The Second Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art exhibition catalogue (APT2)

Imagination, Ideal, and Reality Lives and works in Taejon, South Korea 64 I ARTISTS : EAST ASIA Untitled 1994 Synthetic polymer paint on canvas, paper, tables,dried mud, iron bar Three scrolls: 250x150cm Three tables:30x50x30cm Three baskets:30cm (diam.) Collection:The artist ~~ c 1'f i t~ w 1:• ~ :~* ~' -~* ,f l ,!_ 1 ~ < - lt• T.J ~ 1f, ~ it. i~ *~·'t ~ ,p> t ,~. tj ""* ·~·. -t~sjt ii~~1' ,-~:J Kim Hong-Joo is one of the few Korean painters to explore the intellectual possibilities of painting. His creativity and individuality deserve international recognition. Intellectual possibility and the artist's creative individuality are not confined within such boundaries as the Occident, the Orient, or South Korea. It is difficult for typically Korean art to draw international attention. When foreign artists, critics, or collectors mention Korean arts, they often refer to things 'Korean' or 'traditional'. Their reference to 'Koreanness' implies the condescending viewpoint that 'Korean' characteristics can compensate for lack of quality in a work of art. While admitting that cultural and regional differences have a significant influence on the critique of individual works of art, the visual arts can, however, claim an objective and universal estimation in a more positive way than other areas. For the authentic creative individuality of an artist links to the ability to transform. These days, the worldwide network of information reduces the significance of the impact of other places. What is foremost now in estimating quality is how much the impact is digested and transformed into its own realm.Therefore, Kim Hong-Joo is a painter who has succeeded in establishing his own visual language by transforming the conceptual aspects of Western contemporary art within the Asian or Korean tradition. The style of Kim Hong-Joo's painting stems from his thought on the essence of painting. He paints or draws lumps of clay in various forms against a void. His calligraphical paintings of clay against the void describe freshly harrowed clay on an irrigated rice field, which indicates the descriptive aspect of painting. The reality of painted images and the imaginative description that the reality creates signify the antinomy of visual-perception. It ultimately raises fundamental and idealistic questions about the essence of painting that are linked to imagination and reality. Kim Hong-Joo's intellectuality is not limited to the territorial boundary. A critique of a visual art work should be objective and universal. For example, a German critic recognises Kim Hong-Joo's quality and says: 'They (Kim's paintings) raise uncomfortable questions about appearance and reality, about objects and representation, questions about the relation of fullness to emptiness, of painted surface to unpainted surface, even questions about the possibility or probability- in this respect improbability-of images at all'. The condensed solidity of the forms in the artist's paintings stand out against the void around them. The void that envelopes form and content is a characteristic of Kim Hong-Joo's paintings which is rarely found either in Western or in Asian painting. The contrast between the Oriental void and the Western way of showing materiality dramatises the space and simultaneously emits conceptual power. The void in Kim Hong-Joo's paintings is more than a void. It claims its existence against the densely– painted parts of his paintings. The illusionistic space not only provides an illusionistic message to us, but also makes us alert to the artist's unemotional search for the essence of objects and his simple sense of form, which is connected to everyday life and therefore, easily understood. Based on this quality, Kim Hong-Joo's creativity well deserves international recognition. Young Mok Chung,Chair,DepartmentofPainting, Seoul National University, South Korea