Mission, Vision, and Value
Founded in New York in 2013, Korea Art Forum (KAF) is an independent non-profit organization led by artists, scholars, and peacemakers with the mission of bridging the world through art. KAF aims to dismantle sources of inequality and exclusivity present in the contemporary art field while at the same time building an aesthetic framework conducive to a fair, just, and peaceful world of coexistence, cooperation, and shared prosperity.
Collaborating with different hosting entities, KAF annually implements commissions, exhibitions, forums, and publications to disrupt barriers, which include global conflicts between North and South Korea, the U.S., and China; and socio-economic divides within a local community between classes, races, and sexes. Operating at the juncture of the visual arts and humanities, KAF’s interrelated projects serve to bring together people from the art world and beyond to discuss and penetrate cultural, economic, or political barriers, advancing the transformative power of the visual arts to create an interconnected and peaceful world where every human can live, works and thrive together.
With the vision of discovering the conditions of contemporary art conducive to the betterment of society, KAF supports thought-provoking public initiatives, exploring critical issues and creative resolutions related to the geopolitical, economic, historical, and cultural boundaries of a divided landscape, with particular focus on the division of the Korean peninsula.
While fostering dynamic relationships between art, artists, and audiences, KAF recognizes values of innovation, excellence, diversity, inclusion, equity, and access. KAF supports experimental work by underrated artists who challenge conventional notions about and excite critical discourse concerning contemporary art.
Creative activities KAF presents are not limited to Korean art. KAF offers all kinds of arts that explore contemporary issues related to the division of Korea, a borderline that manifests the contradictory nature of human beings and the collision of global systems between Western democracy and Eastern socialism, Western modernity and Asian traditions.