한국 앵포르멜 미술의 ‘또 다른’ 의미

Abstract

This thesis attempts to approach Korean Informel whose formation was based on the reception of the dominant mainstream culture of the time from the perspective of the Koreans who were the subjects of the reception. Korean Informel emerged in the second half of the 1950s when Korea had just survived the Japanese occupation and the Korean War. During these years an encounter occurred between the need to reform the old system and the demand for the advanced culture which was rapidly being introduced. This led, in the field of art, to the acute resistance to the conservative art institution, especially to the annual Korean Art Exhibition and the rigorous reception of western tendencies By this reason, Korean Informel became to be a visual language for the reformation of the system beyond being pure form-oriented. This is attested to by the fact that the Korean Informel movement was led by the Korean Association of Modern Artists rather than individual artists. For them, aesthetic renovation meant political renovation. This can be exemplified by the street exhibition in 1960 by their subsequent generation, and it was nothing but a street protest via art. The other aspect of Korean Informel can also be found in the fact that it was a hybrid culture of Abstract Expressionism from America and l’Informel from France. This reflects a unique aspect of the third-world culture that the importation of the advanced culture was necessary for its self-existence. In the early years of the movement Abstract Expressionism was introduced chiefly by means of visual materials. In the later years of the movement, l’Informel of France was adopted in terms of concept and theory. In other words, American visual culture was understood through French concepts. In short, Korean Informel came to have ‘another’ meaning different from that of the mainstream abstract art of that time owing to the nature of its movement and the aspect of cultural hybridization. This is because it was triggered by the specific demand elicited by the geopolitical situation of Korea at that time and thereby was developed through a selective and arbitrary process of importing those tendencies. In-between American Abstract Expressionism and French Informel, Korean Informel secured its place as ‘another’ mode of postwar abstract art that simultaneously was related to and distanced itself from the two tendencies.