HWANG YOUNG-SUNG PAINTING BEYOND THE GRID by Gallery Shchukin

HWANG YOUNG-SUNG PAINTING BEYOND THE GRID

New York, 2015

Hwang Young-Sung: painting beyond the grid All rights reserved © 2015 Hwang Young-Sung © 2015 Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath www.artreoriented.com © 2015 Gallery Shchukin www.galleryshchukin.com © 2015 LittleSky

Curators Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath Exhibition Coordinators Esra Joo and John Koo Catalogue Coordinator Nadezda Preobrazhenskaya Catalogue Designer Elena Rudenko Translator Benjamin Sigelman Producer Dmitry Shchukin No part of this catalogue may be reproduced, transmitted or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Printed and bound in the U.S. First edition Paperback edition ISBN: 978-0-578-16434-2

This catalogue is published in conjunction with the exhibition of artist Hwang Young-Sung: painting beyond the grid at Gallery Shchukin, New York from May 28, 2015 to June 24, 2015

INTRODUCTION

It is Gallery Shchukin’s honor to present the works of Hwang YoungSung. The native of Gwangju has achieved recognition through numerous art exhibitions both in his homeland of South Korea and abroad. However, this is only his second show in the United States, following a debut exhibition at Parsons School of Design, which demonstrated an interpretation of the phylogenetic visual code in Asian culture, and his premier solo exhibition in New York. Hwang Young-Sung was born in 1941 and has enjoyed a long, rich career spanning several decades, starting in South Korea in the 1960s, receiving awards as early as 1967 and becoming established in the early 1970s. Since the 1980s, he has drawn the attention of Europe’s contemporary art scene and become an habitue of various art shows and fairs, including FIAC. Gallery Shchukin is adding the presence of international artists to its portfolio, representing a wide range of views and artistic backgrounds. Hwang Young-Sung’s unique mix of Korean tradition and novelty brings a new perspective to the expanding collection. In particular, this exhibition accentuates the contrast of works ranging from 1995 to 2005. The truly apt name of the exhibition emphasizes that, while in many of his works Young-Sung sticks to the form and shape of a grid, it is the grid that gives them their voices. We are very grateful to curators Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath for selecting the works and arranging an accompanying catalogue. We also extend our greatest thanks to the artist’s agent Esra Joo, an ambassador of contemporary Korean art, for drawing our attention to the remarkable works of Hwang Young-Sung and engaging us through this project. We would also like to thank John Koo for helping with gathering funds. Most of all, we sincerely thank Hwang YoungSung for creating his incredible art and allowing us to exhibit it and share it with the public. Dmitry Shchukin

CURATORS ESSAY

HWANG YOUNG-SUNG: PAINTING BEYOND THE GRID Curated by Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath

The Grid… Much has been written and said about the grid in art history. From Malevich’s suprematism and intersection of planes to the imaginary squares encasing Chinese calligraphic pictograms, art historians have often referred to it in order to contextualize a wide array of artistic practices ranging from the traditional to the contemporary. For this solo exhibition of Hwang YoungSung, we employ the grid, not merely as a paradigm to consider the formal qualities of the artist’s work, but for its metaphorical qualities as an image of a confined structure that echoes the inequalities of power underscoring the writing of art history itself and the framing of artists within a set of meta-narratives. It has been almost always inevitable for most curators and art historians to discuss the work of Hwang YoungSung without referencing various aspects of traditional Korean and Asian visual culture. The murals of 6th century Koguryo tombs were cited to illustrate the strong rhythmic quality of his paintings. Diverse references ranging from traditional latticed windows and Poiogi trays, to the structural arrangement of Chinese calligraphy, and even the stacked TV monitors of Nam JunePaik were used in explaining his grid-like compositions. His use of black and white was often traced back to the cosmic principles of Yin and Yang and his vibrant colors contextualized within the ancient Chinese philosophy of the five elements. Even the esoteric Buddhist rituals derived from the Tantric sects of Hinduism were conjured to explain his use of symbols and signs. When it comes to art-historical lineages, some scholars have drawn parallelisms between Hwang’s scenes of daily life and the imagery of traditional Korean painting known as Pungsokdo, citing works by such masters as Cho Sok (15950-668), Jeong Son (1676-1759) and Kim Hong-do (b. 1760). Others have seen his interest in family and rural subjects as a direct continuation of Minsokhwa, a genre of unsophisticated folklore painting popular in the late 19th century. Furthermore, when looking at his work within the context of modernity, several historians have recalled the graphic style

of Lee Ungo (1904-1989), the textural richness of Park Sookeun (1914-1965) and the abstraction of Kim Whanki (1914-1974) who, themselves have equally been understood within the context of tradition. Such strict drawing on artistic practices proposes an insular trajectory of art history that is ostensibly confined within very rigid geographical demarcations. Such references, while intriguing and at times illuminating, risk creating a reductionist framework that obstruct from a comprehensive understanding of the artist’s work. Such an approach could minimize the contemporaneity and ongoing negotiation of what it means to be current that is evident in the work at hand. On the other end of the spectrum, there are those who have preferred to contextualize Hwang’s work within a more globalized vision, where, with the chaotic proliferation of production, and the accessibility to an infinity of heterogeneous visual traditions and social objects facilitated by today’s technologies of communication and modes of travel, images are disseminated and multiplied infinitely and monolithic cultural traditions can no longer remain untouched. In a world defined by the rampant fluidity of individuals and objects, artists can no longer be confined within rigid cultural identities based on the geographic delineations of the past, or by groupings within schools and styles. It is within such arguments that some have attempted to connect the pictographic elements in Hwang’s work to those found in Johns’ and Warhol, even Haring. While the intention of such an argument is steeped within the exonerating ambition of post-colonial rhetoric, its flirtations with notions of imitation vs. negotiation and precedence vs. consequence could steer the focus away from the individuality of the artist. What has fascinated us since the first time we met Hwang is that, besides his thorough knowledge of all the above, every time we embarked on a discussion about his work, the emphasis was merely on the crea-

tive process by which he engaged with specific formal concerns. Not once, for instance, did we talk about the grid-like alignment of Buddha statues in Korean temples, such as the famous five hundred statues of Buddha at Jeungshim Temple, yet we visited many together. We did not discuss the evolution of Pungsokdo from traditional Chinese ink painting, but we looked at many examples on some of our museum visits. Our discussions, when outside his studio, varied from topics as diverse as the difference between the Danseakhwa School and the Minjung Movement, to president Park Chung Hee’s village development projects known as the Saemaul Undong (new Village Movement) and the Gwangju Uprising of 1980. When in his studio, however, the conversation would take on a more concrete form, far from any broad philosophical and historical notions, to focus on very immediate issues such as Hwang’s attraction to certain colors, his mixing of collage and paining, on the way he draws his line and applies paint on various surfaces. In other words, when confronted with the reality of making art, everything recedes into the background, almost ceasing to exist, and the only thing that remains present and relevant is form and form alone. As the structuralist Yve-Alain Bois one said: “Form is always carrying a meaning and the deepest and most important meaning is always at the level of form, not on the level of the referent, or iconological content.” While Hwang’s work has been shown in New York in a group show in 1980, and a two artist-in-dialogue presentation in 2002, the exhibition Painting beyond the Grid marks Hwang’s first ever solo-show in New York. For this exhibition, we wanted to bring something of this spirit of formal pursuit by selecting works that reveal the process by which the artist continues to engage with a number of formalistic concerns centered on questions of color and composition, texture and surface, volume and materiality. By intentionally moving away from any chronological or biographical curatorial selections, we opted to shift the locus of the exhibition and the perception of the viewer to the striking formal qualities within the works on display. These fall into two main categories: paintings and works on paper. The Hwang who works with paper manages to combine the spontaneity of draftsmanship an artist manifests in instant impressions and preliminary studies and sketches with the detail oriented mindset and elaborate meticulousness of a craftsman. This is particularly evident when one examines his collages on cardboard, as well as his paper cutouts on canvas. By juxtaposing pieces of paper cut in monolithic geometrical shapes and made of different colors, the artist is in fact working like a sculptor more than anything else. The method by which he constructs layers of paper one on top of the other renders the work with a form that enjoys an element of three-dimensionality that emanates volume

while remaining flat. The style with which he fashions these minimal yet impactful compositions lays the foundations for the way he divides the surfaces of his canvases. This can be seen such as Family Story from 1993 and 1999 (Fig.1 H217).

«Family Story» 1999. Mixed media on canvas, 79 x 54 cm «Family Story» 1999. Mixed media on canvas, 79 x 54 cm

The paintings of Hwang Young-Sung are not easy to describe. Much has been written about the artist’s unwavering obsession with the themes of family, fading traditions and simple village life. Some have suspected a link between this constant conjuring of such scenes and a deep-seated yearning for belonging that results form the artist’s orphaned childhood, travels and willful “displacement”. To reduce Hwang’s legacy into such simplistic classifications is to err gravely. In this exhibition, the goal is to invite the viewer to look beyond the easy and accessible and focus on the formal qualities in the work. The group of paintings that we selected for this exhibition draws predominantly from Hwang’s monochromatic and black and white works. The sharp contrast between the exuberance of the colorful paintings and the subdued tonality of the black and white ones makes it hard to fathom that both types of work are the expression of one artist. But they are, and to that effect, they speak of a versatility in conception and execution that only a few manage to muster throughout a career that has lasted as long as that of Hwang’s prolific five decades. There is a unique material quality to the brush stroke of this artist: Soft it is not, yet never crude, neat it is rarely, but always contained within a chaotic order. There is a process of layering, a mode of applying the paint on the canvas, which is left raw at times, that reveals a stubbornness similar to that of a child who keeps on coming back for more. For Hwang, the painted surface seems to be something far more important than an end towards a mean. It is not simply a tool that he can use to construct

a desired visual or aesthetic quality. It is more. The texture of the paint for Young-Sung, how thick or thin it is, how it drips or blends, how it grows and turns to accretions, is at the heart of every painting’s tone and expression. Some are soft, others whisper, and many speak out loud. Through his understanding of the diverse qualities and types of texture and carefully applying them to his paintings, the artist has managed to empower each of his paintings with the ability to communicate to us differently, and in doing so, engage us on an emotional level that transcends the type of engagement that results from the deciphering of recognizable, mostly figurative motifs. The artist has the ability to stretch the expressionistic characteristics of color into their most extreme. If texture is the tone of expression and color is the choice of words, composition in this case is how tone and words come together in a complex and mesmerizing rhyme. In other words, composition is the artist’s way of brining all the visual elements together in a final orchestration of sorts to concentrate the effect of his expression; the impact of his chosen colors and to make sure that the experience is never diluted or lost. The rhymes of Hwang Young Sung are infinite. Some comprise of repetition, others of unexpected ruptures. Some build up obvious rhythms only to interrupt them with all sorts of punctuations. In certain paintings, clearly laid out grids cover the entire canvas and extend beyond it, such as in his two large Family Story canvases from 2002, into an imagined universe that ends in infinity. There are other paintings where the boundaries of certain patterns blend, wither at the center or more towards the periphery making it harder for the viewer to differentiate between where things begin and where they end (Fig.H_0544).

«Family Story» 2002 Oil on canvas, 150 x 150 cm

In 1967, a twenty-six year old Hwang won first prize in the Western Art Category at the 3rd Annual Chunnam Exhibition for his painting Afternoon in a Hospital portraying two nurses. Thirteen years later, Hwang would have his first group show in New York City entitled Six Korean Artists of Western Painting. This labeling along notions of East and West might have been one of the factors that prompted the artist to move away from his early beginnings and develop a style that refuses to be pinned down within redundant geo-cultural boundaries. In that same year when Hwang won his award at Chunnam, a young Lee Ufan (b. 1936) published an article in the March issue of Sato Garo Geppo, the newsletter of the Sato gallery in Tokyo entitled The Aesthetics of Self Contradiction in which he criticized the conflation of national identity with cultural production. The article portrayed a candid image of a young Lee grappling with his national background on one hand, and his profession on the other: “a Korean versus an artist.” This reflected the predicament of many artists from his generation. One could argue that such delineations are still at play in the presentation and dissemination of art and artists that come from centers of artistic production that have been ill perceived as peripheral. This is where the power of Hwang Young-Sung’s work lies: in its freedom to transcend the limitations of the grid, structurally and metaphorically. His refusal to be framed within any form of rigid narrative has propelled him to develop a unique language that has rightfully become his own. Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath Munich May 2015

In the artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s studio, 1995

CONVERSATION BETWEEN HWANG YOUNG-SUNG AND CURATORS SAM BARDAOUIL AND TILL FELLRATH OF ART REORIENTED

SB and TF: Several critics, curators and art historians have seen in your work a direct borrowing and reinterpretation of traditional Korean/Asian culture and motifs such as chogajip houses, the tiger (messenger of the God Sansin), the totems or Jangseung of village guardians, the five color elements theory of ancient Chinese cosmology and, of course, the alignment of the five hundred statues of Buddha at Jeungshim Temple. To what extent are these references accurate in describing your work and how much is the presence (or not) of these symbols/motifs the result of a conscious decision on your behalf? Did they appear in your work spontaneously or do you recall a specific moment where you said to yourself: “I want to refer to these traditional motifs in my work”? HYS: It was a small start at first. As a child, I encountered the very traditional Korean culture such as chogajip houses, the bull, the tiger, Jangseung of village guardians and especially the alignment of the five hundred statues of Buddha at a temple near my home. The unconscious accumulations of encounters with these items have come up in my work naturally. At the same time, I have been trying to escape from the terror of war and fear. To counteract those, I have longed for my parents and hometown that I lost during the Korean War, and as result, nostalgia played a role in my work, too. SB and TF: How influential were president Park Chung Hee’s village development projects known as the Saemaul Undong (New Village Movement) influence your work, especially your farmer and village paintings? HYS: The motifs of chogajip houses and traditional villages came to me from a shiny rapture.

Village Story, 1979 72.7 x 116.8 cm

One day, I was invited to a friend artist’s party. There, I saw in awe the earth-floored rooms and the roofs of chogajip houses shining under the sun. This spectacular shock engaged my internal expressiveness that led me to focus on my work related to traditional villages and bulls.

History evaluates the Saemaul Undong in different ways, but for me the disappearance of old villages had a melancholy side to it. The Saemaul Undong had an indirect impact on me to long for those chogajip and traditional villages. SB and TF: How did your early training under the Korean Master Yim Jik-Soon at Chosun University in Gwangju influence your work? What did you learn from him that stays in your work until now? Yim was predominantly known for his lyrical abstraction, and since he had studies under Hayashi Takeshi, a virtuoso of Japanese Fauvism in Tokyo, he is mostly known for his exuberant landscapes and still lives. It didn’t take you long to discard that and embark on a process of simplification, reduction f texture and moving towards abstraction. Was this a conscious attempt to free yourself from the confines of your teacher? Or was this a gradual process of finding your own voice as an artist? HYS: It was great luck that I was able to have Yim Jik-Soon as my teacher. He was a pioneer in the Korean art society back then. He is famous for his soft but vivid colors, for which he is called “Korean Pierre Bonnard.” As a student, I respected his work and wanted to follow his style. But he taught the class that black and white can be good colors, so I decided to try out those colors. He agreed with my decision and encouraged me to continue using them in my work.

Earth-Floored Room, 1971 193.9 x 130.3 cm

His industriousness and use of rich colors are often expressed in my work. SB and TF: From very early on, you have been an avid traveler having been to places as diverse as India and Egypt, the Ivory Coast and Indonesia. Similarly, your work has been shown in so many different places. To what extent has what you have witnessed on your journeys filtered into your work? Do you feel that the connections that your work has with certain topics that can be seen as primarily Korean could obstruct viewers that are not familiar with these topics from fully comprehending your work? HYS: I have traveled around quite a lot. I have been to Egypt, India, Indonesia, Kenya, European countries and many other places. One special trip was a year-long travel to Canada, U.S. West Coast, Mexico, Maya and Aztec civilization in Guatemala, and Inca civilization in Peru. I also took a journey to trace back the civilization of the Native Americans who had moved along the Bering Strait for tens of thousands of year. The journey allowed me to build a large stash of drawings, photos and records.

During the artist’s travel to Kenya in 1984. Oil painting 100F

After the journey, I realized that my work should not be just a story of my own family and village, but a family that encompasses all the people, flora and fauna that I encountered around the world. I recognized that I belong to a huge, extended family and endeavored to reflect that concept in my work. SB and TF: You had your first group show in New York in 1980. The show was entitled Six Korean Artists of Western Painting. 35 years later you are back in New York after of course having had a solo show at Parsons in 2002.

The Inca Trail, 1991 162.1 x 130.3 cm

Would you consider your painting Western or Asian? Do you see a contradiction between the two? How relevant is it to describe or frame an artist’s work through the lens of geography, nationality or ethnicity? HYS: I exhibited the works of chogajip villages at the New York exhibition in 1980 and the works on the story of the new universal family in 2000. An artist’s work initially originates from a region and an ethnicity; however he should not be constrained by such limits and should pursue creation and art to go beyond that.

At the Invitational Exhibition, Korean Cultural Service New York, 1980 From left: Hwang Gyu-Baek, Lim Jik-Soon, Choi Myeong-Rim, Yoon Joong-Shik, Park Myeong-Ja (President of Gallery Hyundai) and Hwang Young-Sung.

SB and TF: This exhibition highlights the very important threedimensional aspect of your painting practice that is evident in your paper collage/hanging cutouts that you apply to the surface of the canvas. This can be seen in works such as Family Story from 1999 on view in the exhibition. Can you talk to us a little bit about what prompted this shift and whether it came from an interest in expanding your formal language or was it triggered by a conceptual desire to express new ideas that then necessitated a change in materials? HYS: I am still used to very traditional materials such as oil paints and acrylics. However, I know that the materials to express artistic ideas are getting increasingly diverse and artists have a yearning for using these various materials in their work as much as possible. Thus I think it is only natural that I should broaden my expressive ways by broadening my choice of materials that I use. SB and TF: Another aspect of your work that is highlighted in this show is your masterful use of black and white or monochromatic color palettes in highly intricate pictographic compositions. This is evident in large-scale works such as the Family Story series from 2002, also on view in this exhibition. These works stand in contrast to your vibrantly colorful works that employ exceedingly bright and poignant reds, blues, pinks and blues. What can you express in these black and white works that you can’t in your more colorful ones? How do you manage to keep them so playful and positive although you are employing a palette that is often associated with somberness?

HYS: The complex hieroglyphics are the summarized pictures and symbols of everything that I met.

They represent the family. My color palette uses the lively colors of the traditional Korean temples where strong red, blue and pink colors form the basis. In contrast, I also use the simple black and white colors and the use of both of these color palettes occasionally cross each other and create an expressive conflict in my work. In my mind, even the simplest black and white colors are considered colorful and I make an effort to visualize them in the most dynamic way. SB and TF: What is on your mind these days? What will Hwang Young-Sungâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s next body of work be? What are you contemplating next? HYS: This is a difficult problem that I must fine tune in my mind. It is something that I continue to ask myself. I would like to hold on to the big theme of family, the smallest unit among men, but would also like to include all the new things that I encountered into my work. I would like to again express in some new way the challenges between mankind, family, peace and the universe in some optimistic, warm manner.

ARTWORKS

«Family Story» 2002 Oil on Canvas 200 x 200 cm

«Family Story» 2003 Oil on Canvas 200 x 200 cm

«Family Story» 1996 Oil on Canvas 200 x 200 cm

«Family Story» 2002 Oil on Canvas 200 x 200 cm

«Family Story» 2008 Oil on Canvas 190 x 190 cm

«Family Story» 2008 > Detail

«Wind Story» 2005 Oil on Canvas 190 x 190 cm

«Family Story» 2002 Oil on Canvas 150 x 150 cm

< «Family Story» 2002 Detail

«Family Story» 2002 Oil on Canvas 150 x 150 cm

«Family Story» 1997 Acrylic on Canvas 150 x 90 cm

«Family Story» 2005 Oil on Canvas 200 x 100 cm

«Family Story» 2000 Oil on Canvas 200 x 100 cm

«Family Story» 2000 > Detail

«Small Family» 2005 Oil on Canvas 200 x 100 cm

«Small Family» 2000 Oil on Canvas 200 x 100 cm

«Family Story» 1996 Oil on Canvas 90.9 x 60.6 cm

«Family Story» 1999 Oil on Canvas 150 x 150 cm

«Family Story» 1999 Acrylic on Canvas 115 X 69 cm

«Family Story» 2004 Mixed media on canvas 115 X 69 cm

«Family Story» 1999 Mixed media on canvas 79 x 54 cm

«Family Story» 2000 Drawing 54.5 x 40 cm

«Untitled» 1997 Drawing 55 x 37.5 cm

«Untitled» 1997 Drawing 54.5 x 37.5 cm

«Untitled» 1995 Drawing 54 x 39.5 cm

«Untitled» 1995 Drawing 54.5 x 39.5 cm

«Untitled» 1999 Drawing 54 x 39 cm

«Untitled» 1997 Drawing 55.5 x 39.5 cm

«Untitled» 1995 Drawing 54.5 x 39.5 cm

«Untitled» 1995 Drawing 55 x 39.5 cm

«Untitled» 1997 Drawing 54.5 x 37.5 cm

«Untitled» 1997 Drawing 55 x 37.5 cm

«Untitled» 1995 Drawing 54.5 x 40 cm

«Untitled» 1995 Drawing 38 x 56 cm

«Untitled» 2004 Drawing 55 x 39.5 cm

«Wind Story» 2010 Paper work 55 x 41 cm

«Wind Story» 2010 Paper work 57 x 41 cm

BIOGRAPHY

HWANG YOUNG-SUNG BIOGRAPHY

1941 Born in Korea 1966 B.F.A Chosun University, Gwangju, Korea 1968 M.F.A Chosun university, Gwangju, Korea Present Emeritus Professor of Chosun University Director of Gwangju Museum of Art

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2012 Today Art Museum, Signs and Secrets, Beijing, China Galerie Schrade - Schloss Mochental, Symbole-ZeichenChiffren, Ehingen, Germany Galerie TANIT, Contours of Reform, Munich, Germany 2010 Gallery Hyundai, My Village Story, Seoul, Korea In the artist’s studio, 1995

2009 U Jong Museum of Art, Boseong, Korea Gallery Hyundai, Seoul, Korea 2007 Musee d’art moderne de Saint-Etienne Metropole, Saint-Etienne, France Gallery H, Seoul, Korea 2006 Kunsthalle Dresden, Dresden, Germany Palazzo CRISPI, Napoli, Italy Gallery Hyundai, Seoul, Korea 2005 Exhibition of Lee In-sung Art Prize Awards, Daegu, Korea 2004 Shinsegae Gallery, Gwangju, Korea Hyundai Arts Center, Ulsan, Korea 2002 Parsons school Gallery, New York, USA Galerie Bhak, Seoul, Korea

2001 U.L.B contemporary Museum of Art, Brussels, Belgium Galerie Covalenco, Geldrop, Netherlands 2000 Centre d’ Art Presense Van Gogh, Saint-Remy-deProvance, France Gallery Hyundai, Seoul, Korea 1998 Gallery Bhak, Seoul, Korea Gallery Hyundai, Seoul, Korea 1997 Musee de l’ Hotel-Dieu, Mantes-la-jolie, France Musee Fesch, Ajaccio, Corsica, France Henry Moore Gallery, Royal College of Art, London, England 1996 Palais des Congres, Paris, France Gwangju City Art Museum, Gwangju, Korea

1999 FIAC 99, Paris, France Art 30 Basel, Basel, Switzerland Art 1999 Chicago, lllonois, USA Art Brussels 99, Brussels. Belgium Art Miami 99, Floriad, USA 1998 “Coree, Pays du Matin Calme” Musee des Arts Asiatiques de Nice, France Art Cologne 1998, Cologne, Germany Art International New York, New York, USA Art Chicago, lllonois, USA 1996 FIAC, Paris, France 1991 The 25th Monte Carlo International Art Festival, Monaco International Exhibition of “Salon d Autonme”. Grand Palais, Paris

1995 Francois Mitaine, Paris, France 1992 Gallery Bernheim Jeune, Paris, France

AWARDS & EXPERIENCE

1991 L’ Atelier, Anger, France, France

2006 The Order of Service Merite (Yellow Stripes) 2004 Lee In-sung Art Prize Awards

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2011 Art Beijing, Beijing, China Art Gwangju, Gwangju, Korea 2010 Suncheonbay Art Fair, Suncheon, Korea Dream of Future, Uijeongbu Arts Center, Uijeongbu, Korea 2009 Exhibition of Lee In-sung Art Prize Awards, Daegu, Korea 2008 Representative Artists of Korean Contemporary, Da Xing Art Space, Taiwan Gwangju & Istambul Contemporary Art Exchang, Isik Museum, Istanbul 2005 Beijing International Art Biennale, Beijing, China Gwangju Contemporary Art Exhibition, Gwangju City Art Museum & Guangzhou Art Museum, Gwangju & Guangzhou Kando Museum, Taiwan University of Art, Taipei, Taiwan The Exhibition of Influential Senior Artist, Seoul City Art Museum, Seoul, Korea

1999 The Vice President of Chosun University 1993 Keumho Art Award 1991 Special Prize “Habib Gargour Award” 25th Monte Carlo International Painting Festival, Monaco 1989 Dean of Fine Art College of Chosun University 1981 Chollanam-do Cultural Award 1965-79 The Minister Prize, 22nd(1973) National Exhibition Specially Selected Several times in the same Exhibition

2004 Korea Japan Art Exchange, Tokyo, Japan 2001 Sharjah International Arts Biennale, United Arab Emirates

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We are very grateful to everybody who participated in creation of this exhibition and catalogue and supported us mentally and physically. Olga Ozhiganova, Benjamin Sigelman, Meline Saftalyan, Anthony Baskin, Andriy Andreyev, Bill Jenkins, Don Bachoon Our special thanks to: Marina Kovalyov Gallery Advisor President of Russian American Foundation Matthew Drutt, Curatorial Advisor, Gallery Shchukin President, Drutt Creative Artist Management (DCAM)

www.galleryshchukin.com 524 W 19th street New York, NY 10011 Tel.: +1 (212) 929-7222 Fax: +1 (212) 929-7266 4 Avenue Matignon 75008 Paris Tel.: +33 1 45 61 25 63 E-mail: art@galleryshchukin.com

New York, 2015