Hoon Suk Lee
Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia
Existentialism after World War II is connected with the appearance of the new art trends, not only in the Western world, but also in East Asia and in the Soviet bloc. Such worldwide influence of existentialism is associated with a similar ontological experience of individuals from different countries in the war, pre-war, and post-war period. Therefore, the study of existentialism and its correlation to art is important for understanding of the value of art of the postwar period as the universal human value of the contemporary world.
However, in the Russian art studies, the problem of the correlation between existentialism and visual arts in the post-war Soviet Union is not explored enough. Underestimated influence of existentialism in the Soviet culture, which was caused by permeated understanding of its ideological isolation from the West, may be the reason of the underinvestigation of the subject. Meanwhile, in the 50–60s, existentialism was quite deeply studied in the field of philosophy and literary criticism, and that is an indirect evidence of its impact on the post-war period Soviet culture. All the more, the duality of Soviet life and the existence of Soviet unofficial culture allow us to conjecture the possibility of the relationship between existentialism and Soviet unofficial art.
Vadim Sidur and Oh Jong Wook were outstanding sculptors of Soviet unofficial art and South Korean modern art. The main theme of their sculpture in the 60s was a man and his suffering in the world, which is frequent in the works of European artists, whose art is considered to be closely linked with existentialism. A devastating war and a sharp social change in the country had a significant impact on the work of sculptors, who were completely isolated from each other, but equally concerned about the meaning of human being.
The research on the relationship between their work and existentialism is crucial for the understanding of the post-war Soviet unofficial art and South Korean modern art in the world art context.