Suki Seokyeong Kang PHOTOGRAPHS and TEXT by HG MASTERS
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Where I Work Suki Seokyeong Kang PHOTOGRAPHS AND TEXT BY HG MASTERS Drawing on Korean cultural traditions to assemble a mise-en-scène of today traditional buildings—and several large trees, with the high-rises of central Seoul in the distance. An ofce area of desktop computers and bookshelves occupies the window-side of the space. Kang’s thin-framed painted sculptures, towers of paintings, wool-wrapped forms and woven mats are stacked, hanging and arrayed around the rest of the space, like the backstage of a theater. Over cofee, Kang began our conversation by proposing that she and I see the practice of painting in a diferent manner, based on our cultural heritages. She was trained in Korean painting at Ewha Womans University, where she still teaches, and explained that the way she learned to think about painting was that everything had to be channeled or “poured out” onto the confines of paper in the form of highly controlled brushstrokes. She referenced Jeong Seon, who developed a “true view” Suki Seokyeong Kang standing inside the Well into my conversation with pale-colored bricks in Seochon, a way of depicting the landscape frames of a “Jeong” sculpture, with woven Suki Seokyeong Kang at her Seoul residential neighborhood west of the that separated his art-making mat works hanging on the wall behind her. studio, as she was explaining the Gyeongbok Palace. It sits at the base from the Chinese-influenced style many components of her projects of the 338-meter-high Inwangsan that dominated Korean art up (paintings, mats, mora, jeong), and Mountain, whose craggy granite to that time. Kang said she is in how she evolves them into new top was famously depicted by the a similar position of conflict, in projects, she turned to me and painter Jeong Seon in Clearing After which she finds herself trying to paused. Seeing my expression, Rain in Mt. Inwangsan (1751). The be contemporary although she’s she asked, “Is it too much?” and neighborhood is also known as rooted in traditional ways. For her, then exclaimed, “No? I think it is the birthplace of Sejong the Western painting is based on the too much!” I reassured her that I Great (1397–1450), the fourth premise of documenting the world had understood her by pointing king of the Joseon dynasty and and particularly its social conflicts, to a stack of canvases (“Mora”) the creator of the Korean Hangul whereas her own art is rooted in with a mat laid on top and said, alphabet, and was home to famous a desire for social cohesion and a “It’s layered, like this.” She laughed 20th-century poets Yun Dong-ju harmonious existence. and then went back to explaining (1917–1945) and the avant-garde Throughout her practice, about the woven rush-mats, the Yi Sang (1910–1937), who both died Kang explores the coming together invisible boundaries they create, in Japanese custody during the of individuals into collective forms. their references to chunaengmu colonial period. Many of her recent works are based (the courtly “spring nightingale Kang’s door leads up a steep on the traditional Korean method dance”) and how she commissions staircase into a concrete-walled of musical notation, Jeongganbo, them from artisans on the island of space illuminated by large south- in which a grid of rectangular Ganghwado in “north South Korea.” facing windows overlooking the forms (jeong, Գ, meaning “a Kang’s studio is located upstairs black-ceramic-tile roof of a hanok— well”) represents each note, with in a boxy, minimalist building of the area is still home to many of the markings within the space to Where I Work artasiapacific.com 155 indicate pitch and duration. The makes one every day, in what she form was invented by Sejong the describes as a personal practice Great to allow people to sing as, rather than an efort to depict previously, music could only be something, and often displays enjoyed by the court and high them in tall vertical piles, so that society. Kang connects Sejong’s only the sides of the canvases, attempts to codify Korean music streaked with dripping gouache with the painter Jeong Seon’s paint, are visible. At her Institute desire to make a distinctly Korean of Contemporary Art Philadelphia style of landscape painting. In her exhibition “Black Mat Oriole” own work, each “Jeong” becomes in 2018, more than 30 of these a window and represents “the land canvases were piled together as where I stand” and how she thinks part of a larger installation based about the frame as a space for on the modular forms and objects individual actions and expression in her practice. that are then assembled together I had first met Kang at the into a cohesive or balanced Gwangju Biennale in 2016, as she composition. In her installations, was looking for a spot to afx the jeong form appears as wooden the wall-label for her installation frames or frames painted in pastel of Black Mat Oriole (2011–16) in colors, that she then assembles the cavernous Biennale Hall. The into standing forms on wheels, or components of the installation mounts hanging from the walls. there were muted-colored, matte- The “Jeong” are one element painted metal panels pierced by of her installations. Another is holes ranging in size from small her paintings, which she calls to wide; slender wooden frames “Mora”—a term that comes from in the dimension of the jeong; and linguistics and refers to a unit that cylindrical forms on wheels (called specifies syllable weight, stress or “Heavy Rounds” or, in the knitted- timing. These canvases are specific wool versions, “Warm Rounds”). to Kang, roughly the size of her In the three-channel video Black head and torso, with dimensions Mat Oriole that was shown two of 55 by 40 centimeters. She years later in the 2018 Gwangju 156 | MAR/APR 2019 | ISSUE 112 (Opposite page, top) The exterior of the building where Kang’s studio is located, on a street in the Seochon neighborhood of Seoul. (Opposite page, bottom) The interior of Kang’s studio is a concrete-walled box, populated by her sculptural objects and paintings. (This page, top left) Kang makes a gouache painting every day as part of her studio practice. (This page, top right) The paintings, called “Mora,” are often presented as stacks of canvases in Kang’s installation works. (This page, middle) The view of Inwangsan Mountain from the roof of Kang’s studio. (This page, bottom) The terrace balustrade creates diagonal patterns on the brick surface, a visual efect recalling elements of Kang’s works. Where I Work artasiapacific.com 157 Biennale, “activators,” as she calls Kang explained. The work was a the rush-mats and black, giving an (Bottom) In the far corner of Kang’s studio are them, wearing black clothes on a tribute to the woman who raised air of deep restraint. The work’s some of the other components of her black stage, move these objects her, and whose relationship to video version begins with three installations, like the cylindrical forms that she calls “Heavy Rounds” and the around the stage, rearranging the past Kang said she never fully activators dropping the mats at the knitted variations, “Warm Rounds.” them in new, abstract spatial understood. “I was always debating click of the bak. Then they engage configurations, in a collective with her,” she said. Whereas her in a dance of forms against a black dance performance of her objects. grandmother refused to talk about background, moving her sculptural New segments in the choreography the hardships of her life raising four objects into sometimes complex, are announced with the wooden children on her own, Kang believes sometimes sparse arrangements of clap of a bak. Referring to how that “the past is not the past; it interrelated shapes. she had shown the progression is tradition.” Other sculptures After our tour through her of the same project in two around her studio similarly relate recent practice, and my prying consecutive editions of the to caring for her halmeoni, like the into the corners of her studio, Gwangju Biennale, she reflected: series of stacked, curving forms in looking through the frames of the “My work is always unfinished, Circled Stairs (2016–18) that Kang “Jeong” and the stacks of “Mora” Participating Galleries because it can be transformed.” says refer to her grandmother’s and admiring the abstract forms As we surveyed the other inability to put her foot up on the of the mats, Kang wanted to show objects in the studio, Kang leaped steps without tripping on the lip me one more thing. She led me # de Sarthe Kerlin Richard Nagy STPI Mind Set Kong Hong M+, at taken Photograph 10 Chancery Lane Dirimart König Galerie Pifo back in time to talk about one of of a stair. up another steep set of stairs that Nanzuka Sullivan+Strumpf 303 Gallery du Monde David Kordansky Taro Nasu Star her earlier projects, Grandmother The new material in Kang’s opened onto a roof terrace lined 47 Canal Tomio Koyama neugerriemschneider T Yuka Tsuruno Tower (2011/13/18), first made work in 2018 were the hand-woven with a simple metal balustrade with E Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler nichido Take Ninagawa Watanuki / Toki-no- while she was studying at the rush-mats made by Ganghwado diagonally aligned slats creating A Eigen + Art Andrew Kreps Anna Ning Tang Wasuremono Miguel Abreu Eslite Krinzinger Franco Noero Templon Wooson Royal College of Art in London. In artisans and dyed and patterned to slanted shadows. From the roof Acquavella Gallery Exit Kukje The Third Line Yamaki the original version, she stacked her specifications.