Bokyoung Kim
(Art Critic, Professor of Hongik University)

1.
On the eve of the third year since Kukjin Kang passed away I am filled with admiration toward and am pleased to see a book of his paintings with his retrospective being printed without the efforts of those who valued his art and his honest simple nature his works might have been kept in oblivion.
Now that his works have come to light I feel deeply moved by them and a question comes to my mind; what is life and art?
In writing about his works which he contributed during his final years, from the 1980’s to the early 1990‘s, I especially want to focus on the 1980’s during which he spent his 40s. It was in these days that his early efforts from the 1960s to the 1970s at which time he was in his 20s and 30s, had born their fruits.
In order to understand his natured works, from the 1980s to the 1992s we need to comprehend what was the origin of his early thoughts that flowed throughout his whole life and how these thoughts developed and influenced his works during the time period of the 1980s to the 1990s. This will help us to understand his fundamental thoughts and how they continuously drove his life.

 

2.
First of all, I would like to explain what his fundamental thoughts that sustained his life were. Like most artists, Kang also seemed to form his fundamental thoughts during his early life. In 1965, at the age of 25, he finished his academic studies. After graduating he along with several colleagues, founded a coterie group dubbed ‘Noncol’.
Kang says, and I quote, “The object of my work is originated from an infinite immanent mind. Emotion is the necessary fruit of an inner desire. Only when I face up to my mind is it possible to express my specific emotion. A strong line, a heated background and the passionate emotion that from the infinite signal forms exploded through a negative world are to be expressed and formed in my canvas.”
When he wanted to say with his writing can be largely summed up to as two elements: his specific inner emotion and together with a background (the surface of a canvas); forms structured by signs, Kang focused on the manifestation for which his works were intended. For this he used lines, a background and form.
It is significant that Kang’s early thought were far more evolved than this. He said, “New vision is to be formed and a pattern is to be created. They must have their roots in the Korean tradition. Denial to every traditional trend, new thoughts and the searching for a new order are my attitudes towards works of art. Our young artists have to create a new trend, getting away from the old way of thinking. I think that this is not only my duty but our responsibility. Not holding onto the ways of the past, our continuous searching for something new can accomplish this mission.” These words deliver the comprehensive setting for which he intended. The words to create a new vision, a pattern, and to search for a new trend and a new order, if reconsidered in today’s point of view, can be interpreted as the new ‘historicism’ in order to create the ‘Korean trend’.
To Kang’s fundamental thought, which was consistent without any change from the 1960s to the 1980s, the new historicism, that has their root based on Korean nature and the above two mentioned elements, can be as the principles of the new modernism. This means that he tried to interpret the spirit of modernism in our own historical contents, rather than by foreign influence.
We know that he established such basic attitudes in the mid?1960s during the period of his early works. He had consistently pushed this concept toward from his first private exhibition (Myungdong Gallery in Seoul) in 1973, to his last exhibition (Art Center in Seoul) in 1989. This is shown well by the comments made by Sungrok Suh, “when I first saw the works of Kukjin Kang, I was glad to find the structural unity of planes in his works. I could apparently see his self confidence in the way that he was not afraid of the challenges and the changes needed to break off his formal bounds. He seemed to seek for the consistent them by contrasting the modern with the traditional. His works deprive us of the natural expectation from paintings. By turning over our ideas by what we believe paintings should be: sincere, pure and elegant, his works refresh our understanding about aesthetic values. We can confirm that his works are based on the doubts about elegant modernism and the dissatisfaction with the simple structure of planes and the sarcasm against elitism. In this point, the “intentional revolt” may be another valuable fruit from his paintings that Kang accomplished.” (Exhibition Highlight, Monthly art magazine, Wolgan Misul, June 1989)
Adding to the above statement I believe that Kang needed to pass a trial period during his search for the way he truly believed about art during the period from 1960s to the 1970s.
I would like to insist that in the 1980s he needed this time period filler his thoughts in order to get a firmer conviction on the way he would express himself through art. This mid-period included (‘Noncol’ exhibition) from 1965 to 1966, ‘Chungnyun jakka yeunlipjun’ in 1967, performances from 1967 to 1970, Exhibition ‘Independant’and ‘Muhandae Jun’ in the early 1970s and ‘Seoul Bangbub Jun’ the 1980s. It can be noted that the accomplishments in his life had been completed through all these events. From now on, let’s take a deeper look at his accomplishments he made in the 1980s.

 

I had already summed up his accomplishments, when I commented on all of Kang’s works in the 1980’s on the occasion of his last solo exhibition in 1989. I stated as follows; “The reason that I want to put a special focus in Kukjin Kang is that he was the pioneer responsible for forming Korean modern art in the 1970’s. From around 1987, he tried to carefully transform himself. He shows the model transformation of the artist in his 50s” (monthly magazine Space, July 1989)
This comment was to reveal the implication of Light of History which was exhibited at his 11th solo exhibition in 1989. I intended to apprehend what was the essence of his art in the 1980s
“Light of History, the theme which he continued to adapt from the late 1980’s until 1992, when he died, originated from the renovated Karak series that his 15years of searching work was condensed into. To comment on the works of his late period, made during the 1980s, and of his maturity, we should take into account the interrelationship between the Light of History and the Karak series.
My contribution to Kang’s private exhibition in 1989 fits in with my purpose of this writing. So I will here quote my contribution without any change, for the analysis of Kukjin Kang’s arts of the 1980s.
‘An artist, Kukjin Kang, has finally tried his new transformation on the occasion of his 11th exhibition. Since the year of 1973 when he hosted his first solo exhibition Kang has continued devoting his efforts to the linear work, for 15 years, and has finally conceived a new method. Having dreamed of this transformation from the year of 1987, Kang has completed the dream.
His recent work, Light of History, shows the first experimental result from his new idea. These works are much different from the Karak series, which is one of his liner works that he had practiced up to 1985.
Kang puts his works of 10 years in parentheses and starts to seek for the light of history in order to make the new plan for his present and future.
His new work entitled Light of History implies his own insight of history, which finished his linear works of 15 years. It is significant that he got the insight at the end of his efforts to express ‘Linearity’ in a modern style. He believed that ‘Linearity’ is the tradition or the essence of Korean art.
What the Karak series shows us through the questions concerning the modern expression of linearity is that the ‘linearity’ is revealed by our unique national character and can be manifested by a particular ‘individual’ who lives in a specific time, ‘the present’. To express this possibility inside his works, Kang used the repetition of ‘drawing’ instead of painting.
With this repetition of drawing, he formed the whole ‘structure’ of a plane by the joints of the lines that were drawn up and down with various colors. He used almost every color; green, light brown, amber, bright purple, cobalt, cream and ocher.
On a plane he kept drawing as many lines as he could to fill the plane with them. His idea that a linear structure decides the structure of a canvas bore a fruitful result. It is that the ‘linear properties’ get more remarkable when hills or ridgelines, schematized broken lines, symmetrical lines, lozenges, sometimes mountains and trees, and some of our traditional cultural properties are disposed at the background of a linear structure.
The plane structure formed by linear properties was intended to successfully express plane properties through lines, In the respect that this expression is to unite the collective properties into the individual ones. I believe it is one of the general methods of self?expression through the structural union of all the supporting materials like a linear structure and the canvas that supports the linear structure, colors and a plane.
The Karak series are the works accomplished by this method. What is the insight that Kang found in himself for the Light of History? It is the expression of the spirit of linearity by the union of a linear structure and a plane structure.
This means that the national collective spirit or an artist’s particular character is able to be successfully manifested ‘in reality’ by transforming the characters of supporting materials into the characters of a linear structure.
Light of History starts from the foundation originated from the Karak series. Its transition process can be found in his Flows of Light series that was exhibited at the Lithograph Exhibition held at Woojung Gallery in 1987. The characteristic aspect of this work was to break off the usual exquisite linear structure and to express the more spontaneous and accidental effects by the complex elements like short and heavy irregular lines, circles, squares, lozenges, and points.
Flow of Light apparently disorganized the structure of Karak series. With this disorganization Kang intended to develop the Light of History into the story structure.
Therefore, the Light of History shows the procedure to disorganize the structure of the Karak which is seen in the Flow of Light and the effort to transform that procedure into the structure of narration. The Procedure of disorganization seems to reproduce his trend of ‘Informality’ in the 1960’s. He analyzed the linear structure of exquisite lines by rough lines into which he introduced the areal elements like triangles and squares. The atmosphere shows that nature and an accidental happening is useful to produce the best result, accompanying some playful elements.
The process that a narrating procedure is succeeded by a disorganizing procedure divides a canvas into two parts. At the left side a cavalry image, rocks that are found in the Korean traditional paintings, an eagle and a Buddhist image are drawn. At the right side, trees, flowers, rainbows, colorful woods and landscapes are drawn by using the more complex figures associated with triangles, squares, circles, curves and diagonals.
Such a procedure appears to realize the various colored linear structure. But in reality breaking off the usually linear structure it tries to organize, Story of Form, by contrasting the past (at the left side) with the present (at the right side). The cavalry image is just to better represent the past. The landscape at the right side is to better represent the present.
The structure organized by the Story of Forms shows that the ‘formal structure’ of the usual lines was transformed into the structure of story and image. The story structure is basically realized through the searching for the union of contrasts: the past vs. the new. In some cases, it shows a simple color contrast accompanying colors and a few lines without any images ? this is intended to specially signify the contrast and the union of brightness and darkness.
In the other case, by drawing a Buddhist image on the green background at the left side, in order to express the simplicity of contemplating figure and by positioning the contrastive complex images at the other side, he is trying to synthesize the simplicity and the complexity of the story structure.
He said, “I tried to introduce concrete things and formative things to seek for more transformations than as before. The artist’s real intention has already reached the value opposed to what the Karak series pursued. He intends to describe his experiential reality through the lingual structure that lightly, but honestly, narrates the artist’s experience; an inspiration of the subconscious without being simply attracted to a structural merit of the attraction of a linear structure. It was possible by converting the usual plane structure into the story structure.
Kukjin Kang tries to accomplish another historical transformation through a difficult process. It is an adventure for anyone to try a fundamental transformation.
Though there is the risk of trial and error, many trials to overcome the risk should lead him to success.
With the intention to complete his linear works of 15 years and to re?transform himself, he released Light of History. I expect that it will show his recent success to us.” (The Introduction contributed to Kang’s solo exhibition in May of 1989)
This article, I think, showed Kang’s life works synthetically. If the unexpected death had not come to him in 1992 probably he would have concentrated himself more on the completion of his works.
Concluding this article, I would like to draw your attention on to the fact that his fundamental and principal thoughts in his early times had continued to flow throughout his whole life.
As he was broad and mild minded, his art was also liberal and honest too. He accepted what he could accept, discarded what believed needed to be thrown away. We have to remember that his nature was to live in the ‘Korean heart’.

I am very glad and relieved to see his book of paintings along with his retrospective, come to light on the third year after his death. Praying for the repose of his soul, I would like to reflect on our friendship once again.

 

* Chungnyun jakka yeunlipjun’ : ‘Exhibition of young artist’s union’
* ‘Muhandae Jun’ : ‘Exhibition of Infinity’
* ‘Seoul Bangbub Jun’ : ‘Seoul Exhibition of Method’