Kim Whanki (
Korean
Korean may refer to:
People and culture
* Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula
* Korean cuisine
* Korean culture
* Korean language
**Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl
**Korean dialects and the Jeju language
** ...
: 김환기;
hanja
Hanja (Hangul: ; Hanja: , ), alternatively known as Hancha, are Chinese characters () used in the writing of Korean. Hanja was used as early as the Gojoseon period, the first ever Korean kingdom.
(, ) refers to Sino-Korean vocabulary, wh ...
: 金煥基; April 3, 1913 – July 25, 1974) was a painter and pioneering
abstract art
Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world.
Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th ...
ist of
Korea
Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...
,
[Kim, Youngna. ''20th Century Korean Art.'' London: Laurence King Publishing Ltd, 1998.] born in the village of Eupdong-ri on the island of Kijwa, of
Anjwa-myeon Anjwa-myeon (Korean: , hanja: 安佐面), is a ''myeon'' located in Sinan County, South Jeolla, South Korea. It has an area of 59.97 km2, and its population in 2021 was 2,700.
It includes Banwol Island (Korean: , hanja: 半月島, ) and Bakji ...
,
Sinan County, South Jeolla
Sinan County (''Sinan-gun'') is a county in South Jeolla Province, South Korea. The county consists of 111 inhabited islands and 719 uninhabited islands. The number of islands in this county accounts for 25% of all islands in South Korea.
Big ...
Province in
Korea under Japanese rule
Between 1910 and 1945, Korea was ruled as a part of the Empire of Japan. Joseon Korea had come into the Japanese sphere of influence with the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1876; a complex coalition of the Meiji government, military, and business offic ...
. Kim lived and worked in a number of cities and countries during his lifetime, including
Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...
, Japan;
Seoul
Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 ...
and
Busan
Busan (), officially known as is South Korea's most populous city after Seoul, with a population of over 3.4 million inhabitants. Formerly romanized as Pusan, it is the economic, cultural and educational center of southeastern South Korea, w ...
, Korea;
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
, France; and
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, USA, where he passed away.
Kim belongs to the first generation of Korean Abstract artists, mixing oriental concepts and ideals with abstraction. With refined and moderated formative expression based on Korean Lyricism, he created his characteristic art world. His artworks largely dealt with diverse
hue
In color theory, hue is one of the main properties (called Color appearance model#Color appearance parameters, color appearance parameters) of a color, defined technically in the CIECAM02 model as "the degree to which a Stimulus (physiology ...
s and patterns. Kim's early works were semi-abstract paintings which allowed viewers to see certain forms, but his later works were more deeply absorbed abstract paintings, filled with lines and spaces.
The artist's partner Hyang-an Kim established the Whanki Foundation in 1978 and opened the
Whanki Museum
The Whanki Museum is a private art museum in Jongno-gu, in central Seoul, South Korea. It was established by the Whanki Foundation mainly to exhibit and commemorate the art of Whanki Kim, one of Korea's foremost abstract painters. The museum is ...
in 1992. The Museum, located in
Seoul
Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 ...
, was built by Korean American architect
Kyu Sung Woo
Kyu Sung Woo (; born 1941) is a South Korean architect and principal of the architectural design firm, Kyu Sung Woo Architects, Inc. The firm's projects include many built and proposed works in the United States and South Korea.
Biography
K ...
.
A pioneer of abstract painting and the godfather of the Dansaekhwa movement, Whanki Kim established his place in Korean history and art at an early age. Whanki Kim was an artist whose profound impact on the history of Korean art was seen in the first wave of abstract art. His nomadic lifestyle led him to many different places, like Japan, France, and the U.S., which differentiated his artwork from other artists, who created their art based in Korea, due to the lack of opportunities for travel. As a peripatetic artist gaining inspiration from artists of other origins, Whanki Kim's style of abstract art transformed from geometric abstraction to art with traditional Korean motifs to monochrome paintings of dots and lines. He balanced keeping Korean values and beliefs close and incorporating new foreign techniques into his works, which evidently reflect his personal identity and Korea's national identity, impacted by the political and social conditions of the mid-1900s.
Biography
Early life
Born as the fourth child and only son of wealthy farmer and local landowner Kim Sang-hyeon (김상현), Kim Whanki grew up comfortably on Kijwa island. After graduating from elementary school, Kim was sent to Seoul to live with his older sister and attend Choongdong Middle School (중동중학교). His family then supported him to study abroad in Tokyo, Japan, where he attended Nishikishiro (錦城) Middle School. During his five years of study, he learned to play the violin. Once Kim returned home in 1932, his father objected to Kim's wishes to continue his studies and set Kim to marry.
[Yi, Ch'ung-nyŏl. ''Kim Hwan-gi, ŏdisŏ muŏt i toeŏ tasi mannarya 환기, 어디서 무엇 이 되어 다시 만나랴'' Kyŏnggi-do P'aju-si : Yurich'ang, 2013. ]OCLC
OCLC, Inc., doing business as OCLC, See also: is an American nonprofit cooperative organization "that provides shared technology services, original research, and community programs for its membership and the library community at large". It was ...
br>854980601
His great-nephew is
Choi Seung-hyeon (b. 1987), an artist, actor, and rapper active under the moniker T.O.P as well as a member of
Big Bang
The Big Bang event is a physical theory that describes how the universe expanded from an initial state of high density and temperature. Various cosmological models of the Big Bang explain the evolution of the observable universe from the ...
.
Tokyo, Japan: 1932–1937
Having decided to become an artist against his father's wishes, Kim secretly boarded a vessel bound for
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
.
Thus in 1933, at the age of 20, Kim enrolled in the 3-year program offered at the Department of Arts at
Nihon University
, abbreviated as , is a private university, private research university in Japan. Its predecessor, Nihon Law School (currently the Department of Law), was founded by Yamada Akiyoshi, the Minister of Justice (Japan), Minister of Justice, in 1889. ...
in Tokyo.
[Whanki Museum. "KIM Whanki 1913–1974." http://whankimuseum.org/en/kim-whanki/artist/] During his second year into the program, Kim joined the Avant-Garde Western Painting Institute (アヴァンギャルド洋画研究所, ''AbuangyarudoYōga Kenkyūjo''), led by Japanese artists who were introducing to Japan
Cubism
Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...
,
Futurism
Futurism ( it, Futurismo, link=no) was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy, and to a lesser extent in other countries, in the early 20th century. It emphasized dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, and objects such ...
, and
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to l ...
based on their experience living and working in Europe. Among his mentors were
Togo Seiji and
Tsuguharu Foujita
was a Japanese–French painter and printmaker born in Tokyo, Japan, who applied Japanese ink techniques to Western style paintings. At the height of his fame in Paris, during the 1920s, he was known for his portraits of nudes using an opalescen ...
.
[Kwon, Heangga, Jeong Insook. "Chakp'umsegye he Artist's Oeuvre" In ''Kim Whan-ki'' im Whanki 50–173. Seoul: Samsung Culture Foundation, 1997. ]OCLC
OCLC, Inc., doing business as OCLC, See also: is an American nonprofit cooperative organization "that provides shared technology services, original research, and community programs for its membership and the library community at large". It was ...
br>41311030
In 1935, Kim is awarded for his first submission to the prestigious Second Section Association (二科会, ''Nikakai'', 이과전, ''Igwajŏn''), ''When the Skylarks Sing'' (종달새 노래할 때), marking his debut as an artist. The painting portrays a woman dressed in
hanbok
The (; term used in South Korean standard language, South Korea), also called ()
n North Korean standard language, North Korea and China, is an Hyponymy and hypernymy, umbrella term which is used to refer to traditional ethnic Koreans, Korean ...
, whose body was rendered in geometric, simplified forms. The basket upon her head is "transparent" by showing its content at an impossible angle, revealing Kim's interest apart from realism and towards abstraction.
[Whanki Museum. "Tokyo: At the Forefront of the Avant-Garde Movement." In ''WhanKi: A Pioneer of Korean Modern Art'', 18–29. Seoul: Whanki Museum, 2017.] His experiments of incorporating Korean motifs as simplified forms onto the flat picture plane continued, as can be seen in ''House'' <집> (1936) and ''Sauce Jar Terrace'' <장독대> (1936). Features often seen in traditional Korean houses, such as wooden gates, paper screen doors, stone walls, stairs, and pottery, are also noted to have added a sense of order and repetition to his paintings, further illustrating his development towards pure abstraction.
During this time Kim participated in activities lead by Japan's many artist associations, such as the Hakujitsu Society (白日会), Kofu Society (光風會, ''Kofukai'', 광풍회, ''Kwangp'unghoe''), Free Artists' Association (自由美術家協会, ''Jiyū Bijutsuka Kyōkai''), the Room Nine Society (九室會; ''Kyushitsukai''), and the Hakuban Society (白蛮会, 백만회, ''Paengmanhoe'').
The Hakuban was established in 1936 after the closure of the Avant-Garde Western Painting Institute by five of its members, including Kim and Gil Jin-seop (길진섭, 吉鎭燮, 1970–1975). His first solo exhibition took place at the Amagi Gallery in Tokyo in January 1937, only months before returning to Korea. Even after he left Tokyo, Kim continued to submit works to the Free Artists' Association in Japan until 1941, including ''Rondo'' <론도> (1938). As one of the earliest examples of abstract art in modern Korea, the country's government designated the painting as a Registered Cultural Property (No. 535) in 2013.
He even stayed an additional year in Japan as an assistant before returning to Korea in 1937. Kim's time in Tokyo supported his identity as an Abstract artist. In his university years, he became fascinated by the work of
Henri Matisse
Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known prima ...
and
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
His works of 1937 and 1938, such as ''Rondo,'' ''Aria,'' and ''White Seagull,'' are said to show a clear turn toward abstraction with their compositions of pure geometric shapes consisting of repeated rhythmic circular and oblong shapes with squares intersecting or overlapping.
[Oh, Gwang-su. ''Kim Whanki.'' Seoul: Youl Hwa Dang Publishing, 1998.]![Kim Whanki untitled 1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Kim_Whanki_untitled_1.jpg)
Whanki Kim's early art experimentation with geometric abstraction drew inspiration from Cubism. His first piece that gained popularity was When Skylarks Sing (1935), which depicts a woman holding a basket on top of her head. The building in the background plays with light and shadows and is one of the many geometric shapes that creates depth in the painting. Whanki Kim contrasts the realistic depiction of a traditional Korean woman with an ambiguous background that muddles the exact setting of the painting. There is also a lack of details on the woman's body and face. The artwork reflects Whanki Kim's perception of colonial Korea under Japan's rule, in which Kim as a Korean was relatively distanced from society and had different perspectives than a Korean artist who was attached and impacted by the war.
Seoul: 1938–1951
After returning from his studies in Tokyo, Kim continued to befriend members of the Korean literary circle while gaining more interest in traditional Korean art. By 1940, this exhibition was no longer called the Free Artists Exhibition. It was called the Creative Artists Association, due to increasing military tensions that did not encourage new ideas. The Creative Artists Association made a branch in Korea and held its first exhibition in Seoul, where Kim, fellow Korean artists, as well as a number of Japanese artists exhibited their work.
Kim is said to have submitted six pieces: ''Island Tale'', ''Still Life'', ''Landscape 1'', ''Landscape 2'', ''Landscape at Atami'', and ''Chamber Music'' before he left the Association in 1941.
In 1944, Kim, who had divorced his first wife, remarried Byun Dong-rim (변동림, 卞東琳, 1916–2004), who was a prodigiously talented writer and widow of poet
Yi Sang
Kim Hae-Gyeong (hangul: 김해경, hanja: 金海卿, September 23, 1910 – April 17, 1937), also known as his pen name Yi Sang (hangul: 이상, hanja: 李箱) was a writer and poet who lived in Korea under Japanese rule. He is well-known fo ...
. Defying the objections from their families, Byun took Kim's
art name
An art name (pseudonym or pen name), also known by its native names ''hào'' (in Mandarin), ''gō'' (in Japanese), ''ho'' (in Korean), and ''tên hiệu'' (in Vietnamese), is a professional name used by East Asian artists, poets and writers. The ...
–Hyang-an–at the time of marriage and lived as such until her death. Kim changed his art name to Su-hwa (수화, 樹話).
Korea was liberated from Japanese rule in 1945 and established its independent government by 1948. The same year, Kim, along with artists
Yoo Youngkuk
Yoo Youngkuk (; also known as YYK) was a pioneer of Korean abstract art and Korean modern art in general. He began abstract art in the 1930s when he was a student at the Bunka Gakuin art school in Tokyo. Interacting with avant-garde artists and par ...
, Lee Kyusang (이규상, 李揆祥, 1918–1967), created the
New Realism Group (신사실파, ''Shinsashilp'a''). Its foundational idea was to pursue new types of realistic painting and contribute to the perception of a "new formation of reality," which could be exist apart from Japan's direct influence as well as the right-left ideological struggles that dominated the Cold War period of Korea.
Navigating between figuration and non-figuration, the group has since been considered pioneers of Korean abstract art and one of the most influential artist groups in Korean modern art.
[Han'gungmisul tagugŏ yongŏsajŏn orean Art Multilingual Dictionary "Shinsashilp'a ew Realism Group" https://www.gokams.or.kr:442/visual-art/art-terms/glossary/group_view.asp?idx=291&page=1] Participating members included
Chang Ucchin
Chang Ucchin (장욱진, 張旭鎭, 26 November 1917 – 27 December 1990) was one of the most representative modern Korean artists. He was known for his oil paintings that depicted Korean sceneries, animals, and children in simple and naive pain ...
, Paek Youngsu (백영수, 白榮洙, 1922–2018), and
Lee Jung-seob
Lee Jung Seob (April 10, 1916 in Pyeongannamdo – September 6, 1956 in Seoul) was a Korean artist, most known for his oil paintings such as ''"White Ox"''.
Life
Born and raised during Korea under Japanese rule, Lee was greatly inspired by h ...
.
For the New Realism Group's second exhibition held in 1949, Kim submitted his painting ''Jar and Flowers'' <백자와 꽃> (1949). The work, in which a piece of white porcelain is rendered as a round abstract geometric form, is considered to be one of the earliest examples from Kim's oeuvre in which he employs pottery as a significant motif for which he received critical acclaim.
Since his return to his home country from Japan, Kim had collected and developed a sophisticated taste for Korean antiquities and pottery, especially for a type of white
porcelain
Porcelain () is a ceramic material made by heating substances, generally including materials such as kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises mainl ...
ware made in the
Joseon dynasty
Joseon (; ; Middle Korean: 됴ᇢ〯션〮 Dyǒw syéon or 됴ᇢ〯션〯 Dyǒw syěon), officially the Great Joseon (; ), was the last dynastic kingdom of Korea, lasting just over 500 years. It was founded by Yi Seong-gye in July 1392 and re ...
widely known as
moon jar
Moon jar is a type of traditional Korean white porcelain which was made during the Joseon dynasty (1392–1910). The Joseon white porcelain was adopted as imperial ware in the fifteenth century. The name comes from its shape and milky color of th ...
s.
It is known that he enjoyed displaying and observing
Korean pottery
Korean ceramic history begins with the oldest earthenware from around 8000 BC.
Throughout the history, the Korean peninsula has been home to lively, innovative, and sophisticated art making. Long period of stability have allowed for the establi ...
in his home, while depicting the very same objects in his paintings. As a motif in Kim's paintings, Korean pottery was employed as an aesthetic solution for reconciling tradition with modernity.
[Park, Carey. "Korean Modern Art and the Conflicts of Tradition and Modernity, c.1953." In ''Korean Art from 1953: Collision, Innovation, Interaction'', edited by Chung, Yeon Shim, Kimberly Chung, Sunjung Kim, and Keith B. Wagner, 14–39. London: Phaidon, 2020. ISBN 9780714878331. ]OCLC
OCLC, Inc., doing business as OCLC, See also: is an American nonprofit cooperative organization "that provides shared technology services, original research, and community programs for its membership and the library community at large". It was ...
br>1155063660
Based on his submissions to the
neorealism exhibitions, Kim's works during 1942 and 1950 show inspiration from nature and everyday life. His desire to present pure composition and simplified objects is evident in work such as ''Woods''.
Busan: 1951–1953
During the
Korean War
, date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...
, the South Korean government moved to the southern port city of
Busan
Busan (), officially known as is South Korea's most populous city after Seoul, with a population of over 3.4 million inhabitants. Formerly romanized as Pusan, it is the economic, cultural and educational center of southeastern South Korea, w ...
, along with many refugees. Whanki Kim also fled Seoul for safety in the South and entered a refugee camp for three years. These years are said to have been a time of suffering for Whanki Kim—his wife, Hyang-an Kim, recalls his strong rage and habit of drinking, though he did continue to paint. Some of the works produced during this time are ''Refugee Train'' <피난열차> (1951), ''Landscape at Chin-hae'', ''Shanty'', and ''Jars and Women'' <항아리와 여인들> (1951).
Kim's oil painting An Evacuation Train from 1951 is another example of his early abstraction work that reflects his distance from the Korean war. This painting shows a crowd of refugees crammed together in train carriages, creating a claustrophobic environment. While some artists opted for sorrowful, more realistic depictions of this era using dark tones, Whanki Kim added his own touch of brighter hues of red and blue and simple shapes. There seems to be a contradiction between the urgent, claustrophobic environment of Koreans fleeing the war and the cartoon-like depiction of the refugees. This painting also reflected a time when abstract American art was promoted by the United States Information (USIS). Western art was easily accessible for Korean artists through funded subscriptions to newspapers, magazines, and art journals, which introduced the contemporary trends of abstraction. The true origin of this agenda was the U.S.-led anti-communist campaign against the socialist realist art of North Korea, and the USIS paid South Korean artists, including Whanki Kim, whose work represented an antidote to North Korean cultural practices. This was opposed to forcefully produced art with subjects of Stalin and Kim Il Sung during the time of South Korea under the North Korean rule.
Seoul: 1953–1956
When Kim Whanki returned to Seoul in 1953, his obsession with jars grew once again and even more than before. He drew jars over and over again in his works including ''Jar and Poetry,'' ''White Jar and Woman,'' ''Jar'', and ''Jar and Plum Blossoms.'' His return to Seoul also allowed him to teach at the College of Fine Arts,
Hongik University
Hongik University (, colloquially ''Hongdae'') is a private university in Seoul, South Korea. Founded by an activist in 1946, the university is located in Mapo-gu district of central Seoul, South Korea with a second campus(branch campus) in S ...
, to hold a one-man exhibition at the USIS Gallery, and to be elected a member of the Korean Academy.
Paris: 1956–1959
Kim's journals show that his departure for
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
was something he had been planning for quite a while. Starting in 1954, many Korean artists made this trip including Nam Kwan,
Kim Heung-su, and Kim Chong-ha. Paris, the capital of the world of modern art, was the place that would cure them of their sense of inferiority, which had resulted from their negative experiences with Western art in Japan.
Even though many artists and their works were significantly changed during trips abroad, Kim intentionally retained his artistic style and continued to portray motifs of jars, birds, mountains, deer, and plum blossoms.
Away in France, Kim came to better understand and appreciate the unique qualities of Korea and Korean art.
Whanki Kim frequently traveled to new places to adopt new artistic techniques and incorporate them into his work, and his goal throughout his career was to reach this universality of a “boundaryless integration of Eastern and Western aesthetics”. He was tired of his works being viewed as either an abandonment of Korean values or as a weak imitation of “authentic” Western art. A symbol of Whanki Kim's struggle to reach this seamless integration of both traditional/modern and Eastern/Western style was the buncheong jar from the Joseon dynasty. The Joseon Dynasty pottery can be characterized as large, white, thick, and misshapen, and has a utilitarian function. An infamous piece is the “Moon Jar,” which is a white porcelain vessel that is shaped round, like a moon. When he traveled to Paris, his paintings underwent intense change, including the color palette primarily becoming blue, and they began to mimic the mottled ceramic surfaces. In the 1950s, Whanki Kim began to incorporate traditional motifs from the Korean landscape, such as a blue moon, mountains, and plum blossoms. Jar (1958) by Whanki Kim represented the transition from flat, patchy strokes to a building-up of layers. The texture of this piece is evidently thick and mottled, akin to traditional Korean pottery. Further, the jar as a subject has no sense of space as there are no referential objects surrounding it. The scale of the moon is as big as the jar, which creates a “zoom-in” effect and adds to the abstraction of the art. Adding these Korean motifs to his artwork made Kim more aware of his Korean identity in a time of constant travel. Visiting Paris was a transformative experience for Whanki Kim as he was able to experiment with the stained glass effect of Roualt's paintings to replicate the 3D nature and texture of the buncheong jar onto the 2D canvas. He was able to combine the “Koreanness” of the Joseon Dynasty jar and elements of the abstract expressionist movement.
Seoul: 1959–1963
On his return to Seoul in 1959 he was almost immediately offered the position of Dean of Faculty at the College of Fine Arts at Hongik University. In 1960, he became President of Hongik Art College. He found himself teaching and performing administrative duties more often than he was concentrating on art. He often felt frustrated during this time because of conflicts with other board members and the lack of connection between reality and what dreams he had for the institutions of art.
New York: 1963–1974
1963 was the first year Korea participated in the
São Paulo Biennial
SAO or Sao may refer to:
Places
* Sao civilisation, in Middle Africa from 6th century BC to 16th century AD
* Sao, a town in Boussé Department, Burkina Faso
* Saco Transportation Center (station code SAO), a train station in Saco, Maine, U.S. ...
, in which Kim participated as the country's commissioner and among the seven featured artists: Young-ju Kim (김영주, 金永周, (1920–1995),
Yoo Youngkuk
Yoo Youngkuk (; also known as YYK) was a pioneer of Korean abstract art and Korean modern art in general. He began abstract art in the 1930s when he was a student at the Bunka Gakuin art school in Tokyo. Interacting with avant-garde artists and par ...
,
Kim Ki-chang,
Suh Se-ok
Suh Se-ok ( ko, 서세옥, hanja: 徐世鈺; 1929 – 29 November 2020) was a South Korean oriental painting artist.
Career
He was born in Daegu, Korea. Following his graduation from the College of Arts of the Seoul National University, he becam ...
, Han Yong-jin (한용진, 韓鏞進, 1934–), and Yoo Gang-yeol (유강열, 劉康烈, 1920–1976).
[Whanki Museum. "KIM Whanki, Reach to the Zenith of Abstract Art." In ''WhanKi: A Pioneer of Korean Modern Art'', 142–221. Seoul: Whanki Museum, 2017. ]OCLC
OCLC, Inc., doing business as OCLC, See also: is an American nonprofit cooperative organization "that provides shared technology services, original research, and community programs for its membership and the library community at large". It was ...
br>1097193790
Submitting three works–''Moonlight in Summer Night'' <여름 달밤> (1961), ''Moonlight Night of Island'' <섬의 달밤> (1959), and ''Cloud and Moon'' <운월> (1963)–Kim was awarded an Honorable Mention for painting.
Upon seeing the works of at the Biennale, such as the works of American artist
Adolph Gottlieb
Adolph Gottlieb (March 14, 1903 – March 4, 1974) was an American abstract expressionist painter, sculptor and printmaker.
Early life and education
Adolph Gottlieb, one of the "first generation" of Abstract Expressionists, was born in New Yo ...
whom was awarded the Grande Prêmio, Kim reported his desire for the "internationalization" of Korean art.
Thus in 1963, Kim relocated to New York, a city that was emerging as a new center for modern Art.
[Park, Mee-Jung. "Kimhwan'giŭi Nyuyokshigi (1963–1974) im Whanki's New York Period (1963–1974)" https://terms.naver.com/entry.naver?docId=3576118&cid=58862&categoryId=58879] Hyang-an Kim joined Kim in New York the following year. With a grant from the Asia Society funded by the foundation of John D. Rockefeller III, they settled in a studio in the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
There he finds support from a number of Korean cultural attaché's, Korean American artists
Po Kim
Po Kim (1917 – February 7, 2014) was a Korean-American visual artist. Born in Changnyeong County, Changnyeong, Korea, Kim was among the first of a generation of Korean artists who moved to the United States in the 1950s and is one of the earli ...
, John Pai (1937–), and
Nam June Paik
Nam June Paik (; July 20, 1932 – January 29, 2006) was a Korean American artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the founder of video art. He is credited with the first use (1974) of the term "electronic super hi ...
, as well as American artists
Adolph Gottlieb
Adolph Gottlieb (March 14, 1903 – March 4, 1974) was an American abstract expressionist painter, sculptor and printmaker.
Early life and education
Adolph Gottlieb, one of the "first generation" of Abstract Expressionists, was born in New Yo ...
and
Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko (), born Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz (russian: Ма́ркус Я́ковлевич Ротко́вич, link=no, lv, Markuss Rotkovičs, link=no; name not Anglicized until 1940; September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970), was a Latv ...
.
When Whanki Kim arrived in New York, he began to experiment with new materials, like newspaper pages and oil paints. He was curious about how different oil paints reacted with the oil on the newspaper, which created a “shifting, moving sense of paint laying on top of a surface” compared to the absorption effect of watercolor paint, which led to his interest in paper-mache. A paper sculpture called Daejup (1968) represents the transformation Kim's art underwent to merge the oil paintings on the newspapers with 3D sculptures. Whanki Kim took pride in the fact that he conserved “Koreanness” into his art as the oil paint on paper mimicked the mottled surface of pottery from Joseon dynasty. Daejup is a wide black jar that widens near the top and has symmetrical dots surrounding the lining of the jar. The dots are intentionally disordered to add an organic sense to the work, similar to the jars of the Joseon time period. What made Whanki Kim so extraordinary was that even while moving to New York and picking up these new techniques of paper-mache, he protected elements of his homeland. New York allowed him to be free of all social obligations and just focus on the creativity of his work. However, it is important to acknowledge that other Korean artists in his realm did not have the privilege and opportunity to drop all of their responsibilities to pursue art. Thus, Whanki Kim had an advantage when it came to access to foreign techniques and the ability to explore.
Most noted from the artist's time in New York is the rise of the series of "all-over canvas dot paintings" (점면전화, ''Chŏmmyŏnjŏnhwa'') or simply known as "dot paintings." By 1970, Kim began to produce paintings that filled the entire surface of his unprimed canvases with small, irregular dots using oil paint mixed with turpentine.
An early, significant example is ''Where, in What Form, Shall We Meet Again?'' <어디서 무엇이 되어 다시 만나랴> (1970), titled after a poem of his friend and Korean poet Kim Gwang-Seop (김광섭, 1905–1977). While the work resulted from years of experimentation with abstraction and the geometrical elements that make up painting–dot, line, and plane–, the subdued palette as well as the watered-down paint produced an effect of blurred ink, evocative of East Asian ink wash painting.
With ''Where, in What Form, Shall We Meet Again?'', Kim was awarded the Grand Prize at the first iteration of the Korean Art Grand Award Exhibition. Drastically different from Kim's work from Korea that depicted Korean motifs and sentiments, his purely abstract style left a great impression to the Korean art scene.
Kim continued to produce "dot paintings" on larger-sized canvases and experimented with different colors, especially with range of blue hues.
By 1971, Kim took a turn on its composition by arranging the dots in a circular or curvilinear fashion, such as seen in ''Universe 05-IV-71 #200'' (1971). ''Universe'', which is regarded as one of the most important works of the artist's oeuvre today, was well received in New York at the time. The work was included in Kim's solo show at New York's Poindexter Gallery, where he continued to show annually, until his death in 1974.
Dansaekhwa, also known as the monochrome painting movement, included paintings of gray, brown, beige, and white hues produced in the late 1960s and applied to paintings that manifested a merger between the artist's body and mind by exploring the physicality of the painting materials. This movement stemmed from the desire to reclaim their stolen “Koreanness” pride from the war and the need for strong political and social control. It was also a departure from the Japanese-style Nihonga that represented the colonial period of Korea and adopted abstract paintings in Western art scenes during the era of modernization. In Universe (1971), Kim painted repeating rows of circles made of dots that capture the essence of waves pulsating on the shore. The dots “seem to proliferate like living cells” and “represent the flow of powerful solar energy,” which allows the audience to experience synesthesia. Since no two dots are the same, the movement of each piece is uneven and causes the eye to lose focus and get lost in the painting. Whanki Kim distinguishes himself from other artists with the temporality of his work. American paintings tend to have that “all-at-once” aspect, while Whanki Kim's work is constantly dynamic and there is an implicit sense of movement at all times. New York was a significant transitional period because the usual motifs, like the bird and moon, were gradually replaced by dots and lines, as seen in this work. His pieces became less figurative and more abstract with linear horizontals and verticals and diagonal arrangements. Compared to his earlier works with very bright hues, Universe, along with his later works, were gray-blue or black and encapsulated the “Whanki Blue” palette. Further, Kim designed this piece so that the audience could picture the movement of shimmering heavenly bodies mimicked by the dynamic dots. Individuals are stimulated to become “one” with the painting. This transition and disappearance of Korean motifs can also speak to Whanki Kim's distance from his Korean identity as he settled in New York and became engrossed in foreign works.
During his career in New York, works depicting cosmic, planetary subjects, sound, echo, and music arose.
In the second half of his time in New York, Kim spent much time on collages,
papier-mâché
upright=1.3, Mardi Gras papier-mâché masks, Haiti
upright=1.3, Papier-mâché Catrinas, traditional figures for day of the dead celebrations in Mexico
Papier-mâché (, ; , literally "chewed paper") is a composite material consisting of p ...
works, and oil-on-newspaper paintings. It was during this time that Kim began to utilize dots in his works, sometimes even covering whole canvases with just dots, such as in ''Where and in What Form Are We to Meet Again?'' (1970) and ''05-IV-71 #200 (Universe)'' (1971). The latter was sold for HK$102m (US$13.03m), surpassing its estimate of HK$48m-62m, and became the most expensive Korean work of art.
See also
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Whanki Museum
The Whanki Museum is a private art museum in Jongno-gu, in central Seoul, South Korea. It was established by the Whanki Foundation mainly to exhibit and commemorate the art of Whanki Kim, one of Korea's foremost abstract painters. The museum is ...
Exhibitions
* 22nd Second Section Association Exhibition (二科会, ''Nikakai''), Tokyo, Japan; 1935 (Awarded)
* 23rd Second Section Association Exhibition (二科会, ''Nikakai''), Tokyo, Japan; 1936 (Awarded)
* Amagi Gallery, Tokyo, Japan; Solo Exhibition; 1937
* Jeongjaok Gallery, Seoul, Korea; Solo Exhibition; 1940
* 1st New Realism Group (신사실파, ''Shinsashilp'a'') Exhibition, Hwashin Gallery, Seoul, Korea; 1948
* 2nd New Realism Group (신사실파, ''Shinsashilp'a'') Exhibition, Hwashin Gallery, Seoul, Korea; 1949
* 1st National Exhibition (대한민국미술전람회, ''Taehanmin'gungmisulchŏllamhoe''), Seoul, Korea; 1949
* 3rd New Realism Group (신사실파, ''Shinsashilp'a'') Exhibition, Hwashin Gallery, Seoul, Korea; 1950
* New Seoul Tea Room, Busan, Korea; Solo Exhibition; 1952
* USIS Gallery, Seoul, Korea; Solo Exhibition; 1954
* Donghwa Gallery, Seoul, Korea; Solo Exhibition; 1956
* M.Bénezit Gallery, Paris, France; Solo Exhibition; 1956
* M.Bénezit Gallery, Paris, France; Solo Exhibition; 1956
* M.Bénezit Gallery, Paris, France; Solo Exhibition; 1957
* M.Bénezit Gallery, Paris, France; Solo Exhibition; 1957
* Cheval de Verre Gallery, Brussels, Belgium; Solo Exhibition; 1957
* Institut Gallery, Paris, France; Solo Exhibition; 1958
*
Contemporary Korean Paintings', World House Galleries, New York, New York, United States; organized by Ellen Psaty Conant
* ''Kim Whanki Art Exhibition''; Korean Information Center, Seoul, Korea; Solo Exhibition; 1959
* Bando Gallery, Seoul, Korea; Solo Exhibition; 1960
* Korean Information Center, Seoul, Korea; Solo Exhibition; 1961
* Korean Information Center, Seoul, Korea; Solo Exhibition; 1962
* Korean Information Center, Seoul, Korea; Solo Exhibition; 1963
* 7th São Paulo Biennale, São Paulo, Brazil; 1963 (Honorable Mention for Painting)
* Asia House Gallery, New York, New York, United States; Solo Exhibition; 1964
* 8th São Paulo Biennale, Special Exhibition Room, São Paulo, Brazil; 1965
* Tasca Gallery, New York, New York, United States; Solo Exhibition; 1966
* Gotham Book Mart Gallery, New York, New York, United States; Solo Exhibition; 1968
* 1st Korea Arts Exhibition, Gyeongbokgung Palace Museum, Seoul, Korea; 1970 (Grand Prize)
* ''Whanki,'' Poindexter Gallery, New York, New York, United States; Solo Exhibition; September 25–October 21, 1971
* Shinsegye Gallery, Seoul, Korea; Solo Exhibition; 1971
* Poindexter Gallery, New York, New York, United States; Solo Exhibition; 1972
* Poindexter Gallery, New York, New York, United States; Solo Exhibition; 1973
* Poindexter Gallery, New York, New York, United States; Solo Exhibition; 1974
Selected Posthumous Exhibitions
* ''Whanki, paintings 1960-1974'', Poindexter Gallery, New York, New York, United States; February 18–March 8, 1975
* 13th São Paulo Biennial, Special Exhibition
Whanki'; October 17–December 15, 1975
* ''Kim Whanki Retrospective'', National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea; December 3–December 17, 1975
* ''Kim Whanki 10th Death Anniversary Commemorative Exhibition'', National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea; March 1–March 25, 1984
* ''Whanki: Retrospective 1963-1974'', Centre National des Arts Plastiques, Paris, France; May 12–June 14, 1987
* ''Whanki Kim, New York 1963–1974'', Whanki Museum, Seoul, Korea; 1992
*
Asian Traditions/Modern Expressions: Asian American Artists and Abstraction, 1945–1970', Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Bruswick, New Jersey; 1997
Further reading and external links
Whanki MuseumKim Whanki Encyclopedia of Korean Culture (KO)
*
Kim Whanki
Kim Whanki (Korean: 김환기; hanja: 金煥基; April 3, 1913 – July 25, 1974) was a painter and pioneering abstract artist of Korea,Kim, Youngna. ''20th Century Korean Art.'' London: Laurence King Publishing Ltd, 1998. born in the village of ...
, Korean Wikipedia (KO)
Kim Whanki Korean Art Multilingual Dictionary
Naver Cast - Whanki KimDoosan Encyclopedia - Whanki Kim*Brief biography of Kim Hwan'gi, in:
* Barry Schwabsky on the Kim Whanki exhibition at the
Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts
The Beaux-Arts de Paris is a French ''grande école'' whose primary mission is to provide high-level arts education and training. This is classical and historical School of Fine Arts in France. The art school, which is part of the Paris Science ...
, in:
Artforum
''Artforum'' is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art. The magazine is distinguished from other magazines by its unique 10½ x 10½ inch square format, with each cover often devoted to the work of an artist. Notabl ...
, Summer 1996
Korean Art Pioneer Kim Whan-kiAdvanced Technology & Design KOREA
Images from a Blog
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kim, Whanki
1913 births
1974 deaths
20th-century Korean painters
20th-century South Korean painters
South Korean contemporary artists
People from South Jeolla Province
Nihon University alumni
T.O.P