»Be the Reds« rang out as the Korean battle cry during the World Soccer Championship this year, surely the most enthusiastic and friendly sporting event ever experienced by the western world - incredible for a country in which baseball is still much more popular than soccer. Also notable was the tense yet politically relevant rapprochement with co-organizer Japan. The suffering caused by decades of repression under Japanese colonial power, along with the historical question of who is to blame, represent an open topic for discussion in Korea. After all, the foundations of Japanese culture are rooted in this history. But Japan, despite its willingness to seek contacts with its former colony, is still far removed from offering a comprehensive admission of guilt. The problems faced by Korea are thus evident in both the East, as far as foreign policy is concerned, and in the northern part of the country with regards to domestic policy. Loud protests against the American »occupiers,« who viewed North Korea as part of the axis of evil, can still be heard sometimes. In general, however, in the streets of Seoul one can clearly feel how open, friendly and curious this nation is toward all that is foreign. One of the reasons for this might be the amazingly low proportion of foreigners here - only 4 %. In conversations, which are just as often in English as in German, parallels with Germany emerge - the former division between West and East corresponds with the remaining separation of North and South in Korea. But the boundaries are slowly softening, and positive reports on new breakthroughs arrive almost on a daily basis.

In the recent years of reform following the stock market crash and financial crisis of 1998, Korea has experienced an economic boom, which has also had an impact on the cultural landscape. Three biennials (Kwangju - after a long lull -, Pusan and media_city Seoul)1 have now joined the international mesh of exhibitions, succeeding, in combination with massive state and private investments, in reinforcing national self-esteem. This in turn provides the necessary encouragement for many artists to return to their homeland after studying in the West, even though the employment and exhibition conditions in the arts system there can hardly be compared with western standards. Today there are more Korean than, for example, Japanese students at European, especially German, universities and art academies. Upon their return, the artists' political, socio-cultural and artistic experiences abroad tend to exert an influence on structures in their own country.

The over 200 professional art galleries listed in the Seoul Art Guide2 every month display the prevailing ever-popular figurative art or abstract constructionist, usually academic, art of a nation that is still searching for its own (modern) style. Rental galleries like those in Japan dominate the art landscape. In them, rooms can be booked for a sometimes horrendous sum (depending on the gallery's reputation, up to 2,000 euros per week) - the positive aspect being that almost 100% of the sales price lands in the pocket of the exhibitor. There are very few galleries that deal on the international market. The Kukje Gallery3 has exhibited for several years at Art Basel and this summer showed works by Jeff Wall and Rachel Whiteread. The former artistic director of the gallery, Kyungmee Park, has now opened her own gallery, pkm4, just two blocks away, taking with her the most well-known artist and at the same time the most important representative of the new Korean self-image, Lee Bul. At present, Park is showing the most recent design work of Jorge Pardo.

As non-profit offshoots of a prospering enterprise, Art Center Nabi5, Art Sonje Center6 and Ssamzie Space7 in Seoul must also be mentioned, all of which are working successfully on combining local values with global visions. Near City Hall, on the fourth floor of the SK high-rise, Nabi has been presenting media art for two years now. Here, in addition to exhibitions, work is also produced, seminars and symposia are held and, last but not least, artists are offered technical support and the opportunity to make business contacts. The most recent show, featuring a project called »Watch Out« by French artist Maurice Benayoun, dealt with the topic of wireless networking. In a recent international symposium the impact of the age of the mobile phone was discussed. All of the institutes here are working toward the establishment of thriving international networks - with theorists, critics and curators - and the organization of appropriate activities helps to ensure the achievement of this goal. Short-term projects predominate, such as those shown in the project spaces at the Art Sonje Center, where the young video artist Hyunmi Yoo recently exhibited. Under the direction of Sun-jung Kim, the center specializes in works from the entire East Asian region, including Australia. The current main exhibition of works by Japanese artist Tatsuo Miyajima successfully responds to the popular interest in media art - which stems in Korea from the universal veneration of native son Nam June Paik.

Probably the most influential new-generation art space is Ssamzie Space, an active multi-focus laboratory, housed for two years now in seven stories of a building located in the hip district surrounding Hong-ik-University, in the western part of Seoul. The space was initiated during the general financial crisis of 1998 by the eponymous design and fashion company, which is still responsible for its financing. Here, alternating exhibits take place on three levels, with six to eight parallel individual or thematic exhibits, primarily offering a forum for local avant-garde artists. Of significance here are the links and mutual interplay between art and life, or art and the public, abetted by the establishment of a discussion room designed to encourage a pluralization of the understanding of art. Discussion and debate between established and aspiring artists is the focus here. During the past year director Hong-hee Kim has also been opening the gallery's doors to foreign artists. On the three upper floors live as many as 15 artists, each for up to 12 months. At the end of their stay, each presents a studio exhibition and donates a work to the house collection. A media theater, archive, clubrooms and numerous events - notably the »Young Collectors Corner«, dedicated to developing new groups of collectors - as well as performances and concerts round out the program of Seoul's arguably most many-sided and lively institution.

One of the more important exponents of the younger media art generation is Suzung Kim8 (born in 1967), who mounted a virtual exhibition for the Art Center Nabi in 2000. The work was based on a grid in which interaction using a mouse generated a never-ending series of new visual attractions. In his most recent works, the artist effectively combines architectonic building elements from New York and Seoul, which are projected overhead as ceiling symmetries reminiscent of the views of the sky one would see looking up between real skyscrapers. At the opposite end of the spectrum are the paintings of Sunny Kim (born in 1966), who studied in the USA and the Netherlands and has spent the past five years in Seoul. With her uniformed schoolgirls posed passively in monochrome landscapes, she illustrates in a quietly impressive manner, using the abstracting basis of a photographic template, the conflicts faced by the individual, especially the female, in Asian society. The uniform acts as signifier of the formal restrictions shaping the subject's reality.

On the 21st century Korean art scene, the primary vehicles for conveying meaning are still the body and the media. Conspicuous is how the young scene seeks possibilities for expression using narrative and usually classical figurative means. Unique motifs from national and western art history merge quite easily, almost playfully, with new materials and unusual forms - as the result of a relish for experimentation and a curious sidelong glance at the international art world and the limited domestic market. It must be borne in mind that, from a formal point of view, Lee Bul is an absolute exception. But the younger artists know as well as Bul does that AFTER the game is also BEFORE the game: from a global point of view, the ball is always round. And the enthusiasm knows no bounds.

Thanks to Enna Bae and Yoewool Kang

 

Translated by Jennifer Taylor-Gaida

 

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