The personal exchanges of four leading figures in Korea's modern and contemporary art scene are being brought to light in a New York exhibition that opened Monday.
Tina Kim Gallery in New York has organized an exhibition titled "The Making of Modern Korean Art: The Letters of Kim Tschang-yeul, Kim Whan-ki, Lee U-fan and Park Seo-bo, 1961–1982" that offers a close look at the artistic and intellectual relationships that helped shape modern Korean art in the years after the 1950-53 Korean War. Although they lived in different cities and countries, they remained closely connected in epistolary relationships as a means for creative exchanges and to plan exhibitions.
The exhibition traces how these artists turned to abstraction as a way to express the country's trauma during the turbulent period and to create a modern art form that reflected Korea's unique cultural identity, separate from Western influences, and move beyond the traditional Korean aesthetics they had inherited. The exhibition features key works by each artist, along with archival materials, photographs and rarely seen ephemera — written items created for a specific purpose and not meant to be preserved.
Among the highlights are Kim Whan-ki's dot-filled compositions from his New York period, blending Korean tradition and the art trends of the time, and Lee U-fan's "From Point" and "From Line" series that feature deliberate strokes evocative of Asian calligraphy.
Works of art by Park Seo-bo and Kim Tschang-yeul — both deeply influenced by European Informel, a style of art that emerged in 1940s Europe in the wake of World War II — that are characterized by thick impasto, raw surfaces and material experimentation are also on display.
They include Park's "Ecriture" series, known for its monochromatic palette and repeated, disciplined mark-making that highlights the artistic process itself, and Kim's "Waterdrop" series inspired by Taoist ideas, particularly the concept of letting go of the ego and becoming one with nature.
Organized in conjunction with the launch of a new publication of the same title, the exhibition runs through June 21.
—Park Jun-hee
