Experimental Art

Undergraduate / Graduate

This seminar offers an in-depth study of the artistic movement in Korea known as Experimental Art (silheom misul). Loosely formed and spanning multiple mediums - photography, video, installation, sound, performance and its documentation - Experimental Art signaled a grassroots, counter-institutional direction in South Korean art that has only recently garnered international attention. The movement also effloresced during pivotal political moments, including nearly three decades of authoritarian rule (1961-1988) and the subsequent democratization movements as well as nation-wide labor struggles. Beginning with close readings of key artworks, the course examines the movement's interregional emergence (in conversation with artists from Japan, France, the Philippines, and the U.S.), its relevance to global contemporary art, and recent efforts in exhibition-making and historicization, with an eye toward methods for alternative historicizations of Korean art and Asian art more broadly. Reading knowledge of Korean and/or Japanese is helpful, but everyone is welcome. Those interested in global contemporary art, Korean history, interregionalism, art and politics, and/or art theory are highly encouraged to enroll.