Outside art : Baggat and the history of modern and contemporary art in Korea

• Main Author: Choi, Jean Kyung
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2015
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/54723

The Baggat Art Group formed in South Korea in 1981 and continued until today. It is a loosely formed collective dedicated to participatory practices in the outdoors and site-specific works, depending on the years in question. This thesis aims to rethink the significance of the Baggat Art Group through the lens of "ritual," as theorized by the anthropologist Victor W. Turner. The project is structured around a long historical introduction and two case studies: Exhibition of History and Environment in 1997 and Abandoned Island, Mountain of Healing in 2002. These two exhibitions demonstrate instances when Baggat Art, positioned at the margins of the art field and society, functioned as a site of negotiation for sociopolitical issues. I propose that an observation of how the Baggat Art Group has continued to rewrite itself into dominant narratives of art allows for a more comprehensive understanding of modern and contemporary art in South Korea. This project therefore adopts and attempts to support the group's objective of incorporating what is outside into the inside, transcending the limitations of existing boundaries, and to expanding the category of art by realizing what resides at its borders. === Arts, Faculty of === Art History, Visual Art and Theory, Department of === Graduate