In the Eye of the Hurricane of Change: Korean Contemporary Art of the New Millennium

Abstract

The current social, political and cultural changes experienced by Korean society are having a profound effect on the work of artists who by their very nature attempt to face up to and understand reality as they see it. Artists who have attempted to escape the modernist trend prevalent in 1980s and 1990s have now established their place in the Korean art scene. The use of various and unusual media, some technology based, has now become widely accepted. The mobile industry in Korea is one of the most saturated, competitive and advanced in the world, and many artists have adapted their work or changed their working practice in order to utilize the medium available in mobile phones. These Korean artists who have placed themselves in the centre of the hurricane of change have striven to adapt a viewpoint that is calm and objective. Keywords: cultural changes; Korean art scene; mobile phones; political stability; social system