작업 소개

57STUDIO는 국립현대미술관의 열린강좌 프로그램 중 미술관 소장품 강좌 시리즈를 제작하였습니다. 윤범모 관장이 직접 작품을 설명하는 형식으로 구성하였으며, 실제 교육 현장에서 효과적인 학습 자료로 활용될 수 있도록 제작되었습니다. 또한, 어느 장면을 캡처하더라도 교육 자료로서의 기능이 충실히 전달될 수 있도록 화면을 구성하였습니다. 이 시리즈는 작가 12명의 작품을 조명하며, 매주 수요일 YouTube LIVE를 통해 공개되었습니다.

57STUDIO produced the Museum Collection Lecture Series as part of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art’s (MMCA) open lecture program. The series was structured in a format where Director Yoon Bum-mo personally explains each artwork, ensuring its effectiveness as a valuable educational resource for use in learning environments.

The videos were designed so that every frame could function as an informative material, regardless of where it was captured. This series highlights the works of 12 artists and was released weekly via YouTube LIVE every Wednesday.

Kim Whanki, Rondo, 1938

Today, we’ll look at the work entitled Rondo painted by Kim Whanki. In the 1930s, abstract art came to the fore in the Korean art scene. Before that, ‘Academism,’ a style that focuses on the literal representation of objects, had been the mainstream. ‘Abstract painting,’ one that pursues the essence of an object emerged as the new wave. The pioneers of abstract painting in the 1930s are a group of artists including Kim Whanki (1913-1974) and Yoo Youngguk (1916-2002). They developed this new style of painting in Tokyo. In particular, international students acquired a new style of art at an art school named the Culture Academy and the Avant-Garde Western Painting Research Institute.

While studying in Tokyo, Kim Whanki learned the foundation of art at the Avant-Garde Western Painting Research Institute. At the institute, there were also painters like Fujida Tsuguji (藤田嗣治, 1886-1968) who had returned from France. In a biography of painter Kim Byungki entitled Painting for a Hundred Years, I introduced a photograph of the times. It shows Kim Whanki and Kim Byungki (son of painter Kim Chan-yeong, 1916~). Most international students attended the Tokyo School of Fine Arts. Being a government school, the school followed the highly conservative painting style known as ‘Academism.’ Artists like Yoo Youngguk, Kim Whanki, and Kim Byungki were able to pursue a new style because they didn’t attend the Tokyo School of Fine Arts. It seems that Kim’s work Rondo was a product of such an environment.

As the title Rondo suggests, it is a work based on musicality. We can see a shape implying a grand piano and figures are expressed who seem to be appreciating music. Since the work did not describe objects realistically, viewers can interpret the work in their own way. Also, the painting emphasized curves considerably. While it shows an artistic arrangement of curves and straight lines, it captures the characteristics of the curves in the painting. At the same time, Kim arranged primary colors like yellow and blue softly and skillfully on the canvas, resulting in an excellent composition. It is very suggestive that Kim left a work like Rondo at the beginning of his career as an artist in the 1930s. It is a pity that there currently exists very few works of this period. But documents say that many artists presented works with the theme of music at that time.

Being a great writer, Kim pursued art that resonated with literature.Rondo is a work of his youth that focused on music in such a literary background. Kim experimented and pursued various painting styles and philosophies of art. We can see it in an illustration of Kim’s work entitled Sailing through the Channel that was submitted to the exhibition of an artist group named Baekmanhoe. It is found alongside the illustration of Rondo. The work depicts a ship at anchor in the harbor, drawn in a slender brush. It looks so exceptional that it is difficult to believe that the same artist painted the work.

While pursuing abstract painting from the mid to late 1930s, Kim engaged with a realistic style at the same time. In the 1940s, the 1950s, and the 1960s, he presented a new art that was based on the literati spirit. He was remarked to be ‘a literati artist with an oil painting brush.’ Settling in New York in the mid-1960s, he consistently worked on the ‘dot series.’

Kim is from an island called Gijwado (currently Anjwado, Shinan, Jeollanam-do). The painting style of his later period opened with the dot series. At that time, he produced a series showing blue colors. He marked hundreds of thousands of dots, mainly in different tones of blue, as if he had moved the stars in the night sky to the canvas. Focusing on the dot series, he continued to work in the art scene of New York. As an aside, in the Korean art market, Kim’s dot series holds the record of the highest-priced artwork at an auction. It means that he is the artist whose works are sold at the highest price. Of course, he is recognized in the international art market as well.

As an intellectual during the Japanese occupation period, he tried to discover new art.
Living a nomadic life, moving from Shinan, Jeollanam-do to Seoul, from Seoul to Paris, and from Paris to New York, he continuously realized a new painting style. He reveals his unique life as a painter, moving from realistic depictions to so-called semi-abstract works in the form of figurative painting that is reminiscent of literati painting, and eventually to pure abstraction. Rondo, painted by Kim Whanki, a pioneer artist of Korean abstract painting in the 1930s,
is a much-loved artwork in the MMCA collection.