The February edition of Art Talk looks at (lm)Possible Landscapes, a rather ambiguoust titled exhibition at Plateau that showcases 14 modern Korean artists who represent different generations and tendencies, but share the common theme of "landscapes." Landscapes have been a subject for innumerable artists throughout the world since time immemorial. They admit a limitless range of interpretations, each differing according to the perspective of the observer. The viewer‘s perspective is no less capable of expanding those infinite meanings into infinite analyses. Here, experts from Korea and overseas train their perspectives on the (im)possible landscapes of 30 works by 14 artists who use the theme of landscape the show the diversity of modem art

Landscapes Possible and Impossible

We’ve been forced to endure a huge debate over postmodernism, doing all the legwork of incorporating its ideas ourselves. But for all our efforts to hone our capabilities in the hostile territory of modernism, it seems as though we’ve simply been buffeted the tides of the times,lacking confidence in any true sense of weight. So long as we adopt a linear approach to understanding time and history, so long as we rely on the developmentalist perspective on historic, modernism will always necessarily give way to postmodernism, which in turn will take on some new name of its own. This is where we find ourselves today: marking time without making sense of things. Is it colonialism? Altermodern?Globalism? Erstwhile forces like the October Group or The Nation no longer determine the discourse. Even Peter Aspden of the Financial Times laments in his column “Western Value” about how the U.S. is no longer capable of creating mythology in cinema, arts, or literature.

Postmodernist discourse was always something fuzzy, a rather comical dressing-up of French poststructuralism in art world accoutrements. The French scholars who agreed with its ideas - sympathizers with the U.S. - received piles of research money, and all manner of specious magical incantations were introduced.But to look back on the whole thing now is to breathe a healthy sigh of relief. Until we are able to produce new values, new mythologies, it appears likely that art gallery slates will be filled for the foreseeable future with exhibitions for new East Asian, South and Central American, and Middle Eastern artists, or solo shows for certain stars from the West. It is very exciting and encouraging, then, to ring in the New Year with a show on (Im)Possible Landscapes at Plateau, which is fast becoming one of Asia’s premier alternative spaces.

To begin with, the title carries profound resonance. (Im)Possible Landscapes - the very words suggest something intended to show how Korea’s best artists of today have wrestled with the clashes and harmonies between the landscape and subjectivity. To represent nature objectively and mathematically on the canvas is to imprison the image in that cloth cell. Even when the content is mythical or scriptural, there is still the sense of its being mere representation, humanization circumscribed by objective rules. By the time of Goya (1746-1828) in the 19th century, the images, and the beasts within, were absorbing objective natural features and landscapes - the first signs of modernity. What, then, was the spirit in the East, the strand linking such artists as Li Sixun, Yi Xing, Guo Xi, Fan Guan, Zhang Zeduan, Mi Fu, Dong Yuan, Wu Zhen, Ye Chan, and Dong Qichang, or An Gyeon, Gang Hui-an, JeongSeon, Sim Sa-jeong, Kim Jeong-hui, Jang Seung-eop, ByeonGwan-sik, Kim Eun-ho, and HeoRyeon? It was the style and sense of creating impossible landscapes from possible ones, the attempt to use potentiality to get at the impossible realm of contemplation. As far as simple representation goes, something like Zhang’s Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers will about do. The landscape painting as discourse on the landscape was an infinite path to character development, an attempt to transcend mere representation and cultivate perception and inner virtue.

It would not be going too far to say that the dazzling efforts made by every member of the staff for this mega-exhibition began out of a sense of the importance of an Eastern epistemology. If they discuss the landscape in this way, the public should be able to understand. I am impressed by the thought that has gone into this approach of using “landscape” as a theme in helping the public to understand just what this “modern art” genre is about. Someone once said that the best writing is not too difficult for a child to understand, but not too childish for a scholar. I can still sense the passion of those experts who carried the vitality and reflection of young students into their viewing of the exhibition.

The people taking part in it are either artists at the height of their genre or figures of global renown. And the pleasures were consummate: the powerful contrast between the paintings and site-specific installations, the harmonizing of realistic painting with sound installations, the blending of conceptual and emotional art, the mixture of old and new.

It was wonderful to have familiar and much-loved figures like Sung-hoon KONG, Bul LEE, Seo-young CHUNG, Sora KIM, Sea-hyun LEE, Hong-joo KIM, and Beom Moon taking part - but it also makes it a bit difficult to throw words around carelessly.

If there was one work of art that made a particular impression, it would have to be Bul LEE’s Grand Recit series. There seems to be a lot of talk about his recent years, but all questions of quality aside, it was wonderful to see the new possibilities. Every time I looked at s Grand Recit, I thought of the famous words from “Yong Ye” in Confucius’s Analects: “The Master said, ‘Where nature triumphs over culture, we have the boor; where culture triumphs over nature, we have the clerk. When accomplishments and qualities are blended, that is the virtuous man.’”In other words, those whose learning overcomes their innate boorishness become insufferable, while those whose wildness overwhelms their learning are animalistic. Korean artists have, by and large, triumphed through nature; they have seen the artist in terms of “strength.” It is risky to apply a narrative in which some private historical drive informs an entire era, but it is far more profound to recognize and reflect on the world. Without a doubt, this is a work that achieves at once a vision of hope for a future free from the oppressions of Western imperialism, as well as a harmony between technology and the humanist spirit. One senses the perfect equal balance between his culture and his nature.

It was also nice to revisit past works that recall the calligraphy of Hong-joo KIM. I had no idea that it was intended to represent the furrow of a field in spring. It was the first time I was truly struck by the artist’s precision and sensibility. I remember feeling as though it were a delicate line drawing showing the tracks plowed by cattle and humans on a field and paddy some country spring day. It amazed even me to see the artist’s discovery of the most advanced cultural territory in the conditions of human survival.

At some point in our lives, all of us experience that resonance that exists between the turbulent landscape and the turbulent mind. Sung-hun KONG has always been an artist of water and an artist of passionate landscapes, the pace of his coarse brush seeming to spy the state of the heart and make our places of dwelling feel like angry organisms. The bleakness was still very much there.

What is the history of the snowball? Did humans first pack them after seeing that the snow was falling? No. It was a form of cold-weather play by farmers coming out of the busy season. For people in harsh polar climates, snow is an enemy to fight; nomadic peoples never had the luxury of packing snowballs. No, they were created by people who knew from experience about the cycle of new life in the next year. In other words, the snowball is a boomtown phenomenon. In the work of Seo-young CHUNG, an artist who draws inspiration from the area near her studio and from casual walks as she delves into the meaning of art, I sensed the drama of her obviously hard-won experience.

With this white embodiment of introspection, the searing growing pains of the red natural features heightens the contrast within the gallery. It is Korea’s painful and beautiful history given form, transporting the viewer into another dimension. Sea-hyun LEE’s painting is a requiem, an aching inheritance to all those who have left this land behind.

This exhibition was a wondrous opportunity for the best artists to please the general public and the more discerning alike. These days, the galleries of Europe tend to do many exhibitions for the public that are dualistic in nature - either the desire for elevation (eros) or universality (agape). I shall affirm, once and again, the resonances of this exhibition, which approached the heart of an Eastern vein of thought in with the landscape is at once contemplation and character.

(Im)Possible Landscapes
Landscapes Possible and Impossible _ Jin-myung LEE (Independent Curator)