The First Exhibition of DAMU Group, Brochure, 1980, MMCA Art Research Center Collection
DAMU Group
* Source: MMCA
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College of Arts of Chung-Ang University
The College of Arts of Chung-Ang University is located in Daedeok-myeon, Anseong-si in Gyeonggi-do Province. Its predecessor was Seorabeol University of Arts. The Seorabeol Junior College of Arts had fine arts, crafts, and photography departments. After it was authorized as the four-year Seorabeol University of Arts, eighty students were allotted to four classes of fine arts departments. In 1964, however, the Seorabeol University of Arts was merged into the Chung-Ang Cultural Academy. In October 1972, it was moved to the building of Chung-Ang University in Heukseok-dong, Dongjak-gu, Seoul and reorganized into the College of Arts of Chung-Ang University. In 1974, the College of Arts was composed of the Department of Painting, Department of Crafts, Department of Photography, and Department of Architecture and Art. In 1979, the Department of Architecture and Art merged into the Department of Architecture. The College of Arts was relocated to Anseong Campus in Gyeonggi-do Province in 1981. In 1983, the Department of Sculpture was established, and in 1988, the Department of Industrial Design was installed. In 1990, the Department of Painting was divided into the Department of Korean Painting and the Department of Western Painting. The school system was reformed in 2011. Currently, the School of Design at the College of Arts has five majors: craft arts, visual communication design, industrial design, fashion design, and housing and interior design. The School of Fine Arts has three majors of Korean painting, Western painting, and sculpture.
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Baggat Daeseongri Exhibition
The Baggat Daeseongri Exhibition refers to a series of exhibitions entitled Winter, Open-Air Art Show at Daesung-ri held by the Baggat Art Group from 1981 to 1992 around Daesung-ri, Bukhan River. After the Daesung-ri exhibition, the Baggat Art Group changed the exhibition title several times: Baggat Art Daeseongri from 1996 to 2002, Baggat--Bukhan River from 2003 to 2004, and Baggat--Jara Island after 2005. The exhibitions emphasized “the distinct characteristics of the open natural area” of the Bukhan River and promoted “voluntary audience participation” and “eco-friendly and community-driven art in which nature and humanity can coexist.”
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Nature Art
Nature art refers to artistic activities where artists use natural objects or become a part of nature preferably in a desolate natural setting. The members of the YATOO Outdoor Field Art Research Association [Yaoe hyeonjang misul yeonguhoe; YATOO] founded in 1981 refused to present (exhibit) their works indoors and instead presented them in nature, coining the term “nature art” amongst themselves. The origins of nature art can be traced back to the Korean Young Artists’ Association’s thirty outdoor installations in 1976 at Kkotji Beach in Anmyeondo Island and in Gwangreung Forest in Gyeonggi-do Province. Rather than creating works indoors and installing them outdoors, they presented works that used nature as subject matter and were installed in nature. Among the participating artists were Chung Kwanmo, Kim Kwangwoo, Noh Jaeseung, and Rim Dongsik. In the beach and forest, they tried to incorporate the sky, sun, moon, stars, darkness, light, air, water, horizon, sand, tree, forest, fallen leaves, soil, and earth in their original state into their works. Their activities were short-lived and led to the Geumgang Contemporary Art Festival held by Rim Dongsik and Hong Myeongseop in 1980 by the Geumgang River. However, the festival also ended with the first edition. Since 1981, the YATOO artists, including Rim Dongsik, Ko Seunghyun, Lee Eungu, Heo Gang, and Hur Jinkwon, became active around the Geumgang River, inheriting the practice of outdoor installation and establishing it as a mode of artistic expression. They staged various works of performance art in nature with their bare bodies or created installations using natural objects available in nature. Initially, they installed man-made objects such as plastic and balloons in nature, and then gradually used stones, sand, grasses, tree branches, fallen leaves, shells, conches, and even animal feces that they found in nature. Over time, their oeuvres have come to include the process of decomposition in nature.
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Baggat Art Research Society
An art organization that practiced outdoor site-specific art around the Bukhangang River in 1992 to “deal with all spheres of life of living creatures including humans.” The origin of Baggat Art Association began from the Winter, Open-Air Art Show at Daesung-ri by 31 Artists exhibition held in 1981. 31 participating artists founded the Baggat Art Club in Daesung-ri and a year later changed the name to Baggat Art Research Society. They regarded nature as an inspirational creative medium and presented ritualistic works to challenge the obsessively modern mentality of the time. While dismantling the Winter in Daesung-ri exhibition, the contributors decided to restart as the Baggat Art Association in 1992. In the Association manifesto, they stated that they aimed to “challenge abstract and conceptual Korean art [for accepting] Western influence blindly” and promote Baggat art “as an attempt to coexist with nature.” The Association continue today their art activities relating to nature and ecocriticism.
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TARA
An art organization established in 1981 by Kim Kwansoo, Oh Jaewon, and Lee Hoon. The name is an abbreviation of the term tabula rasa, which means “blank slate.” In the preface to their inaugural exhibition, the group stated that it was necessary to engage in active self-reflection and bold action from the periphery of contemporary art, in a reality where grave issues of mannerism and meaningless self-replication persist. The group drew press attention by distinguishing itself from the mainstream painterly art community through personal emotionally based experimentation, rather than promoting any aesthetic ideology or methodology. The group held its inaugural exhibition in 1981 at Dongduk Art Gallery.
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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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