Little Narrative: Artists in the 80's Small Groups, Leaflet, 2000, MMCA Art Research Center Collection
Small group movement
* Source: Multilingual Glossary of Korean Art. Korea Arts Management Service
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Museum
An exhibition held in 1987 at the Kwanhoon Gallery. Participants included Koh Nakbeom, Noh Gyeongae, Myeong Hyegyeong, Lee Bul, Jung Seung, Choi Jeonghwa, and Hong Sungmin. The title of the exhibition was chosen to reflect the perspective that an art museum is essentially a lifeless storage space for art. The participants also desired to challenge the primacy of modernist aesthetics, the authority of art museums, and the tradition of art history. In a time of fierce competition between institutionalized modernist art and non-institutional minjung art, the exhibition was set out as independent of both orientations and instead featured conventional themes such as death, sex, pleasure, and fantasy. The works of art included made use of diverse media to express individuality, sensuality, and freedom. Of the participating artists, Choi Jeonghwa, Lee Bul, and Kho Nakbeom went on to spearhead the Sunday Seoul exhibition in 1990 at the Sonahmoo Gallery. This exhibition is therefore often viewed as the catalyst for the new generation art of the 1990s, which adopted pop and kitsch sensibilities in response to the consumerist culture of post-industrial Korean society, and made use of non-institutional exhibition spaces such as cafes, stores, and live clubs.
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Logos & Pathos
An art group formed in 1986 by alumni of Seoul National University who were all in their 30s. The group held its inaugural exhibition at the Kwanhoon Gallery, and it featured diverse styles such as minimalism and installation, without any regard for categories such as figurative or nonfigurative art. In 1999, the group disbanded after its 14th exhibition. The group’s artistic style is linked to neo-expressionism in that they exhibited “humanistic abstract art” or “re-individualized abstract art” that was distinct from modernist formalism. The group was characterized by its genre deconstruction and interest in mixed media. The group is therefore discussed in the context of 1980s post-modernist art.
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Meta-Vox
A portmanteau of meta, which means change or overcoming hardship, and vox, which means sound or aural expression (voice). Meta-Vox was formed in 1985 by Kim Chan-dong, Ahn Won-chan, Oh Sang-Ghil, Ha Minsu, and Hong Seungil, who were alumni of the Hongik University Department of Fine Arts. The goal of the group was to extend a deconstructive, creative path beyond modernism and minjung art, and its artists primarily worked in installation to overcome the restrictive limitations of painting. Based on their individual subjective practices, the group members sought to emphasize the expressive characteristics of the materials they worked with. However, to practitioners of minjung art, the group’s work was pejoratively considered as an extension of modernism. While the Meta-Vox demonstrated its tight organizational structure through numerous critically visible exhibitions, the group disbanded in 1989 in response to the limited positive response their work received. Meta-Vox held numerous exhibitions, including its inaugural exhibition in 1985 and EXODUS in 1986 at the Hu Gallery. The group was also featured in the Artists in Focus 1987 exhibition at the Seoul Museum.
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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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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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