to exit. In the middle, the leg of a chair grows strangely from a flowerpot. Laughter comes before explanation, and unease follows after.

In Kim Bum's "Landscape #1," there is no actual landscape. "Look at this blue sky. Stare at these trees. See the river that flows here." Only sentences appear. Yet, as the viewer reads them, they imagine the absent sky, trees, and river. The image disappears, but the act of seeing begins. In Park Hyunki's "Untitled," the boundary between stone and person becomes blurred. The artist writes "I am not a stone" on his body and slips between the rocks. Words attempt to distinguish, while the body tries to blend in.

Such scenes show that Korean conceptual art cannot simply be explained as "art where thought matters most." Here, thought does not exist only in the mind. It is found in the hand drawing a circle, the arm twisting a wet towel, the body stopped in front of a door, the posture crouched among rocks, or in repeated words like "my money" scribbled onto a bankbook. Concept does not erase materiality; rather, it works by overturning the meanings of things.

Yong-Ik Kim, Untitled (1981, 1st Young Artists Exhibition), 1981 (Remade in 2010), photo, ink, PE foam on packaging box, variable size. International Gallery

The exhibition is structured in four chapters. However, the flow of the actual viewing experience is more like a series of questions than a taxonomy. What is a place? Can language truly explain objects? Are maps, clocks, and measuring instruments really objective? Whose language is found in newspapers, advertisements, and statistics? The sections titled "Language, Logic, Action," "Objects and Language," "Maps and Measurement," and "Mediators of Signs" ultimately converge into a single question: How solid are the systems of meaning that we trust?

At the press conference, Bae Myeongji, curator at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, described this exhibition as "one that sheds light on the conceptual shift in Korean contemporary art, where object-centered discourse was replaced by language-centered discourse." She expressed her hope that viewers would "disrupt visual centrism and reflect anew on the gaps between existing meanings and realms."

This exhibition does not see Korean conceptual art as a peripheral experiment between monochrome painting and Minjung art. Instead, it presents it as a different genealogy that has long stood apart. Kim Sunghee, director of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, mentioned the example of the 2023 exhibition "Korean Experimental Art 1960-1970," which continued at the Guggenheim Museum in the United States, and revealed that a project to present this exhibition at overseas art museums is also underway.

Kim Sunghee, Director of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, is giving a greeting at the press conference for the planned exhibition "This Is (Not) Conceptual Art" held on the 18th at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Seoul in Jongno-gu, Seoul. Photo by Yonhap News

The title at the entrance of the exhibition leaves the answer unresolved until the end. Is this conceptual art or not? Even after viewing the entire exhibition, the answer remains elusive. Instead, the viewer becomes newly aware of their position in front of a single circle: is it here, there, or over there? The questions left by Korean conceptual art begin again from that ambiguous spot.

During the exhibition period, “Artist’s Classes” will be held, where artists and visitors can discuss the conceptual issues embedded in the works on display. On August 19, the international symposium "Concept and Art: In the Context of Korea and Asia," featuring domestic and international scholars such as Alexander Alberro and Reiko Tomii, will take place.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.