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Art history always has a dominant movement that defines its era. Korea's once-representative Dansaekhwa (monochrome painting), along with abstract art and experimental art, followed such a trajectory. Today, however, the prevailing view is that no single movement defines the current era. The absence of a dominant style has itself become the "dominant style" of contemporary art. With the arrival of the artificial intelligence (AI) era in particular, art is being directly affected, drawing attention to its future.
The exhibition "Save Yourself Who Can," now on view at Gallery Hyundai in Samcheong-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul, is a stage for the challenges facing young artists grappling with these questions. Eight artists born after 1980 have gathered to survey a new era of art.
The featured artists — Kim Ju-young (35), Park Min-ha (42), Park Jung-hye (37), An Hyun-jung (40), Lee Hye-in (45), Jung Jin-hwa (40), Cho Iy-sop (32) and Han Sun-woo (32) — have worked with independent attitudes, breaking free from the grand narratives, institutions and stylistic norms of the previous generation. The exhibition's title is said to be drawn from a 1979 film by French director Jean-Luc Godard.
Kim Ju-young, based in Munich, Germany, presents works using parts of transport systems such as aircraft and automobiles. By combining an aircraft window frame — symbolizing temporary stays and movement — with stained glass symbolizing cultural memory and history, she reveals the intersection of speed, dwelling and cultural memory, metaphorically depicting an identity not fixed to any particular place.
Han Sun-woo collages images collected online in Photoshop, uses AI to adjust the tones of light and shadow, then projects them onto canvas and paints densely, stroke by stroke, with a brush. While using AI, he maintains a classical oil painting technique that runs counter to AI's speed.
An Hyun-jung has explored the "shape of the mind" by combining painting and drawing with sewing and stitching. In her work, two color fields are placed close together yet remain not fully touching, staging the process of encounter.
Lee Hye-in transforms bodily memories and sensations captured on-site into abstract painting. In her "Rosa" trilogy, "Rosa 1" expresses the beginning of life through roses just blooming at midday in May; "Rosa 2" the peak of vitality through roses in full bloom on a midsummer night; and the final "Rosa 3" the extinction of life and the possibility of a new cycle through the withering of flowers.
Also on view are works by Park Min-ha, who abstractly renders the sensations of light, air and time; Park Jung-hye, who visualizes invisible energy flows through the materiality of paint; Jung Jin-hwa, who deals with the sensation of memory and traces through ink painting; and Cho Iy-sop, who embodies the fluidity of social boundaries and identity through images and sculpture.
Gallery Hyundai described the show as "an occasion to gauge the present and future of Korean contemporary art by examining artists and works born after the 1980s," adding that these are "artists who, amid contemporary confusion and change, view reality, systems, universal emotions and the subject not as fixed entities but as constantly changing states." The exhibition runs through the 26th of this month.
