The Exhibition of Group Tabula Rasa, Leaflet, 1981. Image provided by MMCA Art Research Center
TARA
* Source: Multilingual Glossary of Korean Art. Korea Arts Management Service
Related
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Hoengdan
Hoengdan was the name of an art group which was active only briefly from 1980 to 1983, and it was also the theme of their exhibition. Its establishment started from a reflection on Korean contemporary art in the 1970s, by artists who believed that art cannot turn a blind eye to social reality. The principal active members of Hoengdan included Kim Jinyeol, Kim Bo-jung, Jung Bocsu, Ko Kyeong-hun, Ahn Gyeonghui, Song Simi, Lee Gapyeol, and Park Geon. Hoengdan held their first exhibition from August 28 through September 3, 1980 in the Room B of the Exhibition Hall 1 at the Misulhoegwan (now ARKO Art Center). The exhibition themed around “two-dimensional works for three walls” was curated and participated by three artists, Kim Jinyeol, Chang Sukwon, and Ham Yeon-sik. It featured twenty experimental works. Their second exhibition was held from May 29 through June 3, 1981 at Kwanhoon Gallery. Kim Bo-jung, Kim Jinyeol, Song Simi, Chang Sukwon, and Ham Yeon-sik participated in it. The works displayed in the first and second exhibitions were rather abstract and experimental. However, from 1982 onward, concrete forms began to appear in their works. As a case in point, through his People series, Kim Jinyeol depicted the daily lives of ordinary people and the social oppression they experienced. Other artists also revealed unfortunate premonitions inherent in everyday lives and projected the bleak social conditions of the early 1980s onto their works. In 1982, Hoengdan participated in the exhibition The Innocence of Conscience: That Sound, which was organized by the DAMU Group and held at Kwanhoon Gallery, along with small art groups Jeongae, DAMU Group, and TARA. In 1983, it organized the exhibition Noise, Confusion, and Disturbance held from May 4 to 10 at Kwanhoon Gallery. Its third exhibition was held from November 24 to 30, 1983. Afterward, the group’s activities were discontinued. The discontinuation is not unrelated to the quick migration of the major players among figurative artists to the Hangang Museum when Jang Gyeongho, who led the organization of the exhibition Young Minds, moved to a curatorial position at the Hangang Museum, which opened in June 1984. Another reason for the group’s dissolution is disagreements among the founding members of Hoengdan regarding the visual representations of oppression in Korean society at the time. Kim Jinyeol was the only Hoengdan founding member who participated in the opening exhibition, The Grandiose Root, of the Hangang Museum. After a five-year hiatus, an exhibition of Hoengdan was held in April 1989 at Gallery Doll. The participating artists were Jeong Jeongsik, Ko Kyeong-hun, Yu Seongsuk, Park Jeongae, Kim Sanha, Jung Bocsu, Baek Dongmin, Ahn Gyeonghui, and Roh Jaesoon. Hoengdan tried to start anew, but there was no further activity after this exhibition.
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DAMU Group
DAMU Group, an art group active from 1980 to 1983, was founded based on the recognition of the 1970s as a period of juxtaposition between the real and the illusionary. It curated exhibitions on the theme of what is and what is visible in an effort to find a turning point for a new mode of existence different from such juxtaposition. Accordingly, the group experimented with new art forms that were different from existing ones and presented works and exhibitions aimed at practicing contemporary ideas and spirit. Its inaugural exhibition The First Exhibition of Damu Group was held on November 6, 1980 at the Art Center of the Korean Culture and Arts Foundation Art Center. Seven artists participated in the exhibition including Kim Jeongsik, Kim Hakyeon, Lee Heungduk, Yim Chungjae, Jeong Jinseok, Choe Hyeonsu, and Hong Seonwung, all of whom were graduates from Chung-Ang University. At the time, they rejected the monochromatic painting style and criticized the uniform formalism and art system of the 1970s as a barrier to overcome. DAMU Group viewed things as existing in a “complementary relationship” with other things and argued that the true nature of things is revealed in their organic relationship. In this light, the title of its founding manifesto was announced as “The Complementary Relationship of Things.” Since a single thing or a concrete form cannot define its true nature, the group thought that how things interact with each other should be explored to understand them. Thus, the artists of the group produced works by utilizing photographs of human figures and geometric forms, installing two or more objets, or adding scratches on the copies of real objects. After its inaugural exhibition, the group organized another exhibition Winter, Open-Air Art Show at Daesung-ri by 31 Artists in January 1981 at Hwarangpo on the banks of the Bukhangang River in Daeseong-ri, Gapyeong-gun, Gyeonggi-do Province. In July 1981, it held its second group exhibition at the Art Center, and in March 1982 it presented The Exhibition of Conversive Art. In August of the same year, the group held the exhibition The Straight Forwardness of Consciousness, the Echo, in which small groups Jeongae, Hoengdan, and TA-RA as well as the DAMU Group participated. After the third group exhibition What Is and What Is Visible held in August 1983 at the Art Center, the DAMU Group’s activities ceased because its members joined several Minjung art groups or went abroad to study and their ideas about art’s social engagement slightly differed.
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