Alternative Art School Haeto
Background
Following the controversy over the alleged biased allocation of the Arts Promotion Fund in 2004, the newly opened MIA Museum suddenly announced its closure only a few months after opening and demanded that the space be vacated immediately.
At the same time, attempts to resolve the situation were effectively blocked. Amid the political transition taking place at the time, communication with cultural institutions was also severed, leaving the project without institutional support.
Alternative Initiative
During this period, I opened and operated the online community Alternative Art School Haeto on the Naver platform.
Together with younger colleagues who shared similar concerns, we organized free art lectures for the public through this online forum. Each lecture was presented as a written proposition, followed by open discussions conducted through comments.
Rather than functioning as a conventional classroom, this initiative became an experimental public forum where artists, students, and citizens could collectively re-examine the history and concepts of art.
Publication
The materials from these lectures were later compiled and published as a book:
Art: Familiar Yet Unfamiliar ICAS, 2007
The book presents a series of public lectures covering both Western and Korean art history. In some universities it has been used as a supplementary text for art theory courses.
Archival Significance
Haeto represents an artist-led experiment in alternative art education that emerged outside institutional support structures.
The project also connected with the activities of the cultural NGO Art and Civil Society, which sought to address broader issues of cultural policy and institutional transparency. As such, Haeto remains an example of how artistic discourse and public education can continue through independent civic initiatives even when institutional frameworks collapse.
Art: Familiar Yet Unfamiliar
Alternative Art School Haeto Lecture Series
ICAS, Seoul 2007
Approx. 350 pages
First edition: 1,000 copies
Preface
How This Book Came to Be — Sangghil Oh
Public Art Lectures: Western Art
Introduction to the Public Art Lectures — Hyejeong Sa
Is There Such a Thing as Genius? — The Beginning of Artistic Thinking — Dohee Kim
Leonardo da Vinci: The Spirit of Inquiry and Painting — Byunghoon Do
The Capricious Goya — Sun Choi
Art Breaking Out of the Castle — David, Ingres, and Delacroix — Soonho Yuk
What Should Be Painted? — Gustave Courbet — Hyejeong Sa
The Outsider — Édouard Manet — Yijung Kwon
Searching for the Secret of Vision — Monet and Impressionism — Sangmin Jeon
Constructing Form with Particles of Light — Georges Seurat — Soonho Yuk
Breath-Taking Persistence — Paul Cézanne — Seungchae Jung
Two Painters Who Revealed the Lack of the World — Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin — Dohee Kim
The Painter of Simplified Forms and Color — Henri Matisse — Byunghoon Do
Light and Shadow of Cubism — Picasso and Braque — Yijung Kwon
Three Interpretations of Abstraction
Wassily Kandinsky — Hyejeong Sa
Kazimir Malevich — Dohee Kim
Piet Mondrian — Soonho Yuk
War, Nihilism, and Self-Destruction — Dada (Zurich · New York) — Sangmin Jeon
The Outsider Who Changed the Mode of Art’s Existence — Marcel Duchamp — Byunghoon Do
Two Legacies of War — Informel and Abstract Expressionism — Sangmin Jeon
Collusion with Commercialism — Neo-Dada, Pop Art, and Nouveau Réalisme — Seungchae Jung
The Paradox of Decorative Minimal Style — Minimal Art — Sun Choi
From Form to Idea — Conceptual Art — Yijung Kwon
Public Art Lectures: Korean Art
The Rupture of Tradition and the Leap toward Westernization — Dohee Kim
The Joseon Art Exhibition and the National Art Exhibition of Korea — Soonho Yuk
Cultural Reception or the Wounds of War — Art Informel in Korea — Yijung Kwon
The Situation of Korean Art in the 1960s–70s — Sangghil Oh
“Korean Democracy” and “Korean Minimalism”? — Sangmin Jeon
Art in the 1980s — Political Democratization and the Misunderstanding of Minjung Art — Dohee Kim
Cultural NGO Activities
Art and Civil Society
Statement of Founding Purpose
Investigation into the Irregular Operation of the Arts Council Korea (2006)
Proposal for Institutional Reform of the Arts Council Korea (2008)
Report on the Second Investigation into Plagiarism in Art-Historical Writing — Yijung Kwon
Report on the Second General Assembly
Cultural Policy Proposals
How Should the Cultural Policy of the New Government Be Designed? — Sangghil Oh
A Proposal for Reforming the Public Art Installation Policy in Architecture — Sangghil Oh
Selection as a Preliminary Social Enterprise — Seoul Metropolitan Government