The upcoming electronics and cyber giant Korea has again taken centre stage. This time, however, the country's young artists are the ones making the mark. Hema Vijay offers a glimpse of the futuristic Korean art scene.
Fine porcelain, exquisite Mosi weaving, futuristic electronics, well, now it's time for Korean contemporary art to hog the limelight on the world stage. The Korean contemporary art market has been gradually exploding in volumes during the last decade.
Like with the country's electronics industry, nobody noticed this phenomenon, not until reality loomed too large to be ignored. Some estimates suggest that in 2011 alone, art exported from the country amassed over 158 million US dollars. The interest in Korean art has grown to such an extent that many Korean galleries have established branches in New York and London.
And, as in the rest of the world, India is now getting to know Korean contemporary art through a rush of expositions, like 'The Emerging Canvas' at Chennai last month, which premiered the works of some young and talented Korean artists.
The curator of this show, Kim Yang Shik, happens to be a poet and the president of the Tagore Society of Korea and the director of the Indian Art Museum in Seoul. Incidentally, she was awarded the Padmashree by the Indian government for promoting Indian art and culture in Korea.
Urban imprint
Mechanised lives, loss of individual identity, dominance of technology, the thrall of urban collective psychology, a sense of global synchrony and the virtual impact of the cyberwave have been some of the much-addressed issues in this collection. You can't miss the impact of technology in many of these young artists' works, both in terms of execution, content and focus.
This is perhaps inevitable, considering Korea is at the forefront of cyber and communications revolution, and her people can't but have felt its impact on their lives. Remember, Korea has seen it all in the last several decades — a churning that took her people from war and its troubling aftermath to national reconstruction and spectacular economic and technological development. But the current crop of artists is not really moved by that. It is a sense of emotional alienation and the urban ethos that has captured many of these young artists' imagination.
Take a look at Kim Ji Young's enamel on canvas works. Largely monochromatic and flat, these vertically-oriented images paint a gloomy urban picture; even the city's skies morph into grid-like ceilings, enveloping its dwellers into confinements. Ji Young portrays a single protagonist in these images, who looks a little sad, lost and confused.
"The irony of 'escape', for which all urbanites yearn, can be found in travel, the most common way of escape from everyday mundane life. Many urbanites choose another huge city, and most travellers just enter another city cage to watch local people (there) who live lives similar to their own and observe them like animals in a zoo," she elaborates.
The extrapolation is obvious, isn't it? A pan-global urban disorientation.
On the other hand, Jimin Park executes her work on canvas with primary colours and vivid strokes, and her attention is on emotions. She addresses this through projections of people into their past, when they were children — at work and play.
"I am trying to tell 'love' and 'look back' because the present is only a moment, but the past is the place where love was born. The story started from where love was born. Time flows only forward. However, I want to be an artist who flows backward," says Park.
Meanwhile, Byung Woon Yoon's oil on canvas is intentionally flat, with blurred imagery in the distance, and the foreground actually morphs into a suited man. "If lucid dream is to recognise actuality in a dream, then the imagery of my works are the traces of a dream that are available in actuality. The sleeping status, wherein a dream and actuality crossover, speaks of the gap of a complicated boundary that I intend to show," he says.
Cyber influence
Ga Young An's Cyber Garden holds a mirror to the cyber impact in Korean art. It shows a superimposed mosaic that leans towards the monochromatic spectrum in terms of colour. It is a visual world that is real but seemingly impossible. The cyber-uncomfortable among us would identify with the bizarre sense it conveys: 'How does this cyber world work? How can something so virtual be really happening?' Nevertheless, Young An looks at it differently.
"I slowly became aware of the graphical limitations of electronics to mimic real life. Therefore, Cyber Garden is described as a Eureka moment arising from a clash between self-awareness and the void in virtual reality," she says.
Moving on to Jong Pil Park's oil on canvas, it might have been a photograph, showing two sets of roses that seem more real than reality. But apparently, only one of the two is real. "It metaphorically indicates the ambivalence of the objects themselves," Pil Park notes.
Huang Ji Soo's oil on computer print works has numerous people in the canvas space, including some warped mythological images. "The world is changing rapidly from industrial to information society. How do we define and make sense of this changing world?" he questions.
Even while she is looking to portray the vast greatness of human nature and potential, Lee Seungmin's oil on canvas shows mechanised men and women in large formats that dominate the canvas space, excluding the need for a backdrop, though the female imagery does seem more organic than the male. "My work addresses the fact that human beings are active subjects who can influence and alter the outcome of situations," she says.
E Tae Hoon goes psychedelic. His textured, multi-layered and cramped imagery resonates with the idea of a mind packed with layers of thoughts that overlap, clash, crossover and meander. "My drawing is based on improvisation and the rapidity of my brushstrokes," he says.
The works are extremely impressive and retain a sense of the furious pace and direction of movement, with which the throbbing dabs of paint must have been laid on.
These artists happen to be less than 35 years old, which makes their works a pointer to what the future holds. "They capture the same age of dynamic Korea here and now, with various and different points of view, expressions and methods.
Although these artists have their own clear views with different methods of expression, there lies a significant overlap in their pieces showing the manner in which contemporary society in Korea embraces social value," sums up Chan Il Kim, professor, Department of Painting, College of Fine Art, Hongkik University, Seoul. Well, leave alone Koreans, young people all around the world would find a lot to empathise with, in this 'emerging canvas'.
Fine porcelain, exquisite Mosi weaving, futuristic electronics, well, now it's time for Korean contemporary art to hog the limelight on the world stage. The Korean contemporary art market has been gradually exploding in volumes during the last decade.
Like with the country's electronics industry, nobody noticed this phenomenon, not until reality loomed too large to be ignored. Some estimates suggest that in 2011 alone, art exported from the country amassed over 158 million US dollars. The interest in Korean art has grown to such an extent that many Korean galleries have established branches in New York and London.
And, as in the rest of the world, India is now getting to know Korean contemporary art through a rush of expositions, like 'The Emerging Canvas' at Chennai last month, which premiered the works of some young and talented Korean artists.
The curator of this show, Kim Yang Shik, happens to be a poet and the president of the Tagore Society of Korea and the director of the Indian Art Museum in Seoul. Incidentally, she was awarded the Padmashree by the Indian government for promoting Indian art and culture in Korea.
Urban imprint
Mechanised lives, loss of individual identity, dominance of technology, the thrall of urban collective psychology, a sense of global synchrony and the virtual impact of the cyberwave have been some of the much-addressed issues in this collection. You can't miss the impact of technology in many of these young artists' works, both in terms of execution, content and focus.
This is perhaps inevitable, considering Korea is at the forefront of cyber and communications revolution, and her people can't but have felt its impact on their lives. Remember, Korea has seen it all in the last several decades — a churning that took her people from war and its troubling aftermath to national reconstruction and spectacular economic and technological development. But the current crop of artists is not really moved by that. It is a sense of emotional alienation and the urban ethos that has captured many of these young artists' imagination.
Take a look at Kim Ji Young's enamel on canvas works. Largely monochromatic and flat, these vertically-oriented images paint a gloomy urban picture; even the city's skies morph into grid-like ceilings, enveloping its dwellers into confinements. Ji Young portrays a single protagonist in these images, who looks a little sad, lost and confused.
"The irony of 'escape', for which all urbanites yearn, can be found in travel, the most common way of escape from everyday mundane life. Many urbanites choose another huge city, and most travellers just enter another city cage to watch local people (there) who live lives similar to their own and observe them like animals in a zoo," she elaborates.
The extrapolation is obvious, isn't it? A pan-global urban disorientation.
On the other hand, Jimin Park executes her work on canvas with primary colours and vivid strokes, and her attention is on emotions. She addresses this through projections of people into their past, when they were children — at work and play.
"I am trying to tell 'love' and 'look back' because the present is only a moment, but the past is the place where love was born. The story started from where love was born. Time flows only forward. However, I want to be an artist who flows backward," says Park.
Meanwhile, Byung Woon Yoon's oil on canvas is intentionally flat, with blurred imagery in the distance, and the foreground actually morphs into a suited man. "If lucid dream is to recognise actuality in a dream, then the imagery of my works are the traces of a dream that are available in actuality. The sleeping status, wherein a dream and actuality crossover, speaks of the gap of a complicated boundary that I intend to show," he says.
Cyber influence
Ga Young An's Cyber Garden holds a mirror to the cyber impact in Korean art. It shows a superimposed mosaic that leans towards the monochromatic spectrum in terms of colour. It is a visual world that is real but seemingly impossible. The cyber-uncomfortable among us would identify with the bizarre sense it conveys: 'How does this cyber world work? How can something so virtual be really happening?' Nevertheless, Young An looks at it differently.
"I slowly became aware of the graphical limitations of electronics to mimic real life. Therefore, Cyber Garden is described as a Eureka moment arising from a clash between self-awareness and the void in virtual reality," she says.
Moving on to Jong Pil Park's oil on canvas, it might have been a photograph, showing two sets of roses that seem more real than reality. But apparently, only one of the two is real. "It metaphorically indicates the ambivalence of the objects themselves," Pil Park notes.
Huang Ji Soo's oil on computer print works has numerous people in the canvas space, including some warped mythological images. "The world is changing rapidly from industrial to information society. How do we define and make sense of this changing world?" he questions.
Even while she is looking to portray the vast greatness of human nature and potential, Lee Seungmin's oil on canvas shows mechanised men and women in large formats that dominate the canvas space, excluding the need for a backdrop, though the female imagery does seem more organic than the male. "My work addresses the fact that human beings are active subjects who can influence and alter the outcome of situations," she says.
E Tae Hoon goes psychedelic. His textured, multi-layered and cramped imagery resonates with the idea of a mind packed with layers of thoughts that overlap, clash, crossover and meander. "My drawing is based on improvisation and the rapidity of my brushstrokes," he says.
The works are extremely impressive and retain a sense of the furious pace and direction of movement, with which the throbbing dabs of paint must have been laid on.
These artists happen to be less than 35 years old, which makes their works a pointer to what the future holds. "They capture the same age of dynamic Korea here and now, with various and different points of view, expressions and methods.
Although these artists have their own clear views with different methods of expression, there lies a significant overlap in their pieces showing the manner in which contemporary society in Korea embraces social value," sums up Chan Il Kim, professor, Department of Painting, College of Fine Art, Hongkik University, Seoul. Well, leave alone Koreans, young people all around the world would find a lot to empathise with, in this 'emerging canvas'.