Kim Chungsook, Torso, 1962, wood, 97.8×32×24 cm. MMCA collection
Kim Chungsook
* Source: Multilingual Glossary of Korean Art. Korea Arts Management Service
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Welded sculpture
A welded sculpture is an art work created through the welding of different structural and material metal elements. Within Western art welded sculptures rose to fashion during World War II and the immediate post-war period, and this style of work was introduced to Korea in the 1950s, with many influential pieces debuting at the National Art Exhibition (Gukjeon) in 1957. These Korean welded sculptures often expressively attempted to highlight the materiality of metal, and dealt with the painful recent history of war and anxiety over contemporary Korean society, expressing political and social rage. The emergence of the experimental art and escape from Art Informel in the late 1960s encouraged artists to search for new and different styles, and welded sculpture as an art genre gradually disappeared. Song Youngsu, Oh Jong-uk, Park Chongbae, and Park Suk-won are representative artists in this welded sculpture genre.
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Korean Sculptress Association
An organization established in 1974, for the purpose of nurturing the creativity and protecting the rights of Korean women sculptors and contributing to the development of modern sculpture in Korea. The inaugural exhibition was held in 1974 at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art and the 33 artists that were featured included sculpture majors from Ewha Womans University, Seoul National University, and Hongik University. The goal of the group was to overcome the passive, self-limiting attitudes of women sculptors and to expand the sphere of their activities by building solidarity among women sculptors in a male-dominated field. Key members include Kang Bogyeong, Kang Seungju, Kim Gyeongmin, Kim Munyeong, Kim Sunim, Kim Yeon, Kim Jeongmi, Shin Eunsuk, Oh Gwiwon, Lee Saena, and Choi Eunjeong. The group continues today and holds annual exhibitions, invitationals, international exhibitions, and seminars.
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Department of Art at Hongik University
Established in 1949, the Department of Art at Hongik University consists of one art theory department and eleven practice-based departments, including painting, Oriental painting, printmaking, sculpture, woodworking and furniture design, metal art and design, ceramics and glass, textile art and fashion design, visual communication design, and industrial design. In 1955, it moved from Jongro-gu, Seoul to the current location in Sangsu-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul. The history of the College of Fine Arts can be largely divided into the period of the Department of Fine Arts from 1949 through 1953, the period of the School of Fine Arts from 1954 through 1971, and the period of the College of Fine Arts from 1972 until now. In March 1953, the Department of Fine Arts produced the first six graduates, and in the following year the School of Fine Arts with three departments was established. In December 1971, it was upgraded to a college, which exists up to the present. Several exhibitions organized by its graduates are notable, including the Four Artists Exhibition held in 1956 as the first anti-National Art Exhibition (Daehanminguk misul jeollamhoe or Gukjeon) by the third and fourth classes of graduates and the Union Exhibition of Korean Young Artists held in 1967 by graduates from the 1960s as an effort to realize experimental art.
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Modern and contemporary sculpture
The term “modern and contemporary sculpture” refers to sculptural works that go beyond conventional materials such as wood, marble, and bronze and the materialization of traditional realism, and adopts instead non-figurative representations and new materials from the industrialization era. As the development of Neo-dada, Pop Art, Minimalism, Land Art, and Conceptual Art gradually diminished the importance of genre and medium in the second half of the twentieth century, modern and contemporary sculpture became increasingly marginalized.
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Kim Chongyung
Kim Chongyung (1915-1982, pen name Wooseong) was born in Changwon, Gyeongsangnam-do. He began studying art when he met Chang Louis Pal, an art teacher, who graduated from Tokyo School of Fine Arts and Columbia University. Kim Chongyung learned classic Chinese and calligraphy and won the first prize in calligraphy among middle school students at the 3rd National Art Contest Exhibition for Students. His art was influenced by calligraphy techniques that he had learned from his father and his scholarly contemplation of humanity and nature. He graduated from the sculpture department at Tokyo School of Fine Arts and became a professor of sculpture at Seoul National University. In 1953, he participated an international competition to design a monument to The Unknown Political Prisoner at the Tate Gallery sponsored by the Institute of Contemporary Art in the U.K. He pioneered the profile of abstract sculpture within Korea by submitting his work, Bird to the National Art Exhibition. His experimental artwork reflected his interest in welded sculpture and his use of scrap iron and often featured similar patterns and forms that were consistently repeated yet not identical. Kim’s unique approach has been considered a consequence of his training in Oriental aesthetics, and his desire to adhere to natural forms and the esoteric practice of calligraphy within his modernist sculptural practice.
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Choi Manlin
Choi Manlin (1935-2020) was a first-generation sculptor who studied sculpture in post-liberation Korea, focusing on abstract sculpture. Born in Seoul, he graduated from the Sculpture Department in the College of Fine Arts at Seoul National University and received his MFA from the same university. He served as a professor in the College of Fine Arts at Seoul National University from 1967 through 2001 and as director of the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea (now MMCA) from 1997 through 1999. Choi submitted his works to several editions of the National Art Exhibition (Gukjeon) from 1949 through 1960 and took part in the Paris Biennale in 1965 and the São Paulo Biennale in 1969. In 1973, he held his first solo exhibition at Shinsegae Gallery, and a grand-scale retrospective on Choi was held at the MMCA in 2014. In 2019, the Choi Man Lin Museum opened in the space that the artist had used as a residence and studio for thirty years, upon renovation. As a middle school student, Choi Manlin submitted his work to the first National Art Exhibition in 1949 and received an honorable mention. However, it was only after he graduated from the university in 1958 and presented works in the form of series that his artistic activity began. His oeuvre is categorized by theses of his work. In the Eve series (1958–1965), Choi depicted the suffering and devastation of post-war society through a rough-skinned female figure named Eve or revealed a will to live with a female figure standing tall. Around 1965, he turned his attention to the search for the identity of Korean sculpture. He gave sculptural forms to Chinese characters in the Sun & Moon, Heaven & Earth, and Grace series, all of which explored the identity of Korean art especially in the wielding of ink and brush. In the Placenta and Vein series, which began around 1975, he took life as a theme and tried to visually represent it. The Dot series produced after 1987 and the O series created until his latter days show a status stylistically devoid of superfluousness. The thesis of O signifies reaching complete emptiness or state of mental liberation, in which nothing means anything. Choi’s oeuvre, which eliminates descriptive elements, is considered to have pursued Korean aesthetics based on an Eastern worldview.
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