《Art Plant Asia 2020: Hare Way Object》 took place at Deoksugung Palace in the middle of a long, peaceful autumn that felt like a reward amid the unending global pandemic. This event was reportedly dedicated to “recognizing the limitations of the Korean art market” and “assessing and expanding the status of Asian art.” However, the event as experienced in person can be narrowed down to “an assembly of works centering on currently active Korean contemporary artists.” Such could be expected just by looking at the spectrum of participating artists. Among the 33 individuals or groups of artists featured in the exhibition, 19 (more than half) are so-called “emerging artists” selected by the organizers of the event. Artists who played major roles in establishing the foundation of Korean modern and contemporary art made up a relatively smaller portion, and only three non-Korean Asian artists?Ho Tzu Nyen, Ho Rui An, and Royce Ng?were tantamount to the attempt for “expansion” as intended by this event. “Speculative realism,” which was purported to be the main discourse of this event, also seemed to be too faint a link to tie the artists together.

  

Artificial intelligence is beginning to affect multiple realms of our lives, and its influence on the field of art cannot be underestimated. This influence and its symptoms can be felt at the Daejeon Biennale 2020. Under the title “《A.I., Sunshine Misses Windows》, this biennale held in Daejeon, Korea, seeks to integrate science and art to propose how artificial intelligence, which is at the center of the world’s growing attention, can be melded with or seen as art.

  

When examining the peripheries of the Korean art market over the last ten years, the emergence and development of an alternative art market cannot be missed. In 2020 alone, fourteen projects were carried out under the Visual Artists Market scheme, which was organized by the Korean Arts Management System (KAMS) to tackle the difficulties facing creators, and to support alternative practices outside the mainstream art market. When taking into consideration independent, business-affiliated, and regional events supported by public funds, there are more than 20 small to medium-sized alternative art fairs held every year.

  

With the closing of the year 2020, the Artro presents special features to re-examine the various issues that have appeared in the Korean contemporary art scene over the past ten years from 2010. The first article “Expansion of Korean Art Spaces in the 2010s” by Jihong Baek explores the topography of the Korean art spaces that have been expanded for the past ten years. In this essay, the creation and expansion of the various spaces, from national & public museums and private museums to new art spaces, are examined. With this article we hope to have an opportunity to envision the upcoming ten years of Korean art especially in this time of uncertainty.

  

In 2005, Lee Bul turned her attention to the 'utopian shadows' cast by modernist architectures, from Joseph Paxton's Crystal Palace, the stage for London's 1851 Great Exhibition, to Vladimir Tatlin's iconic model for the Monument to the Third International (1920).

  

St Ives, the charming Cornish port town and artist’s mecca has just experienced an invasion. This year, it’s not the herds of art-hunting, sea-seeking tourists, but creatures of an altogether more otherworldly variety, conceived by Berlin-based South Korean artist Haegue Yang.