Korea Herald, 2005.08.17
Ink paintings in modern context
By Kwon Ji-young

To those for whom ink painting is a novelty, an exhibition of Korean and Chinese ink paintings may come across as an invigorating breath of fresh air. Some paintings may even evoke a meditative mood.

Instead of a canvas, ink painting uses 'hwaseonji,' otherwise called Korean or Chinese paper - thin tissue-like paper with a soft, delicate surface which can easily be torn.

Instead of covering up empty spaces with color, ink painting leaves virgin white spaces as they are. This blank space constitutes part of the beauty of ink paintings, according to Chang Sang-eui, a Korean ink painter. Instead of different color oils, ink painting uses one solid black ink to portray everything, only changing the gradations to differentiate tones.

On the whole first floor of the Seoul Museum of Art, large scrolls of the 'hwaseonji' hang from the wall with renderings of portraits, abstract concepts, lotus flowers, tear drops and landscapes.
[image] Works by Suh Se-ok of Korea (left) and Huang Yihan of China, which are part of ink paintings displayed at the Seoul Museum of Art.

These are the works of 20 Chinese contemporary artists from Simcheong, the only city in the world that holds an international biennial for ink paintings.

On the second floor are the works of 20 contemporary Korean ink painters expressing time conceptions, philosophical meditations, and nature's scenery on a wide, expansive scale.

'Sumukhwa,' or ink painting, has existed in Asia for thousands of years. Despite this long tradition, seven to eight out of 10 art exhibitions in Korea are of Western oil paintings, according to Suh se-ok, pioneer of the modernist movement for Korean ink paintings.

A rare opportunity to view the ink paintings by 40 Korean and Chinese contemporary artists, all in one place, is presented in the joint exhibition at the Seoul Museum of Art, which opened last Wednesday to run until Sept. 18.

"Korean and Chinese ink paintings are going through reinterpretation and transformation of its traditional style and aesthetics to fit today's context, and this exhibition serves as an opportunity for the two countries' artists to learn from each other," said Ha Chong-hyun, director of the Seoul Museum of Art.

Korean ink painters offered their opinions on the comparison of Korean and Chinese ink paintings.

"The Chinese are more advanced in the method of using ink, but in terms of modernity, Korea is ahead of China. This is because China has experienced a longer repressive period of socialism," said Chang whose work titled "Flower Rain II" shows a phantasmal painting of large, imaginary flowers that rains down from the heavens.

"We should take note of the Chinese artists' innovative styles, as they are making rapid progress," added Chang.

Chang suggested that pieces like Chinese painter Wang Tiande's "Chinese Fashion," a display of a white Chinese robe that is engraved with Chinese characters by a laser beam, shows the experimental and progressive side of the Chinese artists. Another Chinese artist to notice, she said, is Huang Yihan, who makes Korean boy band H.O.T. members a subject of his post-modernist paintings.

"A successful reinterpretation of the ink painting should constitute new expressive methods, new values and should provide a historical perspective," said Chang.

Suh Se-ok, leader of the modernist Korean ink-painting group called Mungnimhoe which defined abstract styles in ink painting in the 1960s, says that the pinnacle of beauty in artwork is simplicity. "Simplicity of color and form is the hardest thing to achieve in art, but it is the ultimate beauty of art," said Suh. His painting titled "People" is on display, an abstract rendering of people simplified to five lines of black ink.

Simplicity is a common thread in the ink paintings. Ink painting is deeply connected to the ancient Confucian philosophy of the Joseon Dynasty period which is identified as the beginning of the prevalence of ink paintings in Korea, according to Park Yong-sook, professor of Korean art. The first Korean ink painters traditionally attached spiritual meaning to the 'hwaseonji' and 'muk' (black ink) - the basic materials for ink painting - and have considered the act of painting with ink as an expression of 'Gi' - nature's energy, Park said.

"The beauty of ink painting is in the blank spaces and the different gradations of the ink that can express many emotions. The ink can be ruled by the hand," said Chang, the Korean ink painter. Controlling the gradation of the shades of the ink by the grip of the painter's hand is a skill that requires discipline and spiritual focus, being one with 'Gi.'

Ink paintings pursue what is spiritual and time-conceptual, according to experts in the field. Because ink painting is derived from such age-old aesthetic and philosophical elements, adapting the paintings to the contemporary period has been a challenge for ink painters.

In China, the repression of art in the socialist movement barred the creativity of artists until the 1980s, when the government's more open policy allowed the artists' expression to shine through the paintings.

"From the displayed works, we can see that innovative methods of expression are emerging," Chang said.

The paintings also reveal the differing philosophies of each country; for example, "the Korean paintings are more adaptive to nature while Chinese paintings contain a more continental attitude to life," said Yoo Geun-taek, a Korean painter whose work titled "Gilbert and Grape" derives inspiration from the movie, "What's Eating Gilbert Grape?"

"Korean ink paintings are clean and fulfilling, while Chinese ink paintings are more unified, and on a bolder scale," said Yoo.

Two of Yoo's works are on display, both reinterpreted scenes from the movie, viewing a house ablaze with fire amidst abundant grape fields. "I wanted to show how a home can become both a resting place and constricting place at the same time," said Yoo.

The spiritual notions attached to traditional ink painting is coming down to earth as a part of the modernization process, according to Yoo. "The subject material for ink paintings is now becoming more an expression of one's individuality, what I want to do, what I want to express. We need to get rid of notions that limit the subject matter for the paintings," said Yoo.

Whatever changes take place in the transformation of ink paintings, the unique qualities that characterize ink paintings will remain untouched.

"Western paintings are based on a flat surface, with a scientific and analytic beauty, while the Korean ink paintings encompass a feeling of space. Korean ink paintings are spatial and intuitive," said Yoo.

A stop in front of Moon Bong-sun's "Meditation (River)" and "Solitude (River)" will be a convincing illustration of this point. These two pieces are expressions of a horizon with a blurry, subtle line of black ink upon a large white drawing paper. The aura of this piece - elusive, meditative and solitary - will give viewers the feeling that they are standing face-to-face with the horizon.

Park Byoung-choon's "Landscape," covering a whole wall, is a painting of a huge mountain as a backdrop for a three-person family standing at the bottom of the mountain in colored clothes. The scene of miniature sized people against the wide backdrop of the mountain provides a window into perceiving the relationship between human beings and nature.

http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2005/08/17/200508170019.asp

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Dong-A Ilbo, AUGUST 16, 2005
Black and White Paintings Wear the Clothes of Today
By Mun-Myung Huh

A massive display has begun that probes for modern ways to reinterpret and creatively develop traditional East Asian India ink paintings.

The main building of the Seoul Museum of Art opened a “Korean-Chinese India ink Exhibit” last week, sponsored by the Seoul Museum of Art and the Chinese Shenzhen Gallery in Guangdongsheng, Shenzhen, China. A substantial exhibit with works from 40 artists, it strives to banish the transcendental image of India ink paintings into something that’s compatible with today’s lifestyles. It’s a chance to see the efforts of Korean and Chinese artists struggling with the recognition of tradition on one side and revolution on the other.

Shenzhen, China, is a place that has modernized and industrialized quickly due to frequent contact with Hong Kong. Rather than traditional Chinese techniques, many artists there have chosen to accept the Westernized trends of transmuted forms and the emphasized imagery of contemporary art.

Contemporary Chinese India ink paintings were born in the early 20th Century between the few learned masters in the art and the artists who aspired to create a revolution in India ink paintings. Artists like Gao Chian-fu, Xu Bei-hung, and Lin Phung-tiande cultivated the modern reinterpretation of India ink paintings through an understanding of figurative Western paintings.

After the 1950s, periodic pieces that reflected everyday life emerged, and due to the effect of a transformed societal reality and the influx of a new culture that began with the open-door policy in the 1980s, contemporary Chinese paintings were struck with reform.

The works of 20 artists such as Dong Xiaoming, Huang Yihan, Li Huasheng, Liang Quan, Liu Zijian, Wei Qingji, Shao Ge, Shi Guo, Tong Zhongtao, Wang Quan, Wang Tiande, Wu Yi, Yu Xiaogang, Zhang Hao, Zhang Tiande, and Zhou Jingxin will be on display. As if to reflect the “Korean Wave,” Huang Yihan’s “China’s New Man,” in particular, has a drawing of the young Korean singer Moon hee-jun.

For the Korean display, artists who constituted various strata of Korean contemporary India ink paintings dating from the 1960s to the 1990s will display works according to four categories. It’s a method all the more helpful for showing the historically significant aspects of modernization of paintings and identity exploration after the 1950s.

The first group is comprised of members of the "Mungnimhoe" – Seo Se-ok, Shin Yeong-sang, Song Yeong-bang, and Jeong Tak-yeong, who expanded the abstract fields of 1960s Korean paintings. The second group includes artists who stressed the spirituality of India ink paintings in the 1980s and actively pursued the “India ink paintings Movement” – Song Su-nam, Hong Seok-chang, Lee Cheol-ryang, and Moon Beong-seon. The third group has individual artists who steadily probed into India ink expressions, artists like Jeong Sang-ui, Song Su-ryeon, Kim Hee-yeong, O suk-hwan, Lee Min-ju, Lee Eun-suk, Lee Jong-mok, Cho Sun-ho, and Cho Hwan, and the fourth group revolves around young artists Park Byeong-chun, Yoo Geun-taek, and Jeong Kim-yong from the 1990s, who formed “Dongpung.”

A seminar will open on August 17 at 6:00 p.m. featuring the former manager of the National Museum of Contemporary Art of Korea, Oh Gwang-su, and the vice president of the Shenzhen Gallery at Yenshancheon discussing and debating on the history, future projects and forecasts for both countries’ contemporary India ink paintings. The exhibit runs through September 18.

http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?bicode=130000&biid=2005081648538

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The Japan Times, July 27, 2005
Liberating Japan's world of ceramics
By ROBERT YELLIN

In the ceramic world of early 20th-century Kyoto, Chinese ceramics, not Kyo-yaki (Kyoto-style pottery) were the rage of the day, and any potter worth a spin on the wheel strove to emulate them. In form and color, the ability to perfectly copy an ancient Sung dynasty vase was held up as the highest peak a Kyoto potter could climb. Kyoto was to remain bound in a Chinese spell for at least four decades, until World War II changed everything.
[image] "Aspect of Budding" (1977), News photo

Against this backdrop, Kazuo Yagi (1918-1979), one of Japan's most influential ceramic artists of all time, was born and matured. Known as the father of modern Japanese ceramics, Yagi not only changed the way Japan thought about clay art with his groundbreaking ideas and creations, but he also brought about a revolution in the studios of Kyoto that has continued to this day.

In commemoration of the 25th anniversary of his death, a large retrospective has been traveling Japan since last year and has now made it to the capital. Showing at the Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum until Aug. 21 is "Kazuo Yagi -- A Retrospective," a rare chance to see a broad range of clay art from the man who shook the conservative mid-20th century Japanese clay world to the core.

Born the first son of traditional Kyoto potter Isso Yagi, one would naturally have assumed that the young Kazuo would apprentice under his father and continue in the chawan (tea bowl) tradition. Young Kazuo never traveled down that path though. His inquisitive young mind was constantly looking skyward to the boundless distance and unlimited opportunities that existed after Japan's surrender.
[image] "A Cloud Remembered" (1977), News photo

Inspiration for his work came not from his father's work, or the work of his father's contemporaries, rather it appeared in the works of foreign painters Paul Klee, Max Ernst and Joan Miro, as well as the terra cotta sculptures of Isamu Noguchi and Shindo Tsuji. In "Futakuchi Tsubo (Jar with Two Mouths" (1950), an early work in the current exhibition, the influence of Miro is bursting out all over the pedestaled form.

What makes the piece so unique is how Yagi has taken the rounded form -- as a potter would on the wheel -- and manipulated the clay into a more sculptural shape by adding a soft indention and then the two mouths. He then painted, in a more Western color scheme than found on Kyoto ceramics, intersecting lines and dots that bring the piece into a painterly realm.

This was Yagi's genius: breaking through rigid barriers of long established views that a pot is simply a pot and must serve some functional duty. He brought together sculpture, poetry, painting and philosophy and pumped them through his being -- the two mouths on this piece literally resemble heart valves -- in a way that even today continues to positively confront us with the possibilities of clay.

His groundbreaking work, and possibly the most influential ceramic sculpture (or o^bjet-yaki as Yagi preferred) Japan has ever-known, is his 1954 piece, "Walk of Mr. Samsa." It's not so much the piece itself that has caused so much talk all these years; it's more the concept and the liberation brought about by his method of forming it.
[image] "Mr. Samsa" (1954), News photo

Up until "Mr. Samsa," the potter's wheel was seen as the main shaping tool, which greatly influenced forms by the sheer centrifugal energy it produced. Mostly the results are round, cylindrical and symmetrical. Yagi liberated himself, and his imagination, by simply looking at the wheel as one of many tools, and not the sole force that dictated the resulting forms of the clay. For "Mr. Samsa" he chopped up his thrown tubes and attached them to the Ferris-wheel body in angular antennaelike appendages -- after all, protagonist Gregor Samsa did turn into a cockroach in Franz Kafka's 1915 novel "Metamorphosis."

The work is the marquee piece of any Yagi exhibition and greets the visitor in the first room at the museum. Few exhibition spaces can match the warmth and intimacy that the intimate Art Deco atmosphere of the Teien, a former Imperial residence, offers. "Hand," one piece from his famous latter series, is even, oddly enough, displayed in an upstairs bathroom.

The rebellious Yagi wasn't so much interested in breaking traditions, as much as he wished to expand on them. He felt the Kyoto clay world was contrived, stagnant and self-righteous. Understanding the beauty of classical Chinese, Korean and Japanese ceramics, he took ideas from all these respective pots, rather than merely copy them. This is apparent in 1971's "Open Open" box, his remaking of Korean incised slipware with English graffiti, or in 1948's Kyoten (Kyoto Exhibition) award-winning "Annular Eclipse," a tall vase decorated in the style of Klee.

Yagi also made a revolutionary leap in naming his works -- for example, his main clay group is called "Sodeisha (Crawling through Mud)." Formerly, works had straightforward names such as "Flower Vase, Iron Glaze." Yagi was twisting minds with his naming, even making a "vase" that in no way can hold water (No. 21 in the lavish bilingual catalog). Other names that stick in the mind are "Village in the Bottom of a Lake," the eerie "A Cloud Remembered" and "Aspect of Budding."

In his latter years Yagi preferred working in black, as it allowed the forms of his work to speak the loudest. He also took to glass and bronze, and many works in these two mediums are also in the exhibition.

When asked to describe his art, he replied like Bob Dylan, the "song and dance man," "I'm just a tea-cup maker." Yagi's genius sings on.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?fc20050727ry.htm

 

 

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