You have heard of K-dramas and K-pop, but what about K-pop art?
As an exhibition in Hong Kong explains, Korean pop art is in fact a genre of contemporary art that traces back to 20th-century pop art in the US and the UK, one that was hungrily appropriated from booming consumerism in the noughties and that evolved into a more cynical post-internet phase in the past decade.
“Kitsch & Pop: Korean Pop Art Now” takes up two floors of the Korean Cultural Centre in Hong Kong’s Central neighbourhood, which, for those who have not visited, is a veritable shrine to Korean soft power. It has an extensive library of K-pop light sticks and you can rent a hanbok for selfies inside a traditional teahouse.
The exhibition, which has just travelled from the KCC in Shanghai, consists of artworks from the Seoul Museum of Art (SMA) as well as new commissions such as Mirim Chu’s Geo-Pixel Drift: Hong Kong.