On Jan. 3, 1966, not long after arriving in New York, Kim Tschang-yeul wrote to his close friend Park Seo-bo, sharing impressions of a city still foreign to him. The two were known not only as inseparable friends but also as companions navigating Korea's turbulent postwar art scene.
“Dear Seo-bo, I am sorry I have not written. … New York is a brutal city. The buildings are so tall and they don’t look like they were meant for people to live in. They look like cliffs where ghosts and evil spirits dwell,” Kim wrote in the letter, made public for the first time in the book “The Making of Modern Korean Art: The Letters of Kim Tschang-yeul, Kim Whanki, Lee Ufan and Park Seo-bo.”
The book, co-published by Tina Kim Gallery in New York and edited by Hongik University professor Chung Yeon-shim and Chong Do-ryun, chief curator at M+, in Hong Kong, compiles numerous letters exchanged among four Korean masters from 1961 to 1982, offering a glimpse into their struggles as artists.
The exhibition, identical to the title of the book, was held from May to June at the gallery in the Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan, New York.
“In all the exhibitions I’ve organized in New York, I’ve always worked the same way,” said Tina Kim, founder of the Tina Kim Gallery, during an interview on Aug. 28 in Seoul. “Preparing such materials was something I could do to help Korean artists be better researched and recognized abroad as they are relatively new here (in the US).”
Kim, whose gallery on 21st Street marks its 10th anniversary this year, has been at the forefront of introducing Korean art to New York. She established the gallery after contributing to presentations of dansaekhwa in 2014 at Kukje Gallery in Seoul -- timed with the movement's showcase at the Gwangju Biennale -- and in 2015 at the Venice Biennale, where she worked alongside her mother, Lee Hyun-sook, founder of Kukje Gallery.
“Placing artists’ works in museum collections was always my priority,” Kim said. “Based in the US, I know how the system works, and when it came to presenting an unfamiliar artist to a museum, the curator’s success depended on having well-prepared materials, so we made sure to be ready to provide them with everything they needed. ”
While she had been exposed to Korean art since whe was young, living and studying in the US left her with a persistent sense of longing to better understand the history and sensibility of Korean art.
“It was for the artists, but also for myself — putting those materials together was how I studied their work,” she said. “I kept wondering why, in the 1970s, Korean artists suddenly abandoned what they had been doing and took new directions, wondering what was happening in Korea that made them change?”
Dansaekhwa, or Korean monochrome painting with an emphasis on repetitive and meditative actions, movement was led by a loose group of artists in the late 1960s and the 1970s, times when the country was going through political repression and rapid modernization.
While some argue that popularity of dansaekhwa has already peaked, Kim points out that the market is barely a decade old — having gained international recognition around the 2015 Venice Biennale — and still holds significant potential.
For her, it is only the beginning.
“While dansaekhwa works have entered US museums, American collectors only recently began buying them. With the usual five-year gap between New York and Los Angeles, interest in dansaekhwa is now growing across the country,” she said.
Beyond dansaekhwa
When Kim decided to set up a gallery in New York, there were only a few Asian-run galleries consistently presenting Asian artists, which motivated her to take on the challenge, she recalled.
The growing international attention to Korean art, fueled by events like the Gwangju Biennale at the time, convinced her that creating a space where curators could easily access and research Asian art in New York was both necessary and viable.
“Establishing a decade-long presence in Chelsea is something I’m proud of,” she said. “If you decide to enter a new market, you need to commit at least five years — it requires long-term investment.”
Drawn to pioneering artists whose work redefine established notions, discovering Korea’s first-generation tapestry artist Lee Shin-ja was a “truly thrilling moment” for Kim, who had always wondered why there were so few Korean women artists while presenting dansaekhwa for 10 years.
“Lee is one of the few women in Korean art history — particularly in fields like craft or embroidery — who have been recognized as successful trailblazers,” she said. Lee broke new grounds in the evolution of Korean craft during the 1950s and 1960s, when working with thread and fabric was considered domestic labor.
Kim has now expanded her focus to diaspora artists, highlighting immigrant women artists such as Pacita Abad, a Philippine-born artist who moved to the US in the 1970s and drew on her global journeys to show how traditions both change and endure.
Other artists she is championing include Maia Ruth Lee who arrived in New York in 2011 after living in Kathmandu and Seoul, exploring dispersion, mobility, and rootlessness, and kinetic sculptural installation artist Lee Mi-re whose exhibition “Open Wound” at Tate Modern as part of Hyundai Commission ended in March.
For Kim, the art world runs on trust: A deal is done with a "handshake" rather than a contract. This makes credibility the most essential quality in building lasting relationships with artists and institutions.
“Because I grew up in a family of gallerists, I always thought of this as my lifelong work,” she said. “That means the relationships I build are for life, so I value being careful and thoughtful with them above all.”
—Park Yuna
