Monthly company magazine, Kumho Munhwa, April 1990

 

There is a white house next to a small church on the hillside near the eastern entrance into Seoul.
It somewhat resembles the kind of house that my mother used to talk about as part of her bedtime story. The local kids labeled it “the painter’s house’. The entry field’s baby grasses look ever so adorable and my visiting feels just like a boy sensing a balminess of the spring breeze.
The owner of the house is Kukjin Kang, ‘the painter of strokes’. My determination was to act with decorum, but soon the stiffness disappeared as I felt his crude warmness and the fireplace.

 

Kang has held overall 11 personal exhibitions featuring both 3- and 2-D, including the one last May.
He never strayed from his path towards line-stroke works for as long as 15 years, since 1973. His determined character to step up for challenge and experimental mind, however, took him away from the old realm to try another. Starting from 1987, and struggling through 88 and 89, he finally established his newly crafted [The Glow of History].
Kang has already digested the significance of what he started; moving from the line-to-structure creation to the new paradigm of a fresh large river, putting his past endeavor into bracket.

 

This new trial could be ascribed to the synthesis of his thinking process and past experiences, looking back upon his 15 years of investigating linearity, perhaps the most Korean mode of expression of all time. Kang wanted this style to be re-interpreted in Modern terms.
‘What I intended of showing in Garak series was the manifestation of our traditional way of artistic-ethnic demonstration, as well as articulating personal view on top of it, thereby trying to exploit the possibility of revealing disposition of a person living the modern times. And the medium was the strokes, rather than painting. Those junctures, created in a certain pattern dependant on the pattern in which linear strokes are put, overall make up a structure stretching out towards the limit of the canvas. In other words, the screen ? or canvas ? of linearity is the subject of the purpose to succeed in expressing dispositional manifestation of flat platform. Of course, the term manifestation is used as a general point of reference as to describing my fusion with the collective things. My intention was to promote coexistence between supporting elements (canvas, colors and the condition of flatness) as a single body with the sense of structuring.’

 

Wide range of colors from green, light brown, umber to purple, cobalt, crimson lake and oak was used in the linearity works. Lines were repeatedly drawn as many times as it could fill the whole space. Kang’s inserting of lush range of images (hillside, wavy line, symmetrical lines, kite shapes, or on occasions natural features such as mountain and trees) on top of the surface of linear peculiarity helps to articulate the figure of theme, alluding inheritance of tradition.

 

One wonders what thoughts are in Kang’s mind pursuing transition to The Glow of History from the Garak series. It may well be the spiritual manifestation of linearity by unification of linear structure and the nature of flatness. It is desired by Kang to sublimate the spirit of ethnic collectiveness and the peculiarity of supporting elements into linearity structure.

 

So justifiably, the inception of such sublimation happens at the end of Garak series. And as the transition meets full conversion, in 1987 he releases The Flow of Light at the invitational lithography exhibition held at Ujung museum.

 

[The Flow of Light is to reveal the cross-section of the process leading up to deconstructing linearity structure. Thus it is my effort to deliver some kind of message from such procedure. What comes after the introduction these thoughts is The Glow of History, for which I have segmented the canvas in to two, one on the left and the other on the right, to bestow traditional images such as horse rider, mythical rock, amulet eagle, or Buddhist statue to the left segment, and natural figures such as forest, flowers, rainbow and general landscapes. This scene combined with insertion of rectangle, circular and symmetrical shapes gives certain narratives. This procedure does three things: it embodies the linear structure I cogitated until then; daringly undoes minutely distribution of lines; and gives a contrast between subjects on both sides of the canvas to make ‘narratives of formatives’. Putting it more simply, the horserider for example on the left is not there to show the horse rider itself; it is there to enable the observer to understand and cognize comparative relationship with the landscape on the right.]

 

Art critic Bokyoung Kim describes The Glow of History as following:

 

These narrative structures are significantly different in many manners from the structure of line-rhythm. It is crystallization of synthesis of contrary positions of present vis-a-vis past, brightness with darkness, complicated towards simplicity, old versus new. This type of synthesis is done via the use of plain colored surface and a glimpse of linear delineation, or bright versus dark. With respect to contrasting the complicated to simplicity, he builds narrative structure by drawing a simple outline of a Buddhist statue in the middle of a perplexing background in green.

 

Kang’s intention for more changes was evident in more specific, more formative orientation. It was this intention that gave a sort of shock-absorbing effect in taking a counter-provision to the linearity series in his own terms. It was also to avoid falling completely for the mere attractiveness of linearity and structural forte by turning away from expression on flatness to narrative structures, a shift that creates honest dialogue about the artist’s inspirations and experiences.
In order to gain a deeper understanding of his work ? from line and rhythm to <The Glow of History> - we shall now take a look at his developmental path as a person.

Kang was born in 1939 on Jinju, Kyungsangnam province. His building of dream was not so much of a struggle due to his father who was a civil servant at a state-owned government monopoly company.
He claims that he had never been a natural talent, starting his painting properly from middle school. The first experience of painting came as the government at the time enforced educational policy that enabled students to learn at least one technicality. More formal lessons were taken as he went to high school before becoming apprenticed to Indoo Ha, a teacher at Kyungnam Girl’s high school.
[My mother’s support was very important to me. Painters were dubbed dauber at the time, but my mother nevertheless offered all she could to augment and capitalize on my talent. The deceased Teacher Ha was also an immense influence on my life. He at the time of high school worked weekdays, so I had to visit him for lessons on afternoon on weekends. Such routine was regularized and got into stride when I entered Chungmaek atelier.
After high school thought, I decided to remain in Busan to study, thinking one doesn’t need a formal post-secondary education to be a good painter. For 4 years after the high school graduation, I tried various methods such as dessin, oil painting and silkscreen. But then, I had a few friends coming down for vacations, telling me stories about their lives at universities which made me feel left behind somehow. That’s when I decided to end self-learning and move to Seoul for the formal education. I of course had to work during my whole college life putting up posters and advertisements done in silkscreen because of our family’s financial difficulties.]

 

The time of confusion and political upheaval was 1961 when he entered university. Having learned dessin skills and other required methods, he determines to spend more time working for living rather than concentrating fully on formal teaching schedules. Other fellow students he worked with are such as Chasub Kim and Hyunggi Park. As he reached his 3rd year at university he started giving up more portions of work for new academic priorities, the time which he found out about western Informel works, though even vaguely admiring the idea behind them and trying to understand the idea of Abstract Expressionism.

 

[I only graduated at the age of 29. I once tried to take the rostrum as a teacher, but I wasn’t sure about my temper. I ended up starting a new painting class. But I could barely pay off my house bills. That’s when I started yet another for designing of small interior of cafes in Myungdong. However, the situation still had a lot of room for improvement, and I realized it was time to make a serious living out of my talent, eventually opening a business called ‘Space designer’. But this one again failed to satisfy the standard, primarily because of late payments of balances and of our drinking mates visiting so often. We did show window displays, decorations and others. I though designed my own house based on my learning during this period. I ultimately ended up moving to Hapjungdong.]

 

For Kang, his time in Hapjungdong means a lot of things, because of their invitation of Sangyoo Kim and Sanguk Lee to introduce a professional class for workshop printing, the first of its kind in the country. Kim in fact brought him into the realm of printing as he recommended him to pursue the method concerning his potential and talent which he already had for silkcreens. He started working with Kulim Kim to make printing machines by looking for resources in print houses and instrument factories. The first ever professional painting lesson commenced in 1967 with other associates. Kang did not resort just to printing, but also other 3-D works and happenings. ‘Chungnyun jakka yeunlipjun’ (Exhibition of young artist’s union) provided a stage for the young emerging artists including Kang to present their 3-Ds and performances. On this particular charter, Junsang Yoo puts:

 

The vestige of human could be explained as a mark left of a strong, random blow down on the ground with a hoe. Traces like this would make up ? to put it delicately - a part of history and they are created repeatedly and continuously. No one in our history has ever come up with the idea that one should or actually does think to imagine the shape of the mark or in what form or shape the deed should be done.

 

And such argument has been the case for our ancestors. In this reference, Kang’s marks are the result of happening performances that may seem barbaric and ancient, but it is clear that he knows by instinct that civilization itself may also be a concoctive fiction, where such notion brings about a doubt that barbaric deeds are in fact ‘actual’ (or they chatter like it is a reality).
Kang tried happening performances as he joined ‘Noncol’ in 1965 as a founding member. His belief in experimentalism spurred from valorous courage that he had as he looked back on himself to try different experiments. At the same time, his desire to move forward with radical and innovative mind gives birth to the sense of subsistence. All these are to say that Kang’s motivation is to move beyond the present, enabling him to be multifarious in creating various forms of expression. His direction then revolves back to print from 3-D to leave mark of his work in 2-D in 1969.

 

[I went through many phases of experiments until the line works of 1974. Those attempts of 3-D and environmental art were done with materials I used back in the past part-time jobs. To go beyond Informel, I pursued 2-D, eventually reaching the stage of linearity and rhythm themes. Even though it was somewhat belated, I felt necessary to convey messages concerning our own traditions, something that I could not get from Informel or happening. This process at the end bore the seed of Garak series, The Flow of Light and The Glow of History].

 

Kang’s focus is on placing meaning on the fundamentals of painting that prioritizes the deed of painting itself instead of producing a manipulated works of sleights; he says that ‘the canvas is just a flat plain surface covered with colors’. Both the calculated and randomly created construction is a form of self-expression, but the body of intellectual discernment is the artist, which was the reason for his receptive stance for different modus operandi; simply, an open-mindedness.

 

Those who see his works may argue that such mode of working shuns definitive and specific consideration, possibly hampering communication with the audience. [I think a lot about how long I could hold myself up. This thought extends to the point at which I considered deconstruction so as to give any explanations for my own path of pursuit, as I near the end of operation. I came up with the idea which eventually materialized in The Glow of History, an entity in which I can build a dialogue with the audience. If linearity method was a one-way conversation, The Glow of History is all about applying one’s own thoughts into the other’s/]

 

There are formulated conceptions in The Glow of History. Kang’s position seems well-suited for attracting absolutely anything necessary for creating the work, for he reckons the specific configuration is just another element of appearance in the screen. This means line and surface are being considered the same elemental constituents ? even though they appear in the form of an object ? and become integrated with each other within the whole body of expression, as he put it, through the means of ‘antithesis of no compensation’, making painterly elements come equal to each other.

According to the convention, though, cognitive pattern on human is built with temporal and spatial formality. It is in fact this Gestalt-type static cognitive measure that carries temporal-spatial confrontation and rules, a constitutional principle common in many parts of art history. Modern artists however do not follow such principles, for their focus is not on discovering a perspective in structural or formative patterns undeniable, unlike traditional artists who follow one-time analogies of various thoughts.

 

[I anticipate many criticisms, and unfortunately I do not have the vision of my future paths just yet. But I believe as these progresses take place I will be able to figure out my own perspective worthy of a philosophical landmark along with my personal satisfaction.]

 

It is well-understood by the Modern artists that there are no teachers for the scenario or context of developmental paths to the outcome. Thus artists throw themselves into the inner flow of the picture, balancing themselves within it to grope. This also makes them organize themselves so as to gauge the gap, way of moving or velocity towards the ultimate goal; much like a man trying to swim his way to his destination in the middle of an ocean.

Artists haven’t been exempted from this frugality; artists may even be more sensitive and responsive to it. So his anticipation of hardship and criticism is fully justified, because he is sure to cut himself off from the past experiences and challenge them, simultaneously putting himself into the realm of the undiscovered. He does not like to dwell in the past, but moves forward with his spirit of experimentalism.
Kang is at the moment teaching at Hansung University, having begun his professorship only in 1978.

[The professorship was very helpful in making my painting life comfortable, although I had almost no dime left after paying for painting room and materials. I finally made it to get my own house in 1984. My wife was immensely supportive throughout this period.]

 

Kang’s biggest achievement is his contribution to printing education and diffusion of technique that later became an orthodox. [Our printing could be dubbed ancient and primitive. The recent rise in attention and participation in professional printmaking is promising, but the works themselves are unfortunately too uniform and standard. This means the mode and style of expression is far from multifarious. The way the print artists of our generation operate is too tied up with their own individual sphere, perhaps coming from our traditional virtue. Such trend however should be reversed by trying new methods of expression, lending us another question of how to get closer to the audience.]

 

An artist worthy of her/his title would breathe through specified philosophy and spirit of one’s own creation. If this wasn’t the case, the art can only be a deceiving fabrication, which Kang refutes as he shows no sign of ‘desire to make temporary changes for the sake of changing’ or ‘impulsively crafted fanciful novel’ said by Rudolf Arnheim.

 

As he has demonstrated throughout the 15-year period of linearity and rhythm work, in The Glow of History, he breaks down the conventional concept of the established to make new creations, but never totally destroys or abandons the subject but rather penetrating through the subject according to his own conviction.

 

There are barriers to progress that are both risky and time-consuming. But success is sure to follow if those barriers are overcome. There were tons of resonances in me after the interview with Kang. I even miss the sentiments that he emitted when he told me to get a sleepover.