This
exhibition gives an overview of modern and contemporary Korean art from a new
perspective since the 20th century. The "cracks" in the title represents the
creative will of artists from diverse generations, who have striven to create
something new and constantly changing by challenging imposed order and firmly
constructed authorities.
Artists raise questions and
persistently penetrate into things by creating cracks in existing systems and
thoughts in order to unfamiliarize the familiar and uncover the hidden. In this
exhibition, spectators are let in to experience the creative artwork in diverse
forms, which are the products of artists' experiments, conducted while pushed
around in the world and swept through the currents of Korean society, culture,
and history since the 20th century.
Part
1 (April 2017–April 2018) is divided into two subtopics of "body" and "belief,"
in which about one hundred pieces are exhibited. Our bodies that we consider so
familiar become distorted as the artists' self-consciousness cuts across them,
transforming them through futuristic visions. They become unfamiliar and, at
times, even dangerous, when we step outside familiar collective notions.
The invisible belief system
becoming visible via artwork is something even more strange and unfamiliar.
Unquestionable social, cultural conventions are thrown into dispute by way of
the artists' perspective, and we stand before a view that has suddenly become
unfamiliar. This encounter with the unfamiliar leaves cracks in our fixed
notions and leads us to an unexpected perception. The deeper the crack cuts
through us, the stronger the reverberations remain within us from the impact of
the new encounter.
※ Part 2
(2018–2019) will carry on our exploration into the "cracks" engraved deep in
the modern and contemporary Korean art from diverse perspectives, through the
subtopics of "tradition," "art," "reality," and the like.
