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Artist’s Note: Exhibition Sewol Pietà – Return Home


By Kwang Lee, Berlin, 2024, translated by Philipp Haas

Aesthetics of meeting and farewell revealed in the Korean folk tale Ojakgyo

One of Korea’s best-known folk tales is the story of Ojakgyo, the legend of the cowherd and the weaver, whose origins probably date back to before the 4th century CE. This story, which unfolds between the characters Gyeonu and Jiknyeo, is also portrayed in a mural from the historic Goguryeo Empire which can be seen in the town of Deokheung-ri in what is now North Korea’s South Pyongan Province.

The story’s background is a celestial phenomenon event where two stars in the Milky Way align closely every year on Chilseok Day, the seventh day of the seventh lunar month. Gyeonu, known as Altair, and Jiknyeo, known as Vega, are deeply in love. However, their love angers the Jade Emperor, and they’re separated across the vastness of the Milky Way. Once a year, crows create a bridge, Ojakgyo, enabling Gyeonu and Jiknyeo to meet. This tale serves as the inspiration for the exhibition ‘Sewol Pietà – Return Home’.

My work on the Ojakgyo legend, particularly on the detail of the “Bridge of Crows”, dates back to the winter of 2011. At that time, I was living on the island of Sylt in northwest Germany. I immersed myself in a simple life, cycling to the east coast of the island in the morning to watch the sunrise and in the afternoon to the west coast near Westerland to watch the sunset over the sea and then return to my studio. While looking at the sea, I fell in love with observing the birds that live on the frozen winter sea – an activity that I really enjoyed. But the sight of flocks of birds flying gracefully over the sea also gave me strange feelings. Feelings of “regret”, of “longing for something unattainable”, as if something was calling me from across the sea, it triggered a “sadness” in me that cannot be put into words. I felt the desire to be “taken away” somewhere while riding on the flocks of birds. At this time, the flock of birds seemed to represent the “Bridge of Crows” of the Ojakgyo legend. The flock of birds that connected heaven and earth in a huge group dance took me somewhere and broke the barrier in my head between “reality” and “fantasy,” “separation” and “connection.” When I returned to the studio, I began drawing my Ojakgyo Bridge, a flock of birds crossing across the black night sea like crows across the Milky Way.

Where does the end of the ‘Bridge of Crows’ lead?

It leads us to a place we can call home, where we find solace in a family’s embrace, understanding, and acceptance. It offers a comforting haven, a reliable sanctuary for the heart. Who embodies this warmth, like sunlight? Is it unknown? Why do we long for home?

My ‘Bridge of Crows’ that mediates between the living and the dead

On April 16, 2014, the Sewol ferry, a passenger ship carrying mostly high school students, sank off the coast of Jindo Island in the East China Sea. The accident was a catastrophe that deeply shocked the entire Republic of Korea. Ten years have passed since then, but the pain and shock from back then have not healed. Of the total of 304 victims, 250 were students. How can we capture the pain of parents who lose their children overnight? At that time everyone shared the pain of those who had to mourn the loss of a child, the entire country went through a time of deep mourning. When investigating the circumstances and background of the incident, an ugly truth emerged: the causes of the Sewol ferry’s sinking were human greed and selfishness. It can be said that the incident, which exposed the evils of modern capitalist society, lit a fire of purification in the hearts of the Korean people. The incident served as a catalyst for the resignation of a president who relied on incompetent corrupt forces and led to measures to combat widespread corruption and other undesirable developments in Korean society that are rooted in the materialism that dominates all aspects of life in our civilization. This movement is now known as the so-called “candlelight revolution”: a peaceful protest movement illustrating how the people’s authority as the core of the state became evident.

I believe that the Sewol ferry disaster sends an important message to today’s modern society. It is a vaccine-like force that helps overcome side effects caused by the gap between material and spiritual civilization. With my works of art, I want to give vitality to the socially disadvantaged, enabling them to overcome pain and sadness. I want to create meaning that makes the victims’ meaningful contributors to the purification and survival of a consciousness of humanity so that their lives do not disappear into the depths of history as meaninglessly sacrificed lives.

In this context, in the work ‘Black Pietà’ I give expression to the grief of parents who have lost their children.

My ‘Sewol Ojakgyo’ (English: ‘Sewol Bridge of Crows’) is a bridge that connects the children who died innocently with their surviving families who live in pain from separation to reunification. A transcendent love reigns in it, through which what is separated in the material world can meet in the spiritual world.

Art and religion exist in mysterious forms that are difficult to grasp with Western scientific and rational thought. In Korean folk religion, professional shamans conduct a ritual called “possession,” connecting the living and the dead through music, dance, and ancestral customs. This helps both spirits and the living to resolve any lingering feelings and find closure. After the spirit of the deceased enters the shaman’s body, a ceremony is performed to guide the spirit to heaven, allowing the family to bid farewell. This ritual, known as cheondo, is a significant sacrifice for the shamans, who temporarily host spirits in their bodies to facilitate this spiritual connection and healing.

In Korea, the religious ceremonies performed by these shamans, along with the spiritual connection between the physical and spirit realms, are valued as intangible cultural treasures. They are passed down through generations and safeguarded.

The work ‘Sewol Ojakgyo’ is a ritual in which I, as an artist, give comfort to the souls of the Sewol ferry victims. In essence, it serves as a bridge connecting the living and the dead, the material and the spiritual, aiming to heal and bring comfort to those affected by tragedy.

The shamanistic performance of Korean video artist Nam June Paik (1932-2006), drawing on Korean art traditions, is a good example of postmodern art that attempts to cure the problems of Western civilization based on dichotomous thinking and rationalism.

Worship of heaven represented in the symbol of the crow and spirit of Hongik Ingan

The sun and moon cult is the oldest religion known to mankind, and traces of it can be found all over the world. Currently, in 2024, Korean historiography, which covers the short period of 4357 years, records the demigod Dangun as having died in 2333 B.C. The first of the Korean kingdoms, Gojoseon, was founded in the 1st century BC, marking the origin of the country’s history. The spirit of the Hongik Ingan concept, founded by Dangun, has served as the founding and governing ideology ever since, granting humane treatment and equal rights to all people.

In Gojoseon, the sun was worshipped. The crow, symbolizing the sun, is a symbol of both Gojoseon and Goguryeo, referencing the Dangun myth, which states that the Korean people come from heaven and are therefore descendants of heavenly gods. Perhaps this is why the image of a crow at the center of the sun appears frequently in the murals of the Goguryeo Empire, and just as frequently, crows’ figure in stories and myths. Relics and artifacts show that birds represent the deep connection between sun worship and shamanism. Birds, traveling freely between the spheres of heaven and earth, were seen and admired as mediators. The wing-like clothing and head feathers worn by shamans and leaders, both of whom always played the role of mediums responsible for transmitting the words of God and contributing to the purification and healing of the soul, are expressions of this admiration.

The dimension of humanity is expressed in the Ojakgyo legend not only in the opportunity for the lovers to meet but also in the sacrifice of the crows.

The story goes that when the crows fly high into the sky to form the crow’s bridge, bird body to bird body, over which the lovers walk towards each other, they show a willingness to sacrifice – the white spots on the birds’ heads are from wounds that they, as ‘bridge building blocks’, carry away. The fact that the tears shed by Gyeonu and Jiknyeo turn into rain whenever they meet and say goodbye to each other symbolizes the care with which the powers of heaven look after the so-called baekin, the rural people of ancient Korea, by sending the preciousness of rain to farmers suffering from midsummer drought. My work entitled ‘Samjogo’ (English: ‘Three-legged Crow’) also carries on this spirit of Hongik-Ingan.

Why is it K-Pop, K-Culture, and K-Art today?

When I started studying abroad in Düsseldorf in 1999, people around me repeatedly asked me what I wanted to learn in Germany. At the time, I spoke vaguely about “Western art,” an answer that actually hurt my pride. Actually, I didn’t know enough about Western culture to say that I wanted to study Western art because I considered Western culture so outstanding and great. Rather, I felt that I had come to Germany because Korean culture was “inferior” and I wanted to learn about “advanced” civilization.

I have been studying in Germany for 25 years now, experiencing the exchange of Eastern and Western cultures firsthand and dedicating my life to researching Korean identity. Since the second half of the 18th century onwards, there was indiscriminate and excessive adoption of Western culture and the Christian spirit in Korean society. As a Korean, I needed extensive studies to overcome the feeling of inferiority, to identify the uniqueness of genuine Korean culture, and to find something that can be described as the essence and excellence of Korean culture.

Paradoxically, I found joy in comparing Western and Eastern cultures. Along my journey to understand my Korean identity, I discovered Korea’s rich history and cultural abundance. Through studying Orientalism, I realized that blending Western and Korean art requires embracing the Korean spirit, not Western standards.

The traditional Korean concept of the previously mentioned Hongik Ingan may serve as an example of this principle. For nearly 5 millennia, Korea’s spirit of equality and brotherhood has been widespread in the form of the folk religion of Korean shamanism, and since that time Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, and even Christianity have been embraced and made indigenous to Korea, with a generosity and on a cosmic scale that includes the material and spiritual worlds.

Today, amidst the global popularity of the Korean Wave, including K-pop and K-culture, the values of brotherhood and equality cultivated since ancient times have merged into what’s known as sinmyeong, meaning “enthusiasm.” This enthusiasm is evident in the intense energy musicians and performers share on stage, which is then conveyed to the audience. It embodies the power to foster forgiveness and reconciliation, solving societal issues through ecstatic expression like dancing and singing, and resolving conflicts with humor instead of hatred. This power, rooted in human connection with nature, is referred to as pungnyu or sinmyeong in Korean. Pungnyu, which translates to “flow of wind,” symbolizes an inherited excellence in the arts, showcasing the temperament and class of the Korean people across generations.

Science and technology offer many conveniences to us who live in a materialistic civilization in the 21st century. In reality, however, we must try to live together in order to ensure survival as humanity in the midst of all kinds of threatening crises – environmental degradation, energy shortages, wars, and epidemic diseases, etc. In the end, we must take a step out of selfishness and greed towards a free and new, spirit-centered worldview. As an artist, my goal is – in the sense of a postmodernist alternative – through a modern adaptation of the performative values of traditional Korean art, Eastern philosophy and religion, as well as the concept of Hongik Ingan, which is anchored in indigenous beliefs and Korean shamanism to solve problems of modern man trapped in the inertia of materialism.

Traditional Korean Art – Reference to the Goguryeo Tomb Murals

The Goguryeo tomb murals date back to the 3rd to 7th centuries and consist of approximately 100 murals located in tombs in present-day North Korea and neighboring areas of China, which were once part of the Kingdom of Goguryeo. These murals have been excavated and are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, offering insight into the era they were created in and the religious beliefs of the time.

The ‘Four Gods’, rooted in Taoism, are protective deities guarding the cardinal points: the ‘Black Turtle of the North’ (Korean: Hyeonmu), the ‘Blue Dragon of the East’ (Korean: Cheongnyong), the ‘Red Bird of the South’ (Korean: Jujak), and the ‘White Tiger of the West’ (Korean: Baekho). Pictures of animals as deities serve to elucidate religious concepts and underscore the animistic beliefs of the people, who regarded divinity as inherent in all things. Furthermore, the portrayal of beings as hybrids—part-human, part-animal—strengthens the bond between humanity and nature.

In contrast to the Western view of nature as something to conquer, Eastern perspectives respect nature as a sacred entity worthy of worship. This divergence invites contemplation, particularly in the 21st century, among environmental degradation imperiling humanity’s existence.

The Goguryeo tomb murals offer glimpses into life beyond death, illustrating the immortal soul’s connection between heavenly and earthly realms. They present a cyclical view of reincarnation, offering solace from the harsh realities of life. Through a harmonious interplay of tension and style, these murals convey cosmic power with rhythmic and dynamic lines. Microscopic and macroscopic rhythms interweave gods, humans, heaven, and earth, revealing an exhilarating spectacle, such as the dancing flower clusters.

My painting technique: From the quiet surface to the ecstatic dance of the lines

My painting technique revolves around dancing lines that emerge from a state of shinmyeong, characterized by ecstatic excitement and enthusiasm.

Eastern and Western painting methods typically differ primarily in the materials employed. The West utilizes oil paints, while the East favors ink and watercolor. In terms of materiality, oil paintings are more robust and powerful compared to watercolors.

I grappled with this robust materiality and the specific pictorial qualities it engenders. I came to realize that Western painting underwent fundamental changes with the adoption of cotton as a support medium. The surface element became increasingly significant for representing perspective, light, and shadow, whereas in oriental painting, the emphasis lay on lines. Recognizing this difference and acknowledging that the element of line is intangible, capable of expressing spirituality, force, or imperceptible movement, I discovered the ‘line of sinmyeong’ (Korean: sinmyeong-ui seon), which one might call the ‘line of ecstatic excitement’ in English.

The more active the line elements, the more abstract the image can become, transcending realistic elements of the material world. I believe that the element of line is suitable for expressing the superposition state posited by modern physics, particularly quantum physics—a state that is existent yet empty. It serves as a practice of relinquishing the heavy and solid aspects, advancing with the light-footed, gentle leap of the line, forsaking attachment to the material world, and opening the door to the realm of the spirit.

Those who recognize the emptiness of the material world can free themselves from the pain of reality

The ultimate goal of my art is to aid in healing suffering souls. Hence, I am deeply interested in socially disadvantaged groups: workers, ordinary people, marginalized classes, the exploited and oppressed, the poor, and black individuals. I am aware that this message aligns with those of Jesus, Buddha, and other saints. In modern societies, structures permitting the strong to trample and exploit the weak manifest in various forms of discrimination, hatred, and violence.

By understanding that the theme of art is the emptiness of the material world, we can lessen the pain of reality. Through my art, I attempt to convey that all beings are simultaneously empty and in a state of superposition; that emptiness is divine; that God is love; and that God resides in all beings.

By dispelling the illusion that ‘I am my body’ we can free ourselves from the ego’s grip. Humanity can aspire to live in a state of resonance where the distinction between ‘I’ and ‘you’ dissolves, fostering compassion for others.

As we encourage compassion for others, the ‘Bridge of Crows’ in our hearts can be crossed.

 

I respect your existence.


By Choi Taeman, Art Critic, 2023, translated by Philipp Haas

Kwang Lee’s painting “Gate Leading to the Mother,” features four arrows of light diverging into the corners of the canvas, where they penetrate heart shapes. This piece can be described as a “story painting,” composed of complex symbolic shapes and a variety of colors. At the center, where the arrows of light intersect, there is a figure reminiscent of the female Buddhist deity Hariti. However, this motherly figure is surrounded by a vortex of evil spirits, including a terrifying monster with snake scales and poisonous, trapping leaves that bites and devours people. In this chaotic vortex, a figure menaces a mother and her child with a long dagger, while several others fall into an abyss. The four syllables of a Sino-Korean saying, yagyukgangshik (弱肉強食), meaning “The strong eat the weak,” are clearly inscribed on fabric ribbons that flutter like pennants on the arrows of time. The frame of the painting is also engraved with a line from a Korean children’s song: “Mom and sister, let us live by the river.” The emotionally charged work of art, which incorporates the vibrant colors of traditional religious paintings, a mysterious composition, and the “horror vacui” that fills the entire canvas, also includes a series of symbols with didactic meaning. This combination not only creates a sense of tension but also conveys a moral warning. One could describe it as a form of contemporary mythological painting. In the sun in the upper right corner of the painting, a crow observes the surrounding chaos, radiating protective energy toward the mother.

Kwang Lee’s works convey deep sympathy and compassion, empathy, and concern for all who have been victims of violence and oppression, as well as for the poor, the marginalized, and the suffering. The word “sympathy” is derived from the ancient Greek “συμπάθεια,” combining the prefix “syn-” (meaning “together”) with the noun “pathos” (“feeling”). The painting “Mother of the Poor,” which incorporates stylistic elements from Byzantine art, and the works “Black Pietà” and “Black Jesus Washing a Disciple’s Feet,” which confront issues of discrimination and prejudice based on skin color, all embody this emotional approach. Compassion for the suffering of others also holds significance in Confucianism. Confucian teachings refer to the four emotional states that arise directly from human nature as the “four keys” (Sino-Korean sadan 四端). The first of these, “compassion” (Sino-Korean cheugeunjisim 惻隱之心), corresponds to the Western concept of “sympathy.” For Mencius, the successor of Confucius known for advocating moral principles in politics, these “four keys” align with the “four cardinal virtues” (Sino-Korean inuiyeji 仁義禮智): humanity, justice, decency, and wisdom. These virtues also form the foundation of his theory of innate human goodness (Sino-Korean seongseonseol 性善說).

Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher, placed great importance on altruistic feelings and thoughts as a universal human disposition and the foundation of all humaneness. In his Meditations, he urged people to respect the divine will while also caring for one another. He wrote, “Life is short. May it not fail to yield one fruit: the holy disposition from which works for the good of others flow!” (Meditations 6.30). He preached that acting for the common good arises when respect for others comes into play. Marcus Aurelius
continues, “Frequently consider the connection of all things in the Universe and their relation to one another. For in a manner all things are implicated with one another, and all in this way are friendly to one another” (Meditations 6.38). Originating from the ancient mythology of our [the Korean, translator’s note] people and benefiting the whole world, the principle of Hongik Ingan (Sino-Korean 弘益人間) as visualized by Kwang Lee in her paintings can be seen as both the root and practical implementation of such a spirit.

In aesthetics, a sympathetic or empathic mental attitude, as mentioned above, is described by the German word “Einfühlung.” As a combination of the prefix “ein-” (meaning “into”) and the verb “fühlen” (meaning “to feel”), this term implies the act of “entering” as part of the concept. Kwang Lee’s works are the result of an effort to express “the state of mind that is assumed when entering” through the medium of painting. Thus, “Black Jesus Washing His Disciple’s Feet” is transformed into “the sound of a stream flowing in my heart.” In Kwang Lee’s works, mythology does not remain in the realm of “once upon a time,” but is revived through her unique iconographic interpretation, exposing the contradictions and shackles of the present day. In the 21st century, where all kinds of violence destructive to both humanity and nature occur—from war and terrorism to psychological violence caused by discrimination and hatred—the light of the sun shines down as the last remaining hope for a humanity on the verge of self-extinction. The three-legged crow inscribed in the sun symbolizes the original “unity of heaven, earth, and man” (Sino-Korean cheonjiin 天地人) and powerfully proclaims that the limits of the human-centered worldview must be overcome. In this way, Kwang Lee’s oeuvre ultimately expresses a reverence for all living beings that transcends anthropocentrism and articulates an attitude of comprehensive respect: “I respect your existence.”

 

It’s not too late yet.

By Choi Tae Man, art critic and professor at Kookmin University Seoul/Korea, Seoul, 2023, translated by Philipp Haas

Grief omnipresent everywhere

Among the works that Kwang Lee presented in her first solo exhibition in Korea entitled “Black Pietà” in 2022 was “African Sanctus”, a small-sized painting of a black-skinned Virgin Mary holding a dark brown child. In terms of motive the painting is based on a Byzantine image of a saint, however, in addition to the black skin color, it also has the special feature that the halo of the Blessed Mother is represented as an indigenous African piece of jewelry. This unusual headdress with a pair of animal horns, identifies the work as a hybrid of a Christian depiction of saints and a traditional African work of art. A similar image, a black man with his face painted red wearing a headdress with animal horns, appears on the sleeve of a record by David Fanshawe, who developed the “Sanctus” that glorifies the holiness of God in Christian worship by combining it with traditional African music to become the so-called “African Sanctus”. Apparently, Lee’s “African Sanctus” was inspired by this record sleeve. However, the red color that runs down the Virgin Mary’s forehead like blood, reminds me of the bindi that Indians paint on their foreheads, so the African Sanctus appears to be a fusion of African and Indian traditional cultures and customs in Christian iconography. This hybridity of Lee’s “Black Pietà” is also consistent with Homi Bhabha’s theory of postcolonialism, which subjects the idea of cultural unity to a critique. In “The Location of Culture”, Bhabha took up Sigmund Freud’s concept of the “uncanny” and argued that it reveals a dual identity of the familiar and at the same time unfamiliar, not only in the colonial situation but in culture in general.

Born and raised in Korea, Kwang Lee witnessed the political confrontation resulting from the partition and the rapid economic growth in South Korea. At a later date while studying abroad in Germany, she also observed the post-reunification and the legacy of post-colonialism that persists in Europe. Even if an environment has been created that prohibits racism, whether legally or institutionally, and regards and considers discriminatory expression a “social taboo”, it has not completely disappeared from everyday life. The fact that a significant number of people of color still belong to the social underclass, engage in hard labor and inherit identity and social rank is the legacy left by colonialism and the cause of a dual identity that persists even in post-colonialism, liberation from the structures and norms created by the ruling class could not be achieved. Kwang Lee’s question begins here. Is the world we live in really “level ground” without difference and discrimination?

Hybridity appears in Kwang Lee’s oeuvre in a variety of forms, not all of which can be traced back to postcolonialism. For example, in “Body and Shadow pitying each other”, another painting from the “Black Pietà” series, imaginary creatures and mythological icons with important symbolic meanings in East Asian culture appear, such as dragons, the Chinese primeval emperor Fu Xi1, the creator goddess of the human race Nü Wa2 and the originally Indian messenger of the gods, Garuda3. In “Summoning a Soul” Kim So-Wŏl’s poem “Cho-hon” is composed on a golden background in such a way that its characters – consonants and vowels separated – surround the figurative motif on three sides, with the four syllables of the word “cheug-eun-shi-shi” (Engl. “compassion”) occupying the four corners of the picture as in an East Asian talisman diagram4.

“Mother of the Poor” is a work that draws the viewer into a world of complex symbols and allegories: The picture is divided into ten columns of ten boxes each, in each of which a fly is painted, while along the lower edge of the picture, painted in white, passes a caravan consisting of a heavily laden camel followed by people carrying huge grapes. This work, which the artist painted when she was shocked to see a fly stuck to the face of a starving refugee, proposes to examine hunger and poverty in a historical context by crossing the painful life of the refugee, the benevolent mother, and the history of civilization. Even if they are caused by rapid fluctuations in politics, religion, and the economy, the uprooted lives of hunger-stricken refugees are often the product of global crises, such as the loss of fertile soil and desertification due to colonial rule, deprivation, and environmental destruction. However, the artist appeals to universal love, not accusations or social remarks. The heart shape, the emblem of love, painted in one of the Virgin Mary’s eyes is repeated in another picture frame on the canvas as surrounding the eye, so it depicts that love is the departure towards redemption.

The complex structure that can be seen in the “Black Pietà” series of paintings filled with the dizzying superimposition of Christian, Buddhist and shamanistic iconographic elements, shows a state similar to the “horror vacui” of medieval Christian book illumination and also to the Buddhist painting tradition. Hybridity and fear of abandonment are characteristics of “Black Pietà”, which is not a critique of any particular religion or a confession of faith, but a projection of the artist’s thoughts and feelings about a variety of cultures. The meaning of these works is complicated because the chastity found in the “Black Pietà” is defined by mourning. It is the “Pietà” that represents Mary in grief holding in her arms the body of Jesus taken down from the cross. Even if it’s not the heartbreaking pain or bloodcurdling wails from a mother holding the corpse of a toddler, it is not difficult to find the pathos that permeates the heart. I, therefore, see a sadness that is omnipresent everywhere in the “Black Pietà”. This self-assimilation of grief is also the root of the compassion and empathy that Kwang Lee seeks.

Obsessive madness and liberation

Do you know “Dope” by BTS5? I was introduced to this upbeat song sung by attractive young men through Kwang Lee’s “Kwangpunglyu”. In 2021, the artist, wearing a robe with the Chinese characters 光風流 (Korean reading gwangpungnyu6, Engl. “light, wind, river”) painted on the back, presented a performance called “Dialogue” at the Korean Cultural Center in Berlin. A combination of dance and painting with the music of Korean jazz singer Charmin. In her workshop, the artist staged an improvisational act of swinging a brush as if to put herself in the rhythm of music such as the songs of “BTS”, “Sinawi Salpuri7” by Park Byung-chun8, and Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Matthew Passion” and gave it the name “Kwangpunglyu”. Of course, I was not present at the location of this genre fusion performance, but I watched a video of it on the artist’s homepage. Admittedly relating to so little information leaves room for misinterpretation. However, watching the artist’s gestures I felt reminded of a mudang9. They were gestures as if begging or screaming, with quick strokes of the brush, when the beat was strong, but slow and flowing in unison with a different kind of music, composed and sustained, evoking baroque passion with a solemnity reminiscent of the Passion of Christ. As can be seen in the performing art of primitive cultures, art is closely linked to ritual. The ancient Greeks, for instance, performed a ritual in praise of the gods, in which no distinction was made between poetry, music, dance and theater, and called it “choreía (χορεία)”. If the priest sank into a state of ecstasy during these religious-artistic activities to receive a divine message, this was called “enthousiasmós (ἐνθουσιασμός)”. The term, which means “entering into God”, is also the etymology of the word “enthusiasm” in English today. Plato in his writings “Symposium (συμπσσιον)” and “Phaidros (Φαδδρις)” defined eros as an intense pathos impulse of the spirit that aims to the enjoyment of beauty. Spurred on by this imperfect and near-mad sensory impulse, the mind attains the highest degree of self-purification through harmony with the absolute being. Plato called this the state of self-loss, the “ékstasis (ἔκστασις)”. In Kwang Lee’s “Kwangpunglyu” performance, these are the immediately obvious gestures aimed at self-liberation, a kind of bliss (Korean yeollak 悅樂). I indeed detect an “obsessive madness” in the artist’s self-absorption.

Already during the Renaissance, which Jacob Burckhardt called the “discovery of the world and man”, the so-called “Furor divinus” was an important subject of study for Neoplatonists like Marsilio Ficino. Aristotle of ancient Greece held that man possessing excellent abilities in philosophy, politics, poetics and fine arts was a melancholy existence, and the Neoplatonists equated melancholy with Plato’s divine madness. According to later interpretations, Albrecht Dürer’s “Melencolia” is a mental self-portrait that represents “divine melancholy” based on medieval astrology and Neoplatonist literature of the Renaissance. That madness remained an important source of creation even after the Age of Enlightenment, when reason awakened from its slumber, as is evidenced by Francisco Goya’s dark paintings painted on the walls of a country house called “Quinta del Sordo”, or his engravings called “Los Caprichos”. In fact, Lee attempted to reinterpret Goya’s work from 2004 to 2006. Inspired by Goya’s engravings entitled “The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters”, this series is a prime example of an artwork that has been reinterpreted in an expressive way.

By considering madness as a driving force of art, rather than merely dismissing it as unreasonable and irrational, one can discover the meaning and value of important aspects of art: Dionysian fervor, narcissism, and rapture. In addition, as a shaman, the artist will be able to broaden the horizons of his understanding of the world sought by Joseph Beuys and Nam-joon Paik if he accepts that he is not a being who uses supernatural witchcraft or magic to confuse the spirit of man, but a being with a highly sensitive sense and spirit that transcends the boundaries of reality.

What can be seen in Kwang Lee’s “Kwangpunglyu” is not a frenzy of ecstasy that grips the soul decoupled from the body, nor is it religious ecstasy or bliss. Entrusting the body entirely to the melody, the swaying of the brush becomes visible as the flow of lines on the canvas in a state of total freedom. Taking on the form of an abstract painting, this flow, as a path of breath and “Qì”10, is a non-reproducible sensual manifestation. The “swishing wind”11 that Kwang Lee expresses in “Kwangpunglyu” actually refers to a mild breeze like the one that blows on sunny spring days. It could therefore be said that the body’s surrender to a violent expressiveness or “sinful” melody is a process aimed more at freeing the spirit than at expressing the pain that threatens to tear one’s chest. In Mahayana Buddhism, the Sanskrit term prajñāpāramitā12 has the meaning “perfection (Sanskr. pāramitā) of wisdom (Sanskr. prajñā)”, but also means “reaching a world beyond”. Focusing on the latter translation, one could understand the term as meaning that “crossing the river of torment” can bring about peace of mind. But there is no such thing as an unshakable spirit. It, therefore, requires ascetic practice, and for an artist, it’s a form of self-abandonment. Lee Kwang’s work passionately visualizes this struggle and process of self-abandonment that the mind must inevitably undergo in order to reach the state of enlightenment13. I therefore read the traces left by the artist’s hand on the canvas as a swell of her spirit. In Kwang Lee’s ”Kwangpunglyu”, possibly inspired by Park Byung-chun’s “Salpuri”, the image of a dancing person appears, but if you resist the temptation of the reproduction image, you can meet the flow of lines and colors created by the convergence and diffusion of energy. What remains on the picture surface, which appears spontaneous and autonomous at the same time, are the rapid brushstrokes, the light of primary colors and a surface on which the artist’s tense breath seems to have accumulated. But why did the artist name this work “Freedom of Karma”?

In East Asian Buddhism, the idea of Karma, which originated in ancient Hindu thought, is represented by the Chinese characters (Korean reading eob) or 業報 (Korean reading eopbo). Karma as a result of actions in previous lives is closely related to reincarnation (Sanskr. saṃsāra). The liberation from the bondage of “Samsara”, meaning “cycle of wandering without beginning, end, direction or purpose”, is called “Moksha” (Sanskr. mokṣa) or “Nirvana” (Sanskr. nirvāṇa). This causal thought appears in Buddhism as the “Four Noble Truths”14, namely of “suffering, the cause of suffering, the end of suffering and the path that leads to the end of suffering”15. The teaching that life is suffering and comes to enlightenment only when this realization is followed by the annihilation of the cause of suffering by ways of renunciation of all attachments is comprised in the so-called “Heart Sutra” (Sanskr. Prajñāpāramitā Hṛdayasūtra), condensed into the following formula: “Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, meditating deeply on Perfection of Wisdom, saw clearly that the five aspects of human existence are empty, and so released himself from suffering.”

In order to free herself from the pain of reality and from obsessive attachments, Kwang Lee chose the pseudonym “Mua” (Sino-Korean 無我, Engl. “without self”) in 2009, which she has been using ever since. As can be seen from this pseudonym, the artist searches for wisdom both in the teachings of Mahayana Buddhism and in the thinking of earlier times. Therefore, she made the sentence from the eighth chapter of the “Tao Te Ching”16, known in Korea as “Sangseonyaksu” (上善若水), her motto serving self-supervision: “The highest form of goodness is like water. It benefits the ten-thousand things without striving with them.” In addition, shamanism and the mythical world depicted in the Kofun murals of the Goguryeo period are among the sources drawing her work into the world of symbols and imagination. Kwang Lee’s works transcend this boundary without being tied to abstraction and form. The expression of subjective emotions and inner visions creates a world of uplifting expressive passion on the picture surface. Her thoughts and work, which are more closely related to mythos than to logos, are therefore not “determinism”, but rather processual creation.

Dignity of Empathy

In Lee’s early œuvre, many works reveal the characteristics of referring to or quoting from art history. Not all art history, but certain currents or artistic personalities that pique Kwang Lee’s interest and stimulate her inquiring mind by expressing human suffering in a bold manner, such as medieval Gothic, Northern Renaissance, Goya and Vincent van Gogh. One of her works, for example, which shows a close-up of a twisted hand nailed to a cross, is reminiscent of how Matthias Grünewald depicted Jesus’ hands in his Isenheim Altarpiece. If the punishment of crucifixion is presented only as a holy and noble sacrifice, the torments that Jesus must have endured can be completely eclipsed. A devout believer will not feel disgusted at the raw Gothic expressiveness that still emanates from this altarpiece today. Rather, he will fear to begin to groan himself, as if he were upon the cross, in an act of empathy in that utter human pain that Jesus suffered in martyrdom for the sinners of the world. Kwang Lee had already contemplated and raised very serious questions about death in the form of skull-like vanitas-depictions, from 2005 to 2008 in a series entitled “crucifixion” she finally tried a unique interpretation of the phenomenon “pain” through the shape of only certain parts of the body, such as crooked toes, teeth revealed in a screaming open mouth, eyes that light up with a bang but indescribable glow, and flesh as a mass of nothing but protein.

The truth of painting, if it doesn’t aestheticize the pain, is able to create a pull. This can be called the “charisma” or “aura” of the painting. Interpreting in her language and repainting in her way the squatting posture of an old man deep in sorrow, Kwang Lee fell into that sorrow. It is a feeling of compassion, not mere sympathy. Where do this compassion and this empathy come from? The artist says that growing up in a disadvantaged environment herself, she thought early on about how she could free herself from pain. These fundamental questions naturally led her to an art that allows the freedom of self-expression. After graduating from Hongik University in Seoul, she went to Germany and studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf under Markus Lüpertz, who had achieved fame with painting in the neo-expressionist style. The influence of Lüpertz as a supervising professor, who figuratively expresses reality and at the same time emphasizes reality’s “prophetic vitality” is manifest in Kwang Lee’s work.

After more than twenty years in Germany, rather than assimilating into German society, Kwang Lee pondered what her identity as a foreigner was. It was her trip to India in particular, for which she even took a leave of absence from her studies in 1995, that aroused her interest in the “suffering human” and made her awake to this topic. The memory of that voyage, a chaotic mix of sacred religious passions and the gruelling lives of the so-called “untouchables”, would haunt her for a long time to come. In addition, it was the memory of war and division, which did not fade in German society even after reunification, the appearance of people with darker skin who immigrated to Europe and led a laborious existence here as “others”, it was neoliberalism and war that led her to reflect more deeply on the suffering of the human being abandoned from the earth. The implementation of an exhibition and various cultural activities in an alternative cultural space opened by Kwang Lee in Berlin on the subject of the so-called “comfort women”, a system of sexualized violence and sexual slavery that women in Korea and Asia under Japanese military rule, reflects the intention to evoke sympathy with history through the theme of pain. Of course, the issue of inhuman violence is not limited to wars, terrorism and crime. Violence through discrimination as a cause of conflict between races, genders, generations and classes makes people physically and mentally ill. The violence that man has inflicted on nature is boomeranging back on us in the here and now in the form of a destroyed ecosystem and the resulting climate crisis.

Kwang Lee notes the causal interrelationship between inflicting violence on the one hand and suffering damage on the other, which are no separate phenomena but connected. Therefore, it seems important that I myself can be an “other” without alienating my counterpart by stereotyping his “otherness”. The acceptance of contradictory situations and the sense of empathy that flow into the intense subjective vision prominent in Kwang Lee’s work eventually depart from the initial purpose of self-purification and self-healing and turn to the “other”. In other words, her work is a window into empathy and communication with the “other”. From this grows the dignity of empathy. Her attitude is reminiscent of the thinking of Emmanuel Levinas, who believed that we could only become an ethical subject by accepting responsibility for the “other”. Kwang Lee’s œuvre of simultaneous exploration of the visible and non-visible world is the result of an artistic passion that dreams of freeing itself from suffering through painful surrender to suffering, and so she says today. The revolution that preserves the self and at the same time transcends the self takes place in the here and now. It’s not too late yet.

1 Chinese 伏羲, Korean reading bokui

2 Chinese 女媧, Korean reading yeowa

3 Chinese 金翅鳥, Korean reading geumshijo

4 Kor. bujeok

5 a Korean boygroup

6 gwangpungnyu and kwangp’unglyu are different forms of romanization of the identical Sino-Korean term

7 Salpuri dance is part of Korean shamanist ritual

8 a master of Korean traditional music

9 Korean shaman

10 Chinese , Korean reading gi

11 Korean gwangpung or kwangp’ung (the latter an alternative form of romanization)

12 Chinese 般若波羅蜜, Korean reading banyabaramil

13 Chinese 彼岸, Korean reading pian

14 Chinese 四聖諦, Korean reading saseongje

15 Chinese 苦集滅道, Korean reading gojipmyeoldo

16 Chinese 道德經, Korean. reading dodeokgyeong

 

I wander around the Davos Lake.

By Yushin Ra, Berlin, 2015

It is a beautiful painting, a calm and peaceful one. A lake, trees, leaves, ice, water, sky, Switzerland and Davos. The bright green white colors seem to be dreaming. The trees, the mountains and the lake only show their vaguely recognizable but not unfamiliar silhouettes. In this lyrical and romantic landscape, one should be able to relax. It seems, one one could say to be happy here.

erland and Davos. The bright green white colors seem to be dreaming. The trees, the mountains and the lake only show their vaguely recognizable but not unfamiliar silhouettes. In this lyrical and romantic landscape, one should be able to relax. It seems, one one could say to be happy here.

At the same time, it can be observed that the landscapes are a bit corroded. Corrosion causes deformation and blurs the borders between objects. So, the trees become a forest, the lake a mountain. Corrosion transforms a familiar object into something alien and brings forth never known faces. But no such corrosion can be seen in Kwang Lee’s paintings. The blurring here is not of this kind. The transformations shown here do not make us uncomfortable nor do they confuse us. At first sight, the corrosion of the contours of the objects seems to invite us to a journey from the real lake into a dream. But will we reach this dream lake at the end of the tour?

In the light of this question, let us focus our attention on the dots which disguise the large surfaces and dissolve themselves. By their number, they frame the landscapes. In some of Kwang Lee’s paintings they fill the whole area. Sometimes there is just a single emphasized one. What are these dots? Where do they come from? Do they belong to the landscapes or are they fragments of the light which is shining on the artist’s canvas? In one instance of focusing on the colorful dots, something interesting happens. The dots connect and form an invisible sphere between the viewer and the landscape. The landscape steps behind the sphere and the viewer’s gaze meets at first only the veil of the dots. We do not meet the landscape immediately. Directly reachable are only the dots which seem more real at this point.

The landscape had already lost its reality as it was being deformed by partial endlessness. Through the veil of the dots it becomes even more of a dream because a dream can only emerge on the backdrop of reality. But again, what are these dots which are real themselves but alter the reality into a dream? I want to insinuate that they are a consciousness. While being always there, a consciousness normally stays in the background. Only for special occasions, it emerges on the surface. In Kwang Lee’s paintings, a consciousness was summoned and dragged into the foreground. It is roaming around the painting as if it wanted to prove its existence.

When is the time when a consciousness is called on to come forward? When is one asked to submit an alibi of one’s own consciousness? It is said often, that a painting is a window to another world. The window as a medium is normally hidden in the pictures so that we see not a picture but a lake, a mountain or trees instead. The fact that we see only a picture and not the objects themselves, that they are illusions instead of reality, all that should normally be hidden in the background. The dots of Kwang Lee seem to be an inner indicator which exposes the illusion. They expose that what we see behind the veil of the dots is not a lake but just a picture. And that there really is only a consciousness who witnesses the illusions. In this manner, it puts the fact of being an illusion (or of being a picture) of the painting in the background and becomes the subject itself.

When a medium becomes visible, that is when its existence becomes known. Then it is all about truth. At what is Kwang Lee’s question of truth directed? Which truth is she questioning? Did she just ask about it. What is it? Is it the Davos Lake, a painting, an illusion, a dream? I know that the artist did not ultimately target this question. But it seems to me as if this question about reality and illusion made its presence felt during the creative process. The colorful dots floating around in Kwang Lee’s painting lead to this topic and appeal to us to seek answers.

The paintings of lakes of Kwang Lee were created within her project “The four Elements”. Water, earth and wind are often representatives of nature. But the old philosophers searched them for the elementary truths of the cosmos as well. This leads us to interpret Kwang Lee’s water not as an all enduring mother but as the first element of existence. Can the painting “Davos Lake” be read as a longing for substantial existence? Perhaps, you will be interested in considering this question yourself while looking at the paintings!

 

About Kwang Lee’s Water Paintings

By Barbara Birg-Rahmann, Zürich, 2012

Kwang Lee‘s paintings become alive between day and night. The fading daylight veils the colours and blurs the forms. Our eyes get strained until darkness triumphs. The reflections of reality are enveloped by the night and become invisible to our sight. But nevertheless, they are still present.

In Kwang Lee’s paintings, the lakes of Berlin and landscapes of Davos are shining under a deep blue night sky in a mysterious light. It is neither an observed light like the objects of study for the impressionists nor is it orchestrated. The objects seem to be glowing from within themselves. Their very own essences are shining, strangely and familialy at the same time to the beholder. It is a vaguely sensed light which Kwang Lee is expressing. The darkness robs her of the most important sense for a painter but strengthens her perception of the hidden nature of things.
On the smooth mirrors of the lakes, the artist herself engages in a dialogue with the light. The surfaces form the canvas of nature. On it, we curiously observe the reality surrounding us. Through the refraction of light, it appears new to us and in unusual proportions. The movement of the water dissolves the static constructs. Kwang Lee’s pictorial compositions always direct the viewer’s attention back at the calm and still moving mirrors.

„The highest good is like water. Water gives life to the ten thousand things and does not strive.“ 1

The revlections do not build up any tensions. They live in peace while being certain of carrying the truth. The vessels of the lakes are filled to the brim with water. This element is bestowing the surrounding entities with their existence. Its strength can be felt through the interaction of the colors and through the compositorial work of its reflection in the environment.

In Kwang Lee’s creations, the body of thought of asian philosophy and the western painting tradition unite virtuously. She was educated rigorously to pictorial analysis at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf but turns regulary to unification in her intellectual classification. Wassily Kandinsky and his companions had to fight hard for the acceptance of “non-figurativeness” as an expression of the “purely spiritual”, the transcendent. And how far has this association become one with our western way of thinking. The asian art of painting never had to distance itself from materiality. And neither did Kwang Lee.

_________________________
1 Lao-tse, Tao-Tê-King, The Complete Tao Te Ching. Translated by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English. Vintage Books, 1989, chapter 8.

 

Temperamental Paintings full of Symbols of Transience

By Meike Nordmeyer, Wuppertal, 2009

Wuppertal. Die Künstlerin Mua Kwang Lee is positioned on the verge between representational and abstract painting. Leaning ometimes more, sometimes less to one side she brings both together suspensefully. The young Korean and Berliner-by-choice studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf as master student of Markus Lüpertz. The Janzen gallery in the Kolkmannhaus is now showing her paintings and works on paper.

“Do not be fooled by the palatable colors.”, says gallerist Martina Janzen at the vernissage. Because the temperamental, fresh works deal with existential questions like death, pain, fear and sorrow. In the three landscapes showing an autumn forest one can see a skull and a monkey is sitting on a fallen tree. In another painting, a skeleton is sitting on a wooden chair. Candles and mirrors are further symbols of transience.

Repeatedly, birds or their outlines can be sensed. They allegorize freedom and impeded, cropped opportunity for development in particular. They are oftentimes linked to misfortune and anxiety. The monkey especially is an important symbol of the artist because of its ambiguity. In western history of art, it symbolizes greed, lewdness and malice. In Asia, it points to wisdom and is considered as a protective deity against evil.

They are profound paintings full of energy. The artist realizes this opulent colorfulness through egg tempera, oil and color pigments. She applies this mixture with dynamic brushstrokes and a gestural style. Sometimes, she paints over dried paint and creates multiple layers. The paths formed by droplets belong to the paintings as well, the painter wants to include the formation process into her imagery.

The exhibition’s eye-catcher is the large scale painting “Starry night in the Fischtal” from 2009 consisting of three composed canvasses. This nocturnal lake scenery with delicate mood and light reflections pays respect to the Monet exhibition in the Von der Heydt museum and shows a confident handwriting.