ABSTRACT
The way Korean artists developed subject matters with distinctive Korean features in Avant-garde styles of visualization also mirrored the progress of modern art in Latin America or by Latinx artists abroad. Modernism in Korean art can be placed within this narrative of modern art histories from South Asia and other countries on either side in the Pacific Ocean. Modernism fostered a period of experimentation in the arts from the late 19th to the mid-20th century, particularly in the years following World War I. Korean artists in the early twentieth century shared a familiar career trajectory with their contemporaries in Central and South America, South Asia, or Africa. In Korea, modernism in visual arts or modernist art used to be called geundae misul while abstract art or Informel movement from the late 1950s were called hyeondae misul. Much emphasis is placed on fluctuating definitions of modernity, modernism, and contemporaneity throughout the twentieth century.
