The Korean Avant-Garde Association (), better known as the AG Group, was a post-war collective of artists and critics in South Korea that practiced and advocated for the role of avant-garde art in and, thus, the advancement of contemporary Korean art. Between its establishment in 1969 and dissolution in 1975, the group organized three major group exhibitions and the 1974 Seoul Biennale while publishing its own journal, AG. Members included artists Choi Myoung Young (최명영, 1941–), Ha Chong Hyun, Kim Kulim, Kim Han (김한, ​1938-2008), Kim Tchah-sup, Kwak Hoon (곽훈, 1941–), Lee Seung Jio (이승조, 1941–1990), Park Suk Won (박석원, 1942–), Park Chong Bae (박종배, 1935–), Suh Seung Won (서승원, 1942–), as well as critics Lee Yil (이일, 1952–), Kim In-Hwan (김인환, 1937–2011), and O Kwang-su (오광수, 1938–). Background The AG Group's foundation has been contextualized within South Korea's modern and contemporary art history following the various attempts of artists engaging in new and experimental modes of expression. More specifically, the AG Group was active during a period scholars had overlooked for lack of a coherent, major art movement, caught between the preceding Informel movement of the mid-1950s and following the Dansaekhwa painting movement of the mid-1970s. Pre-war artists engaged in Abstraction were considered avant-garde in the sense that it was the newest form of art. Later post-war artists of the 1950s and 1960s embraced Art Informel and Abstract Expressionism protesting realist academicism and the feudalistic system of National Art Exhibitions. Artist groups founded during this time were the Contemporary Artists Association (현대미술가협회 hyeondae misulga hyeopoe) and the 1960s Art Association (1960년미술협회 yooksimnyeon misul hyeopoe), which were later merged to become the group Actuel (악튜엘 aktyuel). As the Informel movement waned as its leading artists were integrated into teaching institutions and lost steam under the Third Republic of South Korea headed by president Park Chung-hee, another generation of artists emerged seeking out and exploring various possibilities of transitions. Small-sized artist groups, such as Origin Society (오리진 orijin), Zero Group (제로그룹/무동인 jerogeurup/mudongin), and the New Exhibition Group (신전동인 sinjeondongin), were interested in and began to experiment with genres gaining traction in the West, such as pop art, op art, and performance art. Performance art, especially happenings as a form of art that could interject into everyday life and in public, was adopted to satirize conventional social values and culture in Korea, becoming increasingly suppressed going into the Fourth Republic and president