Contemporary Korean Art
by Robert Watkins,
Visting Professor, Dept. of Interior Design, Pai Chai University
This presentation will provide the student with an introduction to several contemporary Korean artists working at home and abroad whose work has contributed to Korea’s exposure in the world of fine art. This lecture is not meant as a survey of contemporary Korean art, as it is by no means exhaustive, but will serve as a cross section of work from some of the more well-known artists of Korean descent over the past 50 years.
Attempts to focus on the art of individuals from a specific country often prompt questions regarding identity: what does the work say about being a Korean artist or an artist of Korean descent? In today’s world of globalization it is increasingly more difficult to determine what influence an artist’s country of origin may have on their work as many artists study, work and live everywhere but their country of birth. It is especially difficult to discuss the influence of origin because identity is an issue artists often call into question through their work. In the simplest terms it may be fair to say that questions about origin and identity are appropriate only when the artwork’s formal qualities lend to a discussion of the artist’s nationality.
Inspiration is another important and yet controversial issue. Due to the vast number of images and the alarming rate at which they are proliferated around the world today we may think we know what informed an artist’s visual vocabulary when the work itself is oftentimes the source for another’s inspiration. Who influenced who is an interesting yet often fruitless question, however, in the interest of presenting these artists in a global context, artists whose work exhibits similar themes and interests have been included with art terminology in a glossary following the text. In the end a work of art speaks for itself and mount its own defense for being no matter the origin or influence from which it springs. In the court of popular opinion the work’s closing argument is the unique way in which it enriches our lives by broadening our understanding of ourselves and the world we live in. The artists presented here have proven themselves in the world of art by producing work which consistently speaks to issues relevant no matter the context in which they are viewed.
Jheon Soo-cheon (전수천)
Jheon Soo-cheon (b. 1947) is one example of a Korean artist who studied and lives abroad but garnered his native country a great deal of attention. Jheon studied at the Tama School of Fine Arts in Japan and Pratt in New York. In 1995 he won the Special Prize at the Venice Biennale, a world renown exhibition held every two years beginning in 1895 whose curators choose artists to represent their countries. Jheon used mixed media including clay figures, neon tubes and plaster in the 1990s. He has more recently created large scale public works and installations.
Two mixed media installations have used the landscape as metaphors for the painter’s canvas: The Moving Line on the Han River,” an installation of wood and fabric on the surface of the large river running through Seoul and “The Moving Drawing of Jheon Soocheon: The Line That Crosses America.” In the latter a train was draped in white plastic and carried the artist and friends across the United States, stopping in Washington, D.C., Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City and Albuquerque. According to Jheon the work was a “participatory installation embracing visual arts, nature and technology.”
His latest work is a site-specific work entitled “Beyond Bar Codes” in which the artist transformed a gallery space floor to resemble a large barcode and placed different sculptural objects in the space. This work is also participatory in that it entices the viewer to enter the space and become products themselves. The moving drawing piece invites similarities to the work of artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude (both born 1935), most notably Running Fence in which the two created a 24-mile-long white curtain in northern California. Jheon’s work succeeds in its embodiment of large themes through simplistic and well-conceived metaphors.
Lee Seung-Taek (이승택)
Born in 1930 Lee Seung-Taek graduated from Seoul’s Hongik University in 1959. He has exhibited in several major international exhibitions such as the Paris Biennale in 1969, the Sao Paolo Biennale in 1970, the Venice Biennale in 1990, Germany’s Kassel Documenta in1992 and Korea’s own Kwangju Biennale in 2004. Lee has referred to his works as “non-sculpture” and “anti-concept” due to their emphasis upon phenomena, or events over plasticity, or physicality. His earlier works involved streamers blown by the wind, burning trees and pigments allowed to follow gravity’s course.
Lee’s conceptual program draws comparisons to different art movements and themes, namely Earth Art and performance art, however he is adamant that his work not be viewed in relation to these. Lee explains that his first sculptural work evolved when as a young artist he made a stylistic break that caused him to question his reasons for making art. Lee cites the simplicity and elegance of a Korean traditional weaving machine called a “Godret stone” as a motivation for his works by the same name. This object which holds specific memories for the artist represents something more universal. Although Lee denies any direct influence from Western influence in his work it is unlikely his work would be possible if not for conceptualism, a movement born in the West. Comparable artists include Robert Smithson (1938-1973), whose 1969 work “Asphalt Rundown” bears a similarity to Lee’s “Green Campaign” works, as well as Andy Goldsworthy (b. 1956).
Prolific as it is varied Lee’s work seems to defy categorization yet the diversity is evidence of the artist’s willingness to pursue as many paths as required to find a sense of creativity within oneself. The performative aspect of Lee’s work reveals this spirit of exploration and places the artist at the center of his work, from which center his work expands dizzyingly outward in a colorful display.
Nam June Paik (백남준)
It is difficult to calculate the degree to which Nam June Paik’s (1932-2006) long career of work has influenced not only Korean contemporary art but contemporary art in general. Although his is probably the first name which comes to mind in the West when one thinks of contemporary Korean artists Paik has lived primarily in the United States since the 60’s. Born in Korea, Paik’s family fled the country during the Korean War, eventually settling in Japan, where the artist graduated from Tokyo University. He also studied in Germany where he met the revolutionary composer John Cage (1912-1992) and the influential conceptual artist Joseph Beuys (1921-1986) and became a member of the Fluxus group.
Paik first exhibited televisions manipulated by magnets in 1963 and after the invention of the world’s first portable video recording device in 1965 he became the first artist to create video art. In his 1969 work entitled “TV Bra for Living Sculpture” a cellist, playing a Paik composition, wore two small television screens over her breasts. Work in the years following include sculptures made from multiple television sets, usually older sets replaced with new picture tubes. Other large works include multi-channel installations in which televisions arranged in a wall or tower flash images generated by computers, an array replicated with less than inspired results in countless store displays.
Being on the forefront of technology combined with an understanding of the world’s growing obsession with television have made Paik’s work all the more poignant. Perhaps the best example of how he has used technology to comment on technology’s consumption of culture is the 1986 work Something Pacific in which a small statue of Buddha sits contemplatively watching an image of itself being televised simultaneously through a camera thus creating an infinite loop from which the passive figure cannot escape.
Kim Soo-ja (김수자)
Kim Soo-ja is an artist whose Korean heritage uniquely informs her work. She was born in Daegu in 1957, graduated from Hong-ik University and currently resides in New York. The artist’s early sewn work draws inspiration from her experiences sewing bedcovers with her mother as well as traditional Korean quilt work however, these comparisons are less obvious in her more recent work. Cloth has since become a metaphor for life throughout Kim’s work.
As well as deploying cloth in various ways that hint at abstract expressionist painting Kim creates installations which place the cloth in different spaces. This act of de-contextualizing, placing it in an area the viewer would not normally associated with the object, forces the viewer to confront the object provoking thought upon our relationship with it. Another traditional Korean use of cloth, the “bottari,” a simple piece of cloth used to wrap items one intends to carry, has become a constant theme in her work. The nature of the “bottari” has lent itself to numerous video projects in which colorful pieces of cloth taken from old clothes and bed covers are wrapped in bundles secured with black cords and transported on the back of a truck traversing a distance. In these works movement symbolizes life’s journey as well as the transition between states of being.
Cloth permeates so many aspects of human life that it has become an integral part of being human. The “bottari” itself signifies numerous things. The artist treats the bottari as a vessel which represents life’s amalgam of experiences. Cloth, both a personal and universally significant object, stands in for the viewer’s relationship with the world. Like the “bottari” we are folded into relationships with ourselves, others and the space we inhabit in sometimes awkward yet nonetheless brilliant and colorful ways.
Nikki S. Lee
Nikki S. Lee (b. 1970) is a Korean born artist who graduated from Chunang University in Korea, attended the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and received a M.A. in photography from New York University. Lee began her photographic investigation of identity while a student in New York. “Projects” which spanned the years 1997-2001 is a collection of photographs in which Lee dresses and poses as people from different walks of life. Among the identities she assumed were exotic dancers, punks, senior citizens, Latinos, swing dancers, skateboarders, lesbians, young urban professionals, Korean schoolgirls and hip-hop “fly girls.”
Following this series Lee posed in other another series which required that she wear designer clothes in extravagant settings, almost as though she were parodying the media attention and success garnered by the “Projects” photos. In a series called “Parts” Lee poses with men, again crossing ethnic and social boundaries. Here, however, the theme of identity is purposefully complicated by the relationships depicted in the photos. The word “parts” plays on the word “role” as well as the fact that in each of the pictures the artist’s male companion is obscured suggesting that the female figure’s persona is in part defined by the relationship.
Most recently Lee filmed a sort of behind-the-scenes documentary about herself entitled “A.K.A Nikki S. Lee.” The film is self-reflexive, meaning it holds up a mirror which reflects the artist in her genuine environment while at the same time reflecting how difficult it is to depict such an environment. In the film the camera follows Lee running errands, setting up photo shoots, socializing at exhibition openings and meeting with collectors. It is not so much a comment upon Lee’s life as an artist as it is upon the art of artifice: how to make something appear real while at the same time admitting that the question of what is real is never answered to everyone’s satisfaction. Lee’s work is often compared to that of photographer Cindy Sherman (b. 1954).
Cho Duck Hyun (조덕현)
Cho Duck Hyun was born in Korea in 1957 and received undergraduate and graduate degrees from Seoul University. Cho’s work uses photo-realistic representation and sculptural elements in order to re-examine Korea’s often turbulent past and comment upon the idea of memory. Graphite recreations of old photographs, sometimes from the artist’s family’s own past, depict scenes of Koreans in traditional dress or the simple costume of daily life. The scenes span Korea’s more recent history, during which the country suffered occupation at the hands of the Japanese and invasion during the Korean War. The portraits are often juxtaposed with steel, glass and wood plates which provide the somewhat ephemeral portraits with a weight comparable to the metaphoric weight of their emotional content.
Another aspect of Cho’s oeuvre is his use of female portraiture in commenting upon the role of women in Korean culture. One particular series depicts the lives of two women, Nora Noh and Joeong-shun Lee Harmsworth who lived separate lives at different periods of time, the former as fashion designer and the latter as the wife of a wealthy aristocrat. Cho’s work does not compare nor contrast so much as provide the means for reflection upon their legacies as Korean women. In another project entitled “Yiseoguk,” which takes its name from a legendary kingdom in Korea’s past Cho buried several figures of dogs at a site which was later excavated and documented by an archaeological crew. The work is meant to be the culmination of effort in reclaiming what was once lost in effect building a bridge to the past.
An acute sense of loss mixed with the painful memories of Korea’s emergence as a nation tinge the work of Cho Duck Hyun in much the same way the patina of a faded photograph qualifies its agedness in our minds dyeing our collective memory with its color.