#rm narrations

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Mountain & Moon, Kim Whanki

Audio Commentary by Kim Namjoon Transcription

In the 1930s, Kim Whanki studied in Japan, where he worked and became close with many Japanese avant-garde artists. After establishing himself as one of Korea’s first abstract artists, Kim began incorporating elements of traditional Korean culture into his paintings, starting in the late 1940s. He produced many works featuring modernized expressions of popular motifs from the Joseon period, such as mountains, plum blossoms, and white porcelains, especially moon jars.

In 1956, three years after the Korean War, Kim moved to Paris, where he stayed for three years. In France, even though he was immersed in the new trends of Art Informel and Nouveau Réalisme, he continued to develop his own unique style.

It was in Paris that Kim painted Mountain and Moon, which captures a theme that was very dear to his heart: the natural landscape of Korea. The work combines both figurative and abstract characteristics, with an accumulation of geometric shapes and lines forming a discernible image of mountains and the moon. In the upper part of the canvas, thick brushstrokes represent mountain ridges, while the lower half of the painting is dominated by a round full moon. The white color of the moon is evocative of Joseon moon jars, but the overall tone of the painting is blue, the color that became increasingly prominent in Kim’s palette as his career progressed.

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Priestess, Kwon Jinkyu

Audio Commentary by Kim Namjoon Transcription

With his highly unique style and distinct expressions of the human form, Kwon Jinkyu stood apart from his contemporaries in Korean modern sculpture. After studying sculpture in Japan, Kwon returned to Korea in 1959. At that time, most Korean sculptors were pursuing abstract sculpture, strongly influenced by the new styles and techniques that had recently been introduced from the West. Resisting this trend, Kwon continued to create his distinctive figurative sculptures, seeking to “redefine realism in Korea” in his own way.

Kwon produced many busts of women, including Priestess, which depicts a female Buddhist monk in meditation. The rough form of the upper body and the shaven head serve to direct the viewer’s attention to the face, where the monk’s calm facial expression exudes a sense of serenity and mindfulness.

In the 1960s, while most Korean modern sculptors were starting to work with metal, Kwon continued to use the unconventional materials of terra cotta and lacquer. To create Priestess, he used a special lacquer technique called geonchil, in which hemp cloths soaked in lacquer were attached to a plaster mold to create a hardened form. For an even rougher texture, he mixed the liquid adhesive with a powder made from crushed roof tiles. The unfinished look and grayish color give Priestess a somewhat primal appearance, reinforcing the spirituality that the piece emanates. Kwon spent countless hours developing this laborious process because it produced forms that were relatively light yet very durable. Even so, his works received little public attention during his lifetime. Tragically, in 1973 he committed suicide in his studio in Seoul, leaving a note that read: “Life is emptiness and annihilation.”

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A House Facing the South, Oh Jiho

Audio Commentary by Kim Namjoon Transcription

Oh Jiho was one of the first artists who painted the landscape of Korea in an Impressionist style. He believed that painting was the art of capturing light, and thus the essential art of life itself. He loved to paint bright, plein-air landscapes using oil paints featuring an abundance of light and color. Unlike other Korean artists of the colonial period, Oh chose to emphasize the joy and optimism of life during this dark era. / After studying Western painting at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts from 1926 until 1931, Oh returned to Korea and joined a group of artists who focused on making colorful and cheerful oil paintings of Korean life and landscapes. He felt that the pure, clean air of Korea allowed the light to truly shimmer on the surfaces of objects, revealing their inner beauty. / In this painting, A House Facing South, Oh depicted his own house in Gaeseong, where he lived from 1935 to 1945. The girl in the doorway is his daughter, Geumhi, who seems to be bringing a bowl of food or water to her dog Sapsari, who is napping in the warm sunlight. To capture the clarity and transparency of light, Oh used luminous primary colors, with varying shades of yellow and orange conveying the warm sunlight on the house. Oh’s vibrant and distinctive style is especially evident in the shadow of the large tree, which is painted with countless brushstrokes of blue and purple, rather than black. This lovely scene provides a welcome glimpse of the joy of daily life in Korea, a seeming impossibility in the colonial era.

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Panmunjeom Hall of the Armistice Talks in 1953, Pen Varlen

Audio Commentary by Kim Namjoon Transcription

Born in a settlement of ethnic Koreans in Primorsky Krai, Russia, Pen Varlen studied Socialist Realist art at the Russian Academy of Arts in Leningrad, where he later taught as a professor. In his long and successful art career, he produced many magnificent oil paintings, etchings, and drawings, while proudly asserting his identity as an ethnic minority. Showing his pride in his Korean heritage, he kept his Korean name—Byeon Wolryong—throughout his life.

In 1953, the Soviet Ministry of Culture sent Pen to North Korea, where he spent fifteen months helping to reconstruct Pyeongyang University of Fine Arts, which had been devastated in the war. Following the model of his alma mater, he taught the theory and techniques of Socialist Realism. During this time, he formed close bonds with various North Korean artists, some of whom he depicted on his canvases.

He also loved to paint beautiful mountain landscapes and scenes of honest life among the common people.

While in North Korea, Pen painted Panmunjeom Hall of the Armistice Talks in 1953, which demonstrates the quintessential style of the Leningrad school of painting, mixing Impressionism and Academic Realism. As the title indicates, the painting shows the conference hall in Panmunjeom where representatives from South and North Korea held armistice talks after the Korean War, and also exchanged war prisoners. Even though he had never set foot in his native homeland until after the Korean War, Pen became a witness to this historic event. The tragic circumstances of the scene can be felt in the contrast between the empty, desolate interior and the bright exterior sunlight shining through the windows.

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Self-Portrait, Rha Hye-seok

Audio Commentary by Kim Namjoon Transcription

Born in 1896, Rha Hye-seok was the first Korean woman to study Western-style oil painting. In 1913, she began studying oil painting at the Women’s School of Art in Tokyo. After returning to Korea, she held her first solo exhibition of oil paintings in Seoul in 1921. At that time, oil painting was not well known or accepted among the Korean public, making her pioneering achievements all the more remarkable. / Rha Hye-seok was the epitome of the “New Woman” of the modern age. In addition to her groundbreaking work as an oil painter, she was also actively involved in the women’s liberation movement. She helped to publish the magazine New Woman and wrote numerous articles on women’s liberation, in addition to being an accomplished illustrator and novelist. In 1927, she and her husband, who was a lawyer and diplomat, traveled to Europe and the United States for one year and nine months. During their stay in Paris, Rha Hye-seok trained at the studio of Roger Bissière, where her early Impressionist works gave way to bolder, darker paintings that express her emotional and psychological state. One such work is Self-Portrait, which uses a dark palette to convey a sentiment of bleakness and gloom. / The darkness that appeared in Rha Hye-seok’s paintings was likely related to her marital problems. After the trip back to Korea, the marriage ended in divorce. At a time when marital infidelity and divorce were highly stigmatized, she spoke openly about her situation. In an article entitled “Confession about My Divorce,” she described her reasons for getting divorced, criticized gender inequality, and declared that every woman deserved autonomy as an independent person. Unfortunately, at that time, Korean society had little tolerance for a woman who expressed such progressive ideas or attempted to subvert traditional values. As a result, Rha was gradually shunned by society. She spent the last years of her life in poverty and alienation, before dying alone in 1948.

[metamorphesque]

Playing Chicken, Park Sookeun

Audio Commentary by Kim Namjoon Transcription

Park Sookeun, one of Korea’s most beloved modern artists, was entirely self-taught. His formal education ended after elementary school, when he was forced to drop out in order to help support his impoverished family. But from the age of twelve, when he first saw a photo of Jean-François Millet’s painting The Angelus, Park dreamed of becoming a great artist. In particular, he wanted to follow Millet’s example by portraying scenes from everyday life with the sanctity of religious art. Staying true to his childhood dream, Park spent his entire career painting the daily lives, labors, and pastimes of ordinary Koreans.

Park’s paintings of children, women, and elderly people, rendered on a layered, granite-like surface, were completely unlike any other artworks in Korea at the time. This innovative style, with a texture reminiscent of tomb paintings on rock walls, was inspired by archaeological excavations of the Goguryeo tombs in North Korea. Also, granite is nearly ubiquitous throughout the Korean Peninsula, making it a natural aesthetic choice to represent Korea and its people.

As seen here, one of Park’s recurring themes was children at play, which he felt symbolized warmth, community, and friendship. A group of children sits in front of a humble thatched-roof house, playing a game. Standing off to one side, an older girl plays a more responsible role, watching over the group while caring for a baby on her back.

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Ferry, Chang Uc-chin

Audio Commentary by Kim Namjoon Transcription

Seeking absolute purity and simplicity in his paintings, Chang Uc-chin became known for his candid scenes of people expressed with basic forms and compositions, a style he adopted in the early 1950s. Often likened to children’s drawings, Chang’s paintings capture the warmth and sincerity of traditional village life, populated by families, trees, houses, animals, and simple landscapes. He persistently painted his favorite motifs in a semi-abstract style characterized by wide blocks of color and an imprecise scale of objects, emphasizing the flatness of the pictorial plane.

During the Korean War, Chang took refuge in his hometown of Naepan, Yeongi County, which thus became the archetype for many village scenes in his subsequent paintings. In Ferry, for example, which he painted in 1951, Chang seeks to escape the brutality of war through the lyrical expression of an ideal world. The painting depicts a river ferry that made its rounds to Chang’s village, carrying people who had just purchased or sold goods at the market. Boldly placed in the center of the plane, the modest yet dignified passengers look directly at the viewer, seemingly unfazed by anything within their gaze. Each one takes up equal space in the boat, confirming their status as the central characters in their own lives. The calm, unassuming scene almost feels surreal, given the context of war.

Since it was impossible for Chang Uc-chin to acquire art materials in his village during the war, he made this painting on the back of a woodblock that he had used previously while studying art in Japan. Thus, on the back of this painting is an earlier work entitled Girl, which he painted in 1939.