The Union Exhibition of Korean Young Artists, sometimes called The Korean Young Artists Association Exhibition or Young Artists Coalition Exhibition, was an art show put by three Korean collectives: Zero Group (제로그룹/무동인 Jerogeurup/Mudongin), Origin (오리진 Orijin), and New Exhibition Group (신전동인 Sinjeondongin). Held from December 11-16, 1967 at the Central Public Information Hall, artists protested the stagnancy of traditional art institutions and they debuted Korea’s first ever performance art. This exhibition represented young artists’ deep interest in new, contemporary art forms other than traditional painting and sculpture. While the public protests held during the show were eventually stopped by the police for questioning, the legacy of the show continued through the participant’s continued staging of performances and the formation of the group Avant-Garde Association (AG): a group dedicated to advancing contemporary avant-garde activities and scholarship in Korea.
Background
The artists involved in the Union Exhibition were young artists in their twenties, many of them recent graduates of leading art schools like Hongik University and Seoul National University. This generation of young artists were disappointed by the lack of innovation in the institutionalized Informel style of painting. Zero, Origin, and New Exhibition Group in their own unique ways addressed the rigidity of the established, government-sponsored art world and wanted to showcase innovative, contemporary art forms from the West that addressed socio-political issues. These groups were not sponsored by the government and therefore had the freedom to not abide by the tastes of the Korean elite, which were greatly influenced by the standards instituted by the colonial Japanese government. Zero, Origin, and New Exhibition Group felt that the Informel style was particularly self-indulgent and overly focused on the vacuous internal state of the artist rather than the issues of the industrial society being materialized around them.
Zero Group was founded in 1962 and focused on making object art assembled with ready-mades. They were influenced by anti-art practices and “environmental arts.” Members included Kim Youngnam, Kim Young-ja, Moon Bokcheol, Lee Taehyun, Choi Boonghyun, Hwang Ilji, Lee Dongbok, Seol Yeongjo, and Kim Sangyeound. These artists were also inspired by Neo Dada and Nouveau Realisme.
Origin, founded in 1963, was influenced by happenings in the West and Japan. Choi Myoung-young, Suh Seung-won, Suh Seung-won, and Lee Seung-jio are some of the notable artists who were members of the group. As opposed to Art Informel and Abstract Expressionism, Origin utilized geometric abstraction inspired in part by Dansaekhwa painters. This group claimed to be anti-informel and anti-Abstract Expressionism, and in their art they emphasized the flatness of the painting as a pure surface for geometric abstraction. Thus, their group name references their conception of the principal elements of painting, namely, the flat pictorial surface and geometric structures. Order, rules, anti-emotionality, and constraint starkly constrasted the expressive, unstructured features of Informel or Abstract Expressionism. The artists’ industrious use of the pictorial plane mirrored the proliferation of industrial infrastructure in urban life. Unlike the other two groups involved in the Union Exhibition, whom were invested in exploring non-traditional mediums, Origin was chiefly concerned with painting and abstraction.
New Exhibition Group was founded in 1967 and their chief interest was in exploring performance art. Similarly to Zero Group, New Exhibition group was interested in anti-painting , anti-abstraction, anti-art, and anti-flatness. They championed post-painting and post-materialist installations and performances.