Interrelation of Forms

 

1972, Variable installation (white cotton cloth, rope, wood), cloth 243X148cm, wood 31x31x31cm, the 1st ‘Indepandant Exhibition’ (the National Museum of Contemporary Art Korea, Duksu Palace, 1972), the National Museum of Contemporary Art Korea collection

 

 

Kang’s participation in the discussion of object art continued as he probed even deeper into the subject, pondering upon the mechanisms and relations of objects as individuals, objects vs. objects and human vs. objects. Locational and spatial matters were also carefully considered, which is self-evident in Kang’s use of ropes and large sheets of cloth. One could find an example of this in Kang’s experience of Japanese Mono-ha (for which Ufan Lee thought up the fulcrum), Arte Povera of Italy, Post Minimal Art and Supports/Surfaces of France, who all encountered each other at Paris Biennale. For Kang’s work consisted of components that enabled to the whole to be considered in the same context as the above art phenomena of different countries. At the first ‘Indepandant’ Exhibition for which Ufan Lee participated as the sole commissioner, Kang’s topological illation in this context was shown by his display of a work that consisted of a sizable wood piece(31x31x31cm) covered with a broad white-cotton cloth. To accentuate the counter paned wood, a rope is used to be wrapped around it to give a comparison between the wood and the sense of flatness of the floor, both of which are covered with the cloth. The configured shape of protrusion tells us that the different outer shapes are only the extensions of the same element – the cloth.This was when the European mannerism in creation of art and reductive analysis of selves came to make their own factions alongside with 1968 revolution that swept the planet. (Mikyung Kim / Professor of Art History at Kangnam University / Director of Korean Art Research Institute)