'Exploring Contemporaneity in Modern Art' National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Hosts Back to the Future Exhibition

21 Contemporary Artists Including Gong Seonghun and Park Iso: 33 Works on Display
From the 16th Until May Next Year at National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul

The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA, Acting Director Park Jongdal) announced on the 15th that it will hold a special exhibition of its collection titled "Back to the Future: An Exploration of the Contemporaneity of Korean Modern Art."

Lee Dong-ki, Man and Woman, 1990, Acrylic on canvas, 162×130.5 cm (×2). [Photo courtesy of National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art]

This exhibition was planned based on the focused research results of the collection acquired over five years from 2018 to 2022, noting that many works by artists who revealed the contemporaneity of Korean modern art during the transitional period of the 1990s were collected.

The exhibition title shares its name with the 1985 Hollywood film "Back to the Future." The year 1987, when this film was released in Korea, marks the beginning of the formation of the contemporaneity context in Korean modern art. From the late 1980s to the 1990s, the rapidly changing political, social, and economic situations both domestically and internationally greatly influenced popular culture arts such as film, music, and comics for the new generation at the time. The progressive generational shift that unfolded alongside this era change represents the birth of a generation that freely transcended phenomena and situations not interpreted by previous logic or existing conventions, serving as a key mechanism defining this period.

The exhibition introduces the works of artists who established their artistic identities in the late 1980s and early 1990s, showcasing their works from that time to their recent activities. It also presents works by artists who grew through the late 20th to early 21st century, a period when analog and digital intersected and coexisted, emerging in Korean art history and now established as major figures in the contemporary art scene.

The exhibition is organized into four sections: "Era Transition and Changes in the Art Landscape," "Activation of Discrepancy," "Otherness and Its Critical Spatiotemporal Context," and "Future Interference or Future Intervention." Through the composition of works in each section, visitors can understand the context in which the contemporaneity of Korean modern art was formed during the 1990s and continued into the 2000s, as well as the main trends in contemporary art today.

Yubiho, Black Gallop, 2000, 3-channel video, color, sound, 4 minutes 3 seconds.
[Photo by National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art]

In "Era Transition and Changes in the Art Landscape," the exhibition examines art practices manifested from the perspective of "contemporaneity" through works collected by the museum over the past five years by artists such as Gong Seonghun, Kim Beom, Park Iso, Lee Donggi, Lee Yongbaek, and Choi Jeonghwa.

"Activation of Discrepancy" introduces early media works by Kim Sejin, Park Hwayoung, Yoo Biho, and Ham Yangah, viewing "contemporaneity" not merely as a temporal concept but as a challenge to existing hegemonic structures through media art.

"Otherness and Its Critical Spatiotemporal Context" presents works by artists including Koo Donghee, Kim Doojin, Kim Sangdon, Noh Jaewoon, Geum Hyewon, Noh Choonghyun, and Jung Jaeho, who developed their creative capacities amid the dynamic chaos and novelty where the benefits and harms of rapid industrialization and modernization before the 1990s collided and different times coexisted.

"Future Interference or Future Intervention" shows how the contemporaneity of Korean modern art formed in the 1990s has developed and expanded through "here and now" media works.

The exhibition will be held at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, until May 26 of next year.

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