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拍品专文
I see repetition in terms of Buddhist prayer. You repeat and repeat until it blocks out all other thoughts, and you pass into an empty state. I have thought a great deal about my experiences during the way, and the water drops have become a requiem for the dead. For me, painting can be compared to an act of consolation towards the spirits of the dead, in the same way that one sprinkles water to protect the dead from evil spirits during a Buddhist purification ritual.
- Kim Tschang Yeul
Born in 1929, Kim Tschang-Yeul learned classical Chinese calligraphy and Asian philosophy from his grandfather. At the same time, Kim was exposed to Western art by his mother, who passionately encouraged his interest in the arts. Influenced by this early education, Kim majored in painting at the College of Fine Arts, Seoul National University, earning his B.F.A. in 1950. He resumed his study at the Art Students League of New York from 1965 to 1968. After completing the course in New York, Kim decided to move to Paris in order to practice his art in a new environment.
Settling in Paris in 1970, Kim developed his signature style and motif: the representation of the water drop. As he recalls, “I was fascinated by the possibilities of different effects of different shapes, sizes, and surfaces. My concerns were realistic. I wanted to be true to the physical appearance of the water drops and to the optical impressions they make.” For the catalogue of his solo exhibition at the Tokyo Gallery in 1988, he further explained, “I paint water drops because I want to dissolve everything inside them, and return to nothingness. Anger, anxiety, fear-I want them all to become emptiness.”
As ENS No 42 (Lot 60) featured here epitomizes, the droplets in Kim’s works are explicitly tied to the Buddhist notions of water as ritual, spiritual protection, and purification as a metaphor for the evanescence of life. His water drops represent a material manifestation of a monk-like devotion to enlightenment and thus brings the artist in harmony with himself and the world, as in a Buddhist monk’s repeated bows and chants in a meditative ritual. The water droplets in Kim’s paintings evoke the Buddhist theory that our concrete existence as a self is only an illusion and humans are all destined to disappear just as water droplets will evaporate. As Kim recalls, “I was struck by the emptiness, the nothingness of the water drop, and by its beaty in the fullness of its refraction and reflection of light, by its significance.”
A noted Korean art critic states on Kim’s paintings, “Kim gained immediate attention from the art world and the general public as soon as he introduced his water drop paintings for the first time in Korea in the early 1970s. Kim was invited to the numerous important exhibitions in Korea throughout the 1970s and 1980s. It is very interesting to recall that Kim’s realistic water drop paintings were included in the numerous exhibitions of Dansaekhwa, Korean monochrome paintings, which dominated the local art scene at that time. Surprisingly, he was hardly invited to the showcases of figurative paintings. It reflects that Kim’s painting was not regarded just as an image of water drops. The viewer reads his water drops as a conception not as a mere image.”
Kim’s work is the result of a search to find a new way of expressing ephemerality while also communicating the concrete sediment of time and history. His exquisite balance of two poles of ephemerality and concreteness and in between demonstrates his sharp conceptualism in existence of being and their relevance to its environment, but most certainly his passion and dedication that is evident in his philosophy and technical dexterity that further extends his art as, equally, his personal form of meditation. A former director of the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Daniel Abadie once commented “Far beyond the concept of constructing formal style, Kim contemplates the existence of human beings in the ephemeral world, their roles, the relations between human beings and culture, and the fundamental meaning of existence through his paintings.” Abadie’s comment evokes what Lewis Biggs, a former director at Tate Gallery stated, “Kim’s painting refer simultaneously to the actual, every day, concrete world and to the metaphoric, potentially cathartic world of his imagery.”
Kim’s works have been exhibited extensively around the world including the United States, France, Belgium, Germany, China, Japan, and his motherland Korea among many other nations. Selected venues are the Gwangju Museum of Art in Gwangju, Korea, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts in Taichung, Taiwan, National Art Museum of China in Beijing, China, Sakamoto Zenzo Museum of Art in Kumamoto, Japan, Tate Liverpool in Liverpool, England, Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume in Paris, France. Kim was awarded the Commandeur medal, the highest honour of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by French government in 1996.
- Kim Tschang Yeul
Born in 1929, Kim Tschang-Yeul learned classical Chinese calligraphy and Asian philosophy from his grandfather. At the same time, Kim was exposed to Western art by his mother, who passionately encouraged his interest in the arts. Influenced by this early education, Kim majored in painting at the College of Fine Arts, Seoul National University, earning his B.F.A. in 1950. He resumed his study at the Art Students League of New York from 1965 to 1968. After completing the course in New York, Kim decided to move to Paris in order to practice his art in a new environment.
Settling in Paris in 1970, Kim developed his signature style and motif: the representation of the water drop. As he recalls, “I was fascinated by the possibilities of different effects of different shapes, sizes, and surfaces. My concerns were realistic. I wanted to be true to the physical appearance of the water drops and to the optical impressions they make.” For the catalogue of his solo exhibition at the Tokyo Gallery in 1988, he further explained, “I paint water drops because I want to dissolve everything inside them, and return to nothingness. Anger, anxiety, fear-I want them all to become emptiness.”
As ENS No 42 (Lot 60) featured here epitomizes, the droplets in Kim’s works are explicitly tied to the Buddhist notions of water as ritual, spiritual protection, and purification as a metaphor for the evanescence of life. His water drops represent a material manifestation of a monk-like devotion to enlightenment and thus brings the artist in harmony with himself and the world, as in a Buddhist monk’s repeated bows and chants in a meditative ritual. The water droplets in Kim’s paintings evoke the Buddhist theory that our concrete existence as a self is only an illusion and humans are all destined to disappear just as water droplets will evaporate. As Kim recalls, “I was struck by the emptiness, the nothingness of the water drop, and by its beaty in the fullness of its refraction and reflection of light, by its significance.”
A noted Korean art critic states on Kim’s paintings, “Kim gained immediate attention from the art world and the general public as soon as he introduced his water drop paintings for the first time in Korea in the early 1970s. Kim was invited to the numerous important exhibitions in Korea throughout the 1970s and 1980s. It is very interesting to recall that Kim’s realistic water drop paintings were included in the numerous exhibitions of Dansaekhwa, Korean monochrome paintings, which dominated the local art scene at that time. Surprisingly, he was hardly invited to the showcases of figurative paintings. It reflects that Kim’s painting was not regarded just as an image of water drops. The viewer reads his water drops as a conception not as a mere image.”
Kim’s work is the result of a search to find a new way of expressing ephemerality while also communicating the concrete sediment of time and history. His exquisite balance of two poles of ephemerality and concreteness and in between demonstrates his sharp conceptualism in existence of being and their relevance to its environment, but most certainly his passion and dedication that is evident in his philosophy and technical dexterity that further extends his art as, equally, his personal form of meditation. A former director of the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Daniel Abadie once commented “Far beyond the concept of constructing formal style, Kim contemplates the existence of human beings in the ephemeral world, their roles, the relations between human beings and culture, and the fundamental meaning of existence through his paintings.” Abadie’s comment evokes what Lewis Biggs, a former director at Tate Gallery stated, “Kim’s painting refer simultaneously to the actual, every day, concrete world and to the metaphoric, potentially cathartic world of his imagery.”
Kim’s works have been exhibited extensively around the world including the United States, France, Belgium, Germany, China, Japan, and his motherland Korea among many other nations. Selected venues are the Gwangju Museum of Art in Gwangju, Korea, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts in Taichung, Taiwan, National Art Museum of China in Beijing, China, Sakamoto Zenzo Museum of Art in Kumamoto, Japan, Tate Liverpool in Liverpool, England, Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume in Paris, France. Kim was awarded the Commandeur medal, the highest honour of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by French government in 1996.