Seoul Museum of Art’s exhibition East Village NY: Vulnerable and Extreme sheds light to the 1980s’ East Village in New York where artists gathered around to practice art for social and political revolution in their own lives and establish their unique style of art with the spirit of the time.
The ‘cool’ and ‘hip’ aspects of the East Village art where we see, at a glance, such a freedom and dynamism, are only the surface on top of the struggles of the artists’ lives. At the time, the East Village was suffering from an intense gentrification due to urban redevelopment which was turning the neighborhoods into slums and ruins. There was an immanent political repression in terms of discrimination of class, sex, and race beyond the economic pressures while the East Village art coexisted with the grim reality of drugs, AIDS, and deaths of the loved ones. There was an immanent political repression in terms of discrimination of class, sex, and race beyond the economic pressures while the East Village art coexisted with the grim reality of drugs, AIDS, and deaths of the loved ones. There were no doctrines or a unifying voice, but their solidarity embodied the earnest power of art directly connected with the life of the East Village.
East Village NY: Vulnerable and Extreme invites 26 individual and group artists to present 75 pieces of work along with 73 issues from the East Village Eye magazine archive. The exhibition demonstrates the diversity and experimental nature of the artistic practice that defies the world and reflects the spirit of the time on the one hand. On the other, it attempts to explore the close relationship between life, art, and politics that lies as the backdrop. The project aims to provide an opportunity to re-politicize the East Village’s issues that still remain valid to this day against the backdrop of our own reality. Such a journey, on the one hand, will hopefully take an overview of the political role of art while on the other, surpassing the temporal and spatial distance to share the experience that connects the past and the present, and establishing a platform for participation and engagement through sympathy.
