Collaborative Project

National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea(MMCA) is pleased to present The Paranoid Zone, a collaborative project by a group of mid-career artists active in the fields of music, film, performance, and stage design. In recent years, the issue of “collaboration” in the visual arts has been the subject of an in-depth investigation both in theory and practice. When examining the notion of collaboration in the context of a total work of art, one can recall a sufficient number of references in the history of art, including Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerk (a total work of art) and Schwitters’ Merzbau. In the context of the recent developments in Korean art, one is reminded of the project-based activities by small artist collectives, such as Museum, Golden Apple, and Sub Club, in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The activities of these small collectives from the late 1980s are formally akin to the recent phenomenon of “collaboration” in that they exhibited a performative aspect encompassing visual arts, music, publication, events, and play culture.