At 16:00 on November 14, 2015, Sponsored by the Korean International Communication Foundation, the Beijing 798 Cultural and Creative Industry Investment Co., Ltd, the group exhibition entitled “Plastic Garden: CHINESE & KOREAN CONTEMPORARY ART" was opened at the 798 Art Factory. Curated by renowned curator Yun Cheagab, the exhibition invites five Chinese artists: Zeng Hao, Lin Tianmiao, Shen Shaomin, Zhou Wendou and Jin Yangping; five Korean artists: Kim Hakjae, Choi JeongHwa, Lee Seahyun, Kwon SoonKwan and Jung Seong, including theirs works of easel painting, photography, sculpture installation and so on.

Wang Yanling, the Beijing 798 Cultural and Creative Industry Investment Co., Ltd, curator Yun Cheagab and Cui Hui, Director of Force Gallery, Lin Tianmiao, Jung?Seong attended the opening ceremony. At the opening ceremony, Yun Cheagab introduced the intention and preparations of the exhibition, based on art combination and interaction, the project is a cross-border art exchange exhibition composed of academic themes exhibitions series. From different perspectives of artists from various countries, the project builds a bridge linking art of East Asian with exhibitions and academic discussions. He hoped that through the selected works by these ten artists who shared the awareness of art expressions, this project will contribute to the cultural communications between Korea and China.

EAST BRIDGE Series Exhibition

Plastic Garden: CHINESE & KOREAN CONTEMPORARY ART

In the late 1980s, a Drastic Change in the East European Countries induced a mental crisis among intellectuals and artists in China and Republic of Korea. Some intellectuals with radical thoughts suddenly lost their moral kingpin. The chaos of mind around the world led China and the Republic of Korea towards a trend in new developments.

Neoliberalism is the inevitable offspring of the world, and the birth of neoliberalism was with the purpose of changing society with the slogan of “market-based society” as the virtue. People forgot “Social Justice and Political dominance” , and the intellectuals accepted the situation of the weakness of politics、economy and ideology. People stopped making comment on society because of the loss of their ideology and passion; gradually, the left of society was indifferent to society and the faerie self－comfort.

Alexandre Kojève(1902 ～ 1968) expressed his view with the following words: “artworks no longer shoulder the responsibility for society, politics and culture, and the responsibility was not the power for art creation. Today, we are living in a world，in which our passion could not acquire the granted result...the situation we are facing which is composed of an animalized life and animalized culture. The animalized does not need the Enlightenment of thought as the animalized interest and objective factor has no ideology to seek a justified right.”

This exhibition has a close relationship with the shared history and social changes of the artists in China and the Republic of Korea. With the plastic garden as the sole theme, we can experience the weakness of the real world and emptiness of the mental mind in the 1990s. This exhibition is not representative of artistic achievements of contemporary painting, but represent a kind of loss. How should we place dreams in a life full of commercial atmosphere?

YUN CHEAGAB

Courtesy of Force Gallery, text by Ye Yuanfeng, partly translated and edited by Sue/CAFA ART INFO.