This exhibition, Korean Painting Now, features a total of 56 sets of work by 29 prominent contemporary Korean artists, giving us a comprehensive overview of the development of Korean painting since the 1950s, as well as an insight of how contemporary Korean artists have responded aesthetically to the specific historical realities of Korea and the overwhelming dominance of Western art in the post-War era.
One of the key areas of research work in National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts in recent years is to explore the range of diverse cultural experiences and the current cultural trends of the Asia-Pacific region by looking into the world of Asian contemporary art. In the mean time, the museum has also been actively exploring opportunities for artistic change with our neighboring nations in a bid to enhance dialogues and mutual understanding among Asian countries. It is worth noting here that Taiwan and Korea have created rather different artistic landscapes due to differences in national character and historical conditions, despite the similar geographic locations, similar Confucian cultural influence and similar trajectories along which political, economic and social changes have occurred in the two nations.
In recent years, the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts has been organizing a series of exchange exhibitions to improve mutual understanding between Taiwanese and Korean artistic communities. Besides, we have also arranged for artists of both nations to visit each other. For the first time, we are inviting the curatorial team of the Seoul Museum of Art to organize an exhibition in Taiwan. As curator Jung Yu-Jin has noted, 1957 marked a significant milestone for the development of Korean contemporary art, as this year saw the founding of many major modern arts groups which collectively provided the driving force behind a new wave of Modern arts movements in South Korea. Coincidently, 1957 also witnessed the founding of two of the most important modern art groups in post-War Taiwan e.g. the Eastern Painting Society and the May Painting Society, which pioneered the modern arts movement in Taiwan and solicited participation of many more modern arts groups in the 1960s.
Despite having similar starting points, Taiwan and Korea have followed rather different paths of modern arts movements. More specifically, whereas Taiwan's modern arts movement was largely dominated by abstract expressionists, Korean artists of the post-War era have tended to adopt a simple, minimalist style, favoring instead single-colored painting and geometric abstraction. It is worth noting here that from the 1980s onwards, Taiwan and Korea have both been going through significant political, economic and social transformation; the marked economic development and democratization of both nations can also be seen reflected in the changing visual vocabulary of contemporary arts in both nations. This exhibition, Korean Painting Now, gives us a great opportunity to understand the various stages of contemporary Korean painting since the 1960s.
Both founded in 1988, the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts and the Seoul Museum of Art both collect and research art of their respective nations with the ultimate aim to establish, for the respective nations, an art history based on local and regional perspectives. Korean Art Now can be seen to make a significant contribution to this ongoing effort and common goal. On behalf of the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, I wish for the complete success of this exhibition, and hope with utmost sincerity that this exhibition will mark the beginning of a long and successful collaborative initiatives between the two museums.
