2025, Vol.74, No.

The Journal of Aesthetics and Science of Art 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 0.81

pISSN : 1229-0246
https://journal.kci.go.kr/ksasa

Since the 1970’s, the discourse on the ‘image-figure’ of Korean painting has developed into two branches. One is the branch that did not completely accept the image-figure. Painters and art critics who valued abstraction and flatness have denied the image-figure in painting, but were also worried that this would result in a literal flatness, so they had a dual attitude of denying the image-figure and secretly affirming it. The other is the branch that positively accepted the image-figure. Painters and art critics belonging to this branch actively accepted the image-figure, but the one they brought back into painting was a kind of “return of the repression,” which was very different from the familiar ‘image-figure’. Such figures were often referred to as ‘neo-figurative’. In other words, it had to be an image-figure, but not an image-figure. It would not be wrong to say that the former is abstract but not abstract, and the latter is an image-figure, but not image-figure. In the 1990’s, when the trend of anti-modern or post-modern prevailed, these two branches were hybridized, which many critics and painters of that time called ‘post-modern painting’.

This paper aims to survey the oeuvre of Kwon Yeo Hyun, who is considered a representative artist of Korean postmodern art, and to reveal its meaning in the context of contemporary painting theory. In examining Kwon’s art over the past four decades, which has spanned painting, drawing, photography, video, performance, and installation, I will focus specifically on the concepts of “self” and “performativity,” as I believe these two concepts consistently underpin his diverse practice. From his early works influenced by existentialism to recent works associated with post-structuralism, Kwon’s art is not limited to a single style. His exploration of the self has expanded to include the social self and the other, combining history, mythology, and philosophy, and is realized through various layers of performativity that unfold on and off the canvas. In other words, Kwon’s performativity encompasses self-consciousness as an artist in a constant state of transformation, disguise performance, “sensory drawing” that is directly related to physicality, and network through collaboration. In considering the status of painting in the post-medium era, Kwon’s artistic practice can be discussed in relation to the views of Isabelle Graw, who emphasized the indexicality of painting and painting as a thinking subject, and David Joselit, who focused on painting as a node in social networks.

This paper examines the trajectory of contemporary painting after 2010, a period marked by the proliferation of mobile devices and social networking services, leading to an overwhelming increase in images and a crisis for painting. Among various terms describing this era, the author adopts “post-digital” and explores the shifting experience of images as the transition from analog to digital media unfolds. The study then analyzes three Korean artists who integrate the interaction between digital and analog media and the immateriality of digital media into painting. Noh Sangho considers paintings created with carbon-paper drawings, their scanned digital versions, and SNS uploads as equivalent originals, treating physical exhibitions and SNS feeds as equally valid experiences. His practice aims to “thin” painting both physically and conceptually. Park Hyunjeong applies the process of digitizing, processing, and transforming images in digital programs to painting, replicating the resulting digital images as analog paintings. This process highlights the differences between digital manipulation and analog painting. Lee Juri digitizes her past drawings, develops an image-generation program, and outputs the results in various formats. While these artists actively use digital tools and attributes, their works remain painterly within Krauss’s post-medium condition, as they are realized in a two-dimensional plane and originate from hand-drawn sources. However, in contrast to Krauss’s elitism, they reject the artist’s exclusive authority and share their production methods with others, thereby acquiring a new sense of democracy in painting and expanding its possibilities.