Korea Art Support Project Season 12
Kim Doma - Amidst the Contradiction of Common Sense and Nonsense

[비즈한국] The 'Korea Art Support Project,' an artist support program aimed at cultivating the fertile soil of Korean art, is launching its 12th season. This project is now recognized by the art world as a meaningful event for discovering and fostering artists. It has a solid reputation among artists as a project they aspire to participate in. The fundamental keyword that the 'Korea Art Support Project' has pursued from the beginning is 'the acceptance of diverse flows in Korean art and the pursuit of developmental change.' The results of these principles have earned it the evaluation of having established a new perspective on contemporary Korean art.

Objects that are commonly seen in daily life but are elevated to art pieces by artists are professionally termed "objets." How does something become an objet?

The person who first created this concept was Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968). He is called the father of contemporary art for inventing the concept of the objet. Duchamp, who lived most of his life as a professional chess player, became the figure who had the greatest influence on contemporary art through a single ingenious idea. It was a somewhat absurd-seeming thought: to attach new meaning to ready-made goods with clear purposes and turn them into works of art.

To explain it more simply: We all have names. Just by hearing a name, the image of that person comes to mind. If you don't like your name, you can change it—much like how celebrities create stage names to improve their image. However, you cannot change your physical body.

Here, the name creates the concept. In other words, an image is formed depending on what name you attach to a body. For instance, a newborn baby has no name. It is just a body made of 3–5 kg of flesh and bone. This state can be called an "objet." The moment you give the baby a name, an image is created. From then on, the baby will be remembered by that name and will live on.

Duchamp applied this logic to ready-made goods, sending shockwaves through the art world of the time. He bought a urinal for men from a manufacturer named Richard Mutt, installed it in an exhibition hall (the 1917 New York Independents Exhibition), and titled it "Fountain." Later, that urinal titled "Fountain" became the most famous work in contemporary art.

Until a urinal is produced in a factory and installed in a restroom, it is merely a round ceramic object. It is an "objet" in its pre-named state. Duchamp injected the concept of "Fountain" into it. From this, the urinal, solemnly illuminated and displayed, was able to be born as the artwork "Fountain."

Artist Kim Doma is also challenging the new language of contemporary art through the concept of the objet. He is gaining attention for works that transform ready-made items to provide a fresh shock to everyday thinking. He strips objects that already have daily uses—such as bicycles, milk cartons, or ceramics—of their utility and converts them into new objects. He is, in a sense, turning ready-made goods into objets. He also creates objects with new imagery by combining ready-made goods that have different original purposes. What is the artist trying to say through this work?

He states, "In our era, where common sense prevails, nonsense also exists, and I want to awaken a world that accepts these contradictions as if they were perfectly natural."