“meditation - perrotin · “meditation” at galerie perrotin, paris, 2015. rendering of chung...
TRANSCRIPT
“ M e d i t a t i o n ” C h u n g C h a n g – S u p
I hope that my existence will be assimilated to the materiality
of tak [mulberry bark], the symbol of Korean people’s
sensibilities. Adjusting the dampness of tak’s fiber and
observing the passage of “time,” I experience the “planeness”
that can be also felt from the surface of granite or earthenware.
I do not want to create an artificial world of intentions
on the surface of the material; instead, I am experimenting
in a naturalist perspective on art in which my consciousness
and the meaning of tak’s materiality would be united.
Recently I began to add colors to tak. Still, this process avoids
the artificiality of “applying” colors on the surface.
What I pursue is a status in which colors are subtly faded
and blurred into yellowish tint or bluish gray in the
sediment of time. The realm in which traces of my body
seeped into the materiality of paper becoming one with it
— this is the stage that I always aspire to. Painting without
painting, creating without creating, this is what I will.
Handwritten note and its translation.
“ t h e W o r l d o f M y p a p e r W o r k S ” C h u n g C h a n g – S u p
M o o n b e a M o n C h a n g h o j i a n d b a M b o o L e a v e s
It will not be an exaggeration to say that the history of Korean
culture has evolved with that paper. Korean traditional
paper, known as changhoji, is mainly made out of the material
tak [mulberry bark], and is well known for its durability
and strength. However, Chinese traditional paper, known
to be blinding white in colour, is extremely weak and easy
to tear. Our ancestors literally covered their most intimate
living spaces with tak paper, including the flowers,
the windows and the doors of bedrooms. It is a wonder
how they used such flimsy and fragile material as part
of their living space. One can observe from such practice,
certain perspectives of time and space. As the floor paper
changes gradually in colour through differ hues of yellow
and brown, a sense of time accumulating is created
and leaves residues of the past. Through the screen of tak
paper, one can distinctively sense the wind, light and
the flow of time outside his or her room, which allowed us
to experience both feelings of being inside and outside.
The paper screen reflects the change of time from the outside;
when the sun rises, the paper screen is suffused with light,
when the sun sets, the light thins away as it would in a black
ink painting. This is the realm of creation with no intention
of creating. The reflection of the rising moonbeam and
the shadow of bamboo leaves was a vivid canvas of natural
phenomena by what one could ponder on within
human conditions.
The artist working in his studio.
T h e P r o c e s s o f M y P a P e r W o r k s
My work process with paper is not a coincidental
projection of work process on a given product of paper.
Rather, in battering and kneading tak, I unknowingly
put my breath, odour and finally my soul into the process,
thus becoming a part of the process itself. From here,
I fall into a trance where I loose myself and my consciousness.
Then, there is furtive spread of after –images of arcane
patterns and incidental imageries in my mind. This is neither
a result from the analytical approach to nature,
nor reverence to the formalist credo for primary elements.
On the contrary, I aspire to be outside of the academy
of the styles, forms and theoretisation.
Tak 85898 (detail). 1985. Tak fiber on canvas. 240 x 140 cm / 94 1/2 x 55 1/8 inches.
T h e W o r L d o f T h e U n i n T e n d e d
Stripping myself of all knowledge and intentions, I bask
in liberation. The childhood recollections and the dregs
of memories hidden away in the corner of my life are my
only encounters. Through tak paper, I wish to meet another
“me”. My ultimate goal is to depict a world without depiction,
a world without creating from the intention of the unintended.
As a long truth seeker gets a glimpse of the God, I believe
that Oriental spiritualism and Occidental materialism
are harmonized on the crossroads of my lonely journey.
My paper works, like the surface of old granite immersed
in time, indicates an alternative way to rediscover material,
time, self and nature through their residues, traces
and coincidences.
Meditation 95951 (detail). 1994. Tak fiber on canvas. 244 x 122 cm / 96 1/16 x 48 1/32 inches.
In the works of Chung Chang–Sup there are a few painting
maneuvers which run counter to ordinary notions of painting.
This can be ascertained from “Paintings I Do Not Paint,” which
was the title of his preview held in Ho–Am Art Gallery in 1993.
His minimalist tendency takes the form of his distancing
himself from physical painting. He stirs up some skepticism
about the necessity of painting and inquiries about whether
paintings need any physical performance of painting.
Painting literally derives from a physical act. Therefore,
a painting cannot exist unless it has been painted, because
nothing comes from nothing. Despite this axiomatic
reasoning, it seems clear that his reason for avoiding physical
involvement in painting is to cast off conventional ideas.
First of all, this would suggest that he does not deal with the
usual painting materials and paintbrushes. Still, there is
something more which is not bound with the simple getting
rid of conventional ideas.
“I dissolve the raw material of mulberry paper into pulp.
The quality of the paper depends on how long it was
soaked and how long its natural fiber is. I scoop up the pulp,
spread it on a canvas, tap and knead it, and my conversation
with the paper mulberry begins. Abandoning my own will,
instead I await its spontaneous response,” he says.
It sounds a little bit confusing. “Paper mulberry” is not,
as its name suggests, a kind of a paper. It is the mane of the
tree which is the raw material for making mulberry paper.
Paper mulberry has a property of uncertainty, while at the
“ M u l b e r r i e S a n d M e M o r i e S ” o h k W a n g – s o o
“Retrospective” at the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Gwacheon, Korea, 2010.
“Dansaekwha” Collateral Event of the 56th Venice Biennale, Palazzo Contarini Polignac, Venezia, Italy,2015.
same time it is a concrete entity. The catalyst brings out
in the paper various subtle, delicate, and random effects.
On deeper inspection, there are variations of deep
resonance arranged by his careful attention to the material
and the surface which give shape to the exquisitely subtle,
semitransparent monotones. There is hardly a tinge of
color. Only the embedded layers of the mulberry paper
on the canvas, sometimes merged and sometimes dispersed,
provide viewers with textural variety. In a sense his works
are creating textural strata.
One can capture his process of tackling the paper mulberry
briefly. Spreading it on the canvas and waiting for it to develop
is the gist of the whole process. There is no premeditated
intention or artificial will but just waiting for its random
effects. Just waiting is the only thing he can do for the
development of his work. The artist himself and the raw
material of the mulberry pulp acquire parity with each
other. In other words, the artist is not the principal body,
conducting his plan one–sidedly on the canvas, but rather
artist and canvas interact. The artist makes the best use
of the properties of the paper mulberry, of the varied ways
in which it may develop.
His interest in textual strata can be traced back to his works
of the late 1950s and early 1960s, when he was engaged
with the Informal style, long before he began his “Mulberry
Series” with light colors and ink on Korean rice paper in the
1970s. For nearly four decades he has been dealing with
only one subject—strata. Lee Yil, a noted art critic, recalls
Chung Chang–Sup’s works of his Informal era, “Some
parts of his canvases have crumpled layers of a rough matiere
“The past, the present, the possible” at Sharjah Museum, Sharjah Biennial 12, United Arab Emirates, 2015.
“The Art of Dansaekwha” at Kukje Gallery, Seoul, 2014.
which looks like hard tree bark, while, in contrast, some
have shallow layers which look like the spacious margins
of Oriental paintings.” This perfectly expounds Chung’s
recent works as well. There are very few who can constantly
devote themselves to one subject but in remarkably
idiosyncratic ways.
Chung Chang–Sup’s mulberry paper works are mostly
monotone in tint with a semi–transparent quality. Viewers
can encounter different sentiments from peering through
the strata of the material. Viewers lapse into emotional
memory lanes at each and every turn of the strata.
“The mulberry series I am making these days is too attached
to my childhood memories and to my hometown,
like glove and hand. The first thing that washes my newly
opened eyes in the morning is soft sunlight subdued
through rice–paper doors. Looking at silhouettes of cosmos
and chrysanthemum flowers which are pasted on the
rice–paper sliding doors, I eat a bowl of snowy rice and laver
with soybean–paste soup. That’s what I grew up with. These
everyday happenings turn me to nostalgia for my childhood.”
Cozy memories of tender sunlight filtered though the rice–
paper door and silhouettes of cosmos and chrysanthemum
flowers blended with the flavor of soybean–paste soup can
fondly remind most Koreans of their childhood homes. Chung’s
mulberry paper works enable him to return to the bosom
of nature as well as to lapse into his essential sentiments.
“Meditation” at Galerie Perrotin, Paris, 2015.
“Meditation” at Johyun Gallery, Busan, Korea, 2015.
“Retrospective” at National Museum of Contemporary Art, Gwacheon, Korea, 2010.
21
Return 77–O 1977. Mixed media on paper. 197 x 110 cm / 77 1/2 x 43 1/4 inches.
Return 77–P. 1977. Mixed media on paper. 197 x 110 cm / 77 1/2 x 43 1/4 inches.
Return 77–M. 1977. Mixed media on paper. 197 x 110 cm / 77 1/2 x 43 1/4 inches.
Return one 80–A. 1977. Mixed media on paper. 90 x 90 cm / 35 1/2 x 35 1/2 inches.
Tak 85012. 1985. Tak fiber on canvas. 240 x 140 cm / 94 1/2 x 55 1/8 inches.
Tak 85898. 1985. Tak fiber on canvas. 240 x 140 cm / 94 1/2 x 55 1/8 inches.
Tak 85–013. 1985. Tak fiber on canvas. 240 x 140 cm / 94 1/2 x 55 1/8 inches.
Tak 86033. 1986. trt fiber on canvas. 240 x 140 cm / 94 1/2 x 55 1/8 inches.
Tak 90909. 1990. Tak fiber on canvas. 244 x 122 cm / 96 1/16 x 48 1/32 inches.
“Retrospective” at National Museum of Contemporary Art, Gwacheon, Korea, 2010.
Meditation 93814. 1993. Tak fiber on canvas. 244 x 122 cm / 96 1/16 x 48 1/32 inches.
Meditation 95951. 1994. Tak fiber on canvas. 244 x 122 cm / 96 1/16 x 48 1/32 inches.
Meditation 94952. 1994. Tak fiber on canvas. 244 x 122 cm / 96 1/16 x 48 1/32 inches.
Meditation 93816. 1993. Tak fiber on canvas. 244 x 122 cm / 96 1/16 x 48 1/32 inches.
Meditation 93692–B. 1993. Tak fiber on canvas. 244 x 122 cm / 96 1/16 x 48 1/32 inches.
“Meditation” at Galerie Perrotin, Paris, 2015.
Meditation 95500–B. 1995. Tak fiber on canvas. 244 x 122 cm / 96 1/16 x 48 1/32 inches.
Meditation 94502. 1994. Tak fiber on canvas. 244 x 122 cm / 96 1/16 x 48 1/32 inches.
Meditation 94504. 1994. Tak fiber on canvas. 244 x 122 cm / 96 1/16 x 48 1/32 inches.
Meditation 93103. 1993. Tak fiber on canvas. 244 x 122 cm / 96 1/16 x 48 1/32 inches.
“Meditation” at Galerie Perrotin, Paris, 2015.
Meditation 94704. 1994. Tak fiber on canvas. 244 x 122 cm / 96 1/16 x 48 1/32 inches.
Meditation 94703. 1994. Tak fiber on canvas. 244 x 122 cm / 96 1/16 x 48 1/32 inches.
Meditation 94801. 1994. Tak fiber on canvas. 244 x 122 cm / 96 1/16 x 48 1/32 inches.
Meditation 94700. 1994. Tak fiber on canvas. 230 x 130 cm / 90 1/2 x 51 1/8 inches.
“Meditation” at Galerie Perrotin, Paris, 2015.
Meditation 94960–B. 1994. Tak fiber on canvas. 200 x 100 cm / 78 3/4 x 39 1/4 inches.
Meditation 94960–A. 1994. Tak fiber on canvas. 200 x 100 cm / 78 3/4 x 39 1/4 inches.
Meditation 94960–C. 1994. Tak fiber on canvas. 200 x 100 cm / 78 3/4 x 39 1/4 inches.
Meditation 94202. 1994. Tak fiber on canvas. 200 x 100 cm / 78 3/4 x 39 1/4 inches.
Meditation 94201. 1994. Tak fiber on canvas. 200 x 100 cm / 78 3/4 x 39 1/4 inches.
Meditation 94203. 1994. Tak fiber on canvas. 200 x 100 cm / 78 3/4 x 39 1/4 inches.
Rendering of Chung Chang-Sup's exhibition at Galerie Perrotin, New York, 2015.
Untitled. 1992. Tak fiber on canvas. 260 x 390 cm / 102 3/8 x 153 17/32 inches.
Untitled. 1992. Tak fiber on canvas. 260 x 390 cm / 102 3/8 x 153 17/32 inches.
Meditation 94302. 1994. Tak fiber on canvas. 240 x 180 cm / 94 1/2 x 70 7/8 inches.
Meditation 92013. 1992. Tak fiber on canvas. 130 x 162 cm / 51 1/8 x 63 3/4 inches.
Meditation 92014. 1992. Tak fiber on canvas. 82 x 142 cm / 32 5/16 x 55 7/8 inches.
Meditation 91207. 1991. Tak fiber on canvas. 162 x 130 cm / 63 3/4 x 51 1/8 inches.
Meditation 91010. 1991. Tak fiber on canvas. 130 x 162 cm / 51 1/8 x 63 3/4 inches.
“Meditation” at Galerie Perrotin, Paris, 2015.
Meditation 951120. 1995. Tak fiber on canvas. 244 x 122 cm / 96 1/16 x 48 1/32 inches.
Meditation 951101. 1995. Tak fiber on canvas. 244 x 122 cm / 96 1/16 x 48 1/32 inches.
Meditation 951116. 1995. Tak fiber on canvas. 244 x 122 cm / 96 1/16 x 48 1/32 inches.
Meditation 951118. 1995. Tak fiber on canvas. 244 x 122 cm / 96 1/16 x 48 1/32 inches.
Meditation 95801. 1995. Tak fiber on canvas. 244 x 122 cm / 96 1/16 x 48 1/32 inches.
“Retrospective” at National Museum of Contemporary Art, Gwacheon, Korea, 2010.
Meditation 9609. 1996. Tak fiber on canvas. 260 x 160 cm / 102 3/8 x 63 inches.
Meditation 9611. 1996. Tak fiber on canvas. 260 x 160 cm / 102 3/8 x 63 inches.
Meditation 9606. 1996. Tak fiber on canvas. 260 x 160 cm / 102 3/8 x 63 inches.
Meditation 9657. 1996. Tak fiber on canvas. 162 x 112 cm / 63 25/32 x 44 3/32 inches.
Meditation 9656. 1996. Tak fiber on canvas. 162 x 112 cm / 63 25/32 x 44 3/32 inches.
Meditation 9670. 1996. Tak fiber on canvas. 130 x 140 cm / 55 1/8 x 51 3/16 inches.
Meditation 9659. 1996. Tak fiber on canvas. 130 x 150 cm / 51 3/16 x 59 1/16 inches.
Meditation 96410. 1996. Tak fiber on canvas. 130 x 150 cm / 51 3/16 x 59 1/16 inches.
Meditation 96500. 1996. Tak fiber on canvas. 130 x 150 cm / 51 3/16 x 59 1/16 inches.
Meditation 96401. 1996. Tak fiber on canvas. 130 x 150 cm / 51 3/16 x 59 1/16 inches.
Untitled. 1993/4. Tak fiber on canvas. 194 x 130 cm / 76 3/8 x 51 3/16 inches.
“Meditation” at Galerie Perrotin, Paris, 2015.
Meditation 211005. 2001. Tak fiber on canvas. 181.8 x 227.3 cm / 71 1/2 x 89 1/2 inches.
Meditation 211201. 2001. Tak fiber on canvas. 181.8 x 227.3 cm / 71 1/2 x 89 1/2 inches.
Meditation 23801. 2003. Tak fiber on canvas. 181.8 x 227.3 cm / 71 1/2 x 89 1/2 inches.
“Meditation” at Galerie Perrotin, Paris, 2015.
Meditation 981007. 1998. Tak fiber on canvas. 130 x 162 cm / 51 1/8 x 63 3/4 inches.
Meditation 98707. 1998. Tak fiber on canvas. 130 x 162 cm / 51 1/8 x 63 3/4 inches.
Meditation 241102. 2004. Tak fiber on canvas. 73 x 91 cm / 28 3/4 x 35 3/4 inches.
t e x t SChung Chang–Sup, Oh Kwang–Soo
t r a n S l a t i o nKang Yeowool
p h o t o g r a p h yClaire Dorn, Alfredo Rubio, Fabrice Seixas, Guillaume Ziccarelli, etc.
a r t i S t l i a i S o nAlice Lung, Yumi Koh
C o n C e p t i o nRaphaël Gatel
g r a p h i C d e S i g nAntoine Pépin
p r o d u C t i o nClémentine Dupont
S p e C i a l t h a n k S t o
Yang Eun Hee, Chung Kyoo Yup, Chung Kyu In, Paik Daim
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Dépot légal November 2015
ISBN 979–10–90490–98–7
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