The Crossroad that Points Both Back and Forwards
Thalia Vrachopoulos, Ph.D
Gallery Korea to celebrate the centennial of Korean immigration to the United
States. Featuring artists working in and around New York since the 1970s and
1980s, Crossroad focused
on their diversity and “Korean-Americaness.” Eunhee Yang, the show’s curator, asserts in the press
release that the Korean cultural memory of these artists continues to inform
their work to some degree thematically and formally, in spite of their
proximity to western culture. These artists immigrated to the U.S. and chose to
live in New York not only for to its burgeoning art world but also because of
the freedom of expression that afforded them the dignity with which to pursue
their chosen profession. These hybrid citizens are always struggling to
harmonize their constantly converging and diverging influences while trying to
prevent critics from labeling their works as “Korean-American.”
style="mso-spacerun: yes">
Crossroad in New York was a smaller venue of the show— Dreams and
Reality
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> at the Smithsonian’s S. Dillon Ripley
Center— that took place this past fall and was slated to travel to L.A.
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> While space was plentiful and more
works by individual artists were featured in Washington D.C., the newly
renovated gallery in New York showed a smaller amount of works but added two
more artists. Nevertheless the effect was strikingly elegant and fresh both in
its economical installation style
and its tenor.
The purpose of these two celebrations of Korean
immigration was to expand the boundaries of Korean-American art’s reception, to
rehabilitate the narrow parameters within which it has been considered by
western critics. However, by its very composition being referred to as
“Korean-American art” and then by
its subtitle Korean-American Contemporary Art the
show almost succeeded in accomplishing the opposite.
The question of globalism/nationalism
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> was bandied about long before Marshall
McLuhan wrote about the global village, yet artists are still searching for
ways to accommodate personal and ethnic concerns into their work while
maintaining its global relevance. One is tempted to ask whether this particular
show’s artists can bear comparison to those of global significance;
fortunately, the answer for many viewers was absolutely yes.
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> The concepts considered in the work
were rich, and the technique masterful.
An artist like Sookjin Jo creates assemblages from found objects that by
their very nature are richly embedded with personal and historical
significance. Then she takes this detritus of daily life, composed of old
doors, floorboards, shoe stretchers, and cuts it up, assembling it into
palimpsests of experiences that are also powerful emblematic structures. Some
of the pieces already contain color before being added to the construction, but
Jo also paints other parts to add an aesthetic element as a signifier of her
art. Her ideas are engaging and are conveyed by the collective attitude
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> of her work; and she underlines the
oneness and interconnectedness of all creation that she has learned as a Korean
who was raised Taoist. At the same
time, she synthesizes these notions with the western or personal element by
incorporating personalized historical elements into her handiwork and in the quality
of her chosen materials. In her assemblage We Are All in One
style=’font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Verdana’>, III, 2000 (49.75”x46.25”, mixed
media on wood, metal bars) Jo deals with synthesis/disparity,
wholeness/fragmentation, oneness/disparity and with diversity within the
wholeness of collective beauty. She juxtaposes natural materials with colored
objects, and uneven forms with geometric ones. Jo allows the right side of the
work plenty of breathing space while she skillfully appends the left with a
variety of shapes. Jo’s work
contains a strong contemplative element in its synthesis whose meditative-ness
reiterates spiritual resonance.
Another artist in this show worthwhile mentioning is Po
Kim. While he has engaged in three
different styles simultaneously throughout his life, he is most suitably
discussed here for his contributions to abstraction. His three small pieces
included in Crossroad were powerful exercises in abstract expressionist gesture and
calligraphy. By 1955, Kim had already developed from his contact with Zen and
Abstract Expressionism into an abstract style featuring calligraphic gestural
movement. Jeffrey Wechsler,
a curator at the Zimmerli Museum of Art, has spoken of Kim’s contribution to
Abstract Expressionism as primarily his use of the strong colors associated
with Korean folk art. However, Kim’s significance is more complex and lies in
his works’ powerful impact, through his use of gesture. There is a sublimity,
balance of control and instinctual movement present in these works that evince
an immediacy seldom felt through the work of a less expert hand. These works
are jewels of virtuosity that signify Kim’s forthright attitude and lifetime
dedication to art.
Sungho Choi works with issues of identity and
multiculturalism in America as well as global politics. He creates
site-specific sculptures that explore issues of identity in multi-ethnic
societies and also touch upon the separation of North and South in Korea. His work American Pie
style=’font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Verdana’>, 1996 (22’ in diameter, silkscreen
print, acrylic paint, plywood) accesses newspapers, text, paint and collage
techniques and uses them to
configure its target. Through various news articles and their overall
integration within his work, he examines cultural relationships that run in
cyclical patterns ergo the circular motif. He collects these writings,
formulates them into language systems and signifies their meaning through
interaction, while seeking “alchemic discoveries in this process.” American
Pie offers us the
artist’s personal view of this country and its relationship to the world in a
rich and multi-racial conglomeration
that defines the composition of America. Yet, there is an element within Choi’s
work that, like Jo’s, relates to the underlying wholeness and unity of all.
Overall this show was better than many in the past, and
the galleries have been newly renovated and freshened up to accommodate this
array of works. A very nice catalogue accompanies the show with an essay by
Wolhee Choe, a literary historian who argues that the featured artists
challenge Korean aesthetic traditions by creating art in new ways and by
leaving Korea to expand their horizons. Indeed some of the artists did exactly
that, but others are still in need of developing their style. The weakest link
associated with this last comment is its inability in some of these works to
successfully convey the artist’s concept and on the part of a few of its
members to leave behind their modernist grounding in order to develop further
conceptually.
