Korean Video Art from 1970s to 1990s: Time Image Apparatus

Park Hyunki, Kim Kulim, Yook Keun-byung, Moon Joo, Yook Taejin, Kim Sooja, Park Hwa Young, Yang Ah Ham, Moon Kyungwon, Jeon Joonho and so on 

Korean Video Art from 1970s to 1990s: Time Image Apparatus is a special exhibition surveying the 30-year history of Korean video art from 1970s to 1990s. This exhibition subtitled “Time Image Apparatus” highlights the periodic characteristics of and changes in Korean video art, from video works of the 1970s that experimented with the ideas of temporality, performance, and process to video sculptures of the 1980s and the 1990s that approached video as a mechanical apparatus and single channel videos that emerged in the late 1990s that concentrated on the image and narrative. Introducing more than 130 works by 60-some video artists representative of Korea, this exhibition recontextualize the 30-year history of Korean video art and inspects its independent identity.

Video art—various forms of artistic practices involving the medium of video—was first introduced in the Korean art scene in the 1970s as an experimental, new, and alternative art form. It has evolved not only in tandem with the shifts in Korean contemporary art but also in close relation with the changes in the video medium and associated technology, e.g., television, VCRs, video cameras, and computers. This exhibition presents a stereoscopic view of the evolution of Korean video art, examining it in and outside of artistic context as well as in light of video and media technology development.

The exhibition comprised seven themes: “Korean Early Video Art and Experimental Art,” “Post-Genre Experiments and Technology,” “Video Sculptures and Kinetic Video Art,” “Body/Performance/Video,” “Society, Narrative, and Video,” “Mass Consumption Culture and Video Art,” and “Single-Channel and Multi-Channel Videos.” The keywords “the times” and “Korean contemporary art” are used as warp and weft yarns to penetrate and weave together the multilateral aspects and the complex history of Korean video art, which has transformed and evolved within the ambivalent contexts of technology and video culture, science and art, device and narrative, and the image and concept.

This exhibition not only presents recreated versions of some of the historically important video works to recover parts of the lost history but also serves as a footing for MMCA’s long-term video exhibition platform, laying the cornerstones for overseas introduction of Korean video art. Korean Video Art from 1970s to 1990s: Time Image Apparatus is expected to open up meaningful discussions on Korean video art for critics, artists, and viewers.