홍대미술관 첫 기획전 리뷰

Hongdae show blurs line between art, design

“Hongdae,” short for “Hongik Daehagyo” or “Hongik University,” should not only remind one of an area full of clubs and cafés in Seoul. The university is actually home to Korea’s most renowned art school.

“Girl” by Kwak Nam-sin HOMA

But one should not be embarrassed for not knowing this since the university did not even have a proper art museum until last year. Hongik Museum of Art finally opened in October on the second floor of the university’s Hongmungwan building.

Now the university aims to prove to the public, more systematically, how Hongik graduates are at the top of Korean contemporary art through its first special exhibition “Free Style: A Dialogue Between Art and Design.”

“The border between design and fine art is breaking down worldwide. In Korea, however, people are separating them even more, for example, by holding the Seoul ‘Design’ Capital event. We want to show that the two should be combined through exhibitions,” said Cheong Yeon-sim, assistant professor at the department of Art Studies in Hongik University who organized the exhibition.

Divided into two sections, the exhibition features 28 artists -- all quite well-known in Korea and creating works fit for the show’s theme.

“The artists are all Hongik graduates this time as it is the museum’s first special exhibition. But we will be introducing a wider range of artists in the future, said Cheong.

The first section of the show, called “Sans,” which means “without” in French, showcases works that seem to be somewhat empty.

The simple and chic works like Kwak Nam-sin’s painting “Girl” which appears like a photo of a girl’s shadows or Lee Hun-chung’s blunt ceramic stools reflect how the minimalism of the 1960s and 1970s are reinterpreted in contemporary art.

More colorful and decorative works are found at the next section titled “Accretion.”

They often show repetition of units, colors and other methods of creation. Using prints, Jin Bo-ra shows an assortment of colors of women’s cosmetic products like manicures and powders. Kim Joon painted flashy colors onto the photo of human bodies like tattoos while Kil Hyun used a chemical reaction to grow colorful paint crystals that look like moss.

“Exposed Facade” by Jin Bo-ra HOMA

The show gets more interesting when you take a closer look at the artists’ majors, which are written next to the titles, unlike other exhibitions. Visitors can see that most of the artists took a step further from the traditional domains of their majors.

For example, Cha So-lim, who majored in textile art, sewed white thread on to the canvas, making it appear like a text and Kim Byung-joo, who majored in sculpture, made house models out of steel.

“The quest for individual genres is still valid. We have here many artists of different majors. We wrote down their majors because we want to show how the artists can tackle many genres after studying a single major,” said Cheong.

“This is in fact one of the biggest missions of the university. We hope our students can come and see what kind of works their senior colleagues of what majors are doing.”

The exhibition runs through June 18 at Hongik Museum of Art in Hongik University in Sangsu-dong, central Seoul. Admission is free. For more information, call (02) 320-3272.

By Park Min-young   (claire@heraldm.com)