Han Mook, Disque Intaglio Noir, 1973, Etching, 55 45cm, EA, MMCA Collection

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1 Han Mook, Disque Intaglio Noir, 1973, Etching, 55 45cm, EA, MMCA Collection Layers and Spaces 1 September April 2018 MMCA Gwacheon The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA; Director: Bartomeu Mari) presents a special exhibition titled Layers and Spaces from Friday, 1 September 2017, to Sunday, 29 April 2018, in Galleries 5 and 6 at MMCA, Gwacheon. Layers and Spaces examines the past and present of Korean contemporary print media, centering on the collection of prints at MMCA. layers in the title of the exhibition signifies the printmaker s plate as a place of expression, while spaces symbolizes the crevices or

2 engravings left on the plate, which come to form the prints. This exhibition intends to expand the concept of layers and spaces by centering on these two axial elements that constitute the framework of print media. Presenting over 150 works by approximately 50 Korean artists, Layers and Spaces sheds light on artists who, even in the midst of changes, cultivated their own unique art world through their relentless exploration of the expressive methodologies and the process of this exploration developing into their artistic attitudes. Layers and Spaces is largely organized into four themes. 1950s 70s: Creation and Development of Korean Contemporary Prints focuses on the birth and the growth of contemporary print media in Korea, while 1980s: Engravings and the Korean Minjung Art Prints Movement looks at a period when a number of universities around the Seoul metropolitan area started to adopt printmaking as an academic program, opening up a systemic route for new print artists to emerge and spurring the development of four major engraving techniques, woodprint, lithograph, copper print, and silk screen printing. In addition, the viewers can encounter the path by which wood prints became a center for the Minjung Misul (People s Art) movement as it situated itself as an art form that maximizes the spirit of the movement. The third section, 1990s Present: Creativity of Prints in the Media Era, illuminates the experimental nature of print media; it introduces print artists who attempt to overcome limitations of print media and explore to find their unique artistic expression through encounters and employment of other forms of media such as photography, animation, and aluminum or clay casting. Lastly, Prints as Medium vs. Attitude explores how the 60-odd-year-old print movement can be located in the contemporary art world. Visitors will encounter the two currents of traditional and Minjung printmaking that flow through Korea s print media through works by Bae Nam Kyung, Yun Sei Hee, and Lee Yun Yop, while the works by Kim Dong-Ki, Noh Sangho, and Park Jung Hae, artists who push the boundaries of the medium yet still find their foundations in print media, will show the expanding possibilities of printmaking. Additional features such as a print studio and a digital microscope for print will be provided to help visitors experience print media themselves through a variety of activities. Bartomeu Mari, director of MMCA, noted, This major print exhibition is significant in that it sheds light on how Korean artists dealt with distinctive attributes of printmaking through an exploration of the birth and growth of modern Korean print media. He added, The show will be an opportunity for viewers to imagine the infinite possibilities of print media. In addition to the exhibition, cultural programs including MMCA Workshop: Exhibition Talk 60-Minute Relay Printmaking Performance will be offered to further the understanding

3 of print media. This program is a performance workshop in which visitors and participating artists including Kim Dong-Ki, Bae Nam Kyung, and printing label Artist Proof will work together to complete a piece of art. Through this collaboration, visitors will have an opportunity to learn about the production processes and techniques of printmaking and to participate in the process of art creation while communicating with the artists. Registration to participate in the workshop can be booked through the MMCA website prior to the program date, while visitors to the museum on the day of the workshop are welcome to freely view the process. Detailed information is available at the MMCA website ( For more information on the exhibition, please contact Exhibition Department 1 of MMCA at Please check the link below for images and further information: id : mmcapr1 / pw : 0987 (guest > 2017 > MMCA 2017 Exhibition)

4 Exhibition Introduction 1950s 70s Creation and Development of Korean Contemporary Prints The birth of Korean contemporary Prints came with the founding of Korea Prints Association in 1958 and the establishment of Korean Contemporary Printmakers Association in The hard work and efforts of pioneering artists of the association, such as Lee Hangsung, Kim Jeong-ja and Yoo Kangyoul solidified the print media as a genre, establishing the association s regular exhibition program and winning awards at various international print biennales. The disciplinary base of print media also quickly expanded in this period. The first print biennale in Korea was organized in 1970s, and print media courses began to be offered at universities. Artists in this period dealt with prints as an extension of painting, while exploring their research on establishing the independent identity of print media. Chung Kyu, Yellow Bird, Woodcut, 41 32cm, MMCA Collection Park Rehyun, Work, 1972, Mezzotint, Embossing, 50 41cm, MMCA Collection Han Mook, Disque Intaglio Noir, 1973, Etching, 55 45cm, EA, MMCA Collection 1980s Engravings and Korean Minjung Art Prints Movement The two key aspects in the Korean contemporary print media in 1980s is that development in prints took place both within and outside of the institutional art system. Beginning with the opening of the Printmaking Department at the Graduate School of Fine Arts in Sungshin Women s University in 1983, printmaking departments began to be established in both undergraduate and graduate schools in universities across Seoul, systematically producing print artists. Also, distinctive developments and cultivation took place in the four conventional branches of print media woodcut, lithography, copper plate and silkscreen. At the same time, Minjung woodcut prints played an important role in Minjung Art

5 movement, which deeply reflected and was profoundly involved with the social changes at the time. The intense expressions of Minjung woodcut prints with thick and coarse lines started to be applied in banners, illustrations and flyers, establishing it as an art form that fully demonstrated the spirit of Minjung Art. Baik Kumnam, Letter-86151, 1986, Silkscreen, 72x51cm, 1/12, MMCA Collection Kim Joonkwon, Blue Bird, 1987, Woodcut,182 90cm, AP, MMCA Collection Namkung San, Spring Girl, 1989, Woodcut, cm, MMCA Collection 1990s Present Creativity of Prints in the Media Era In the 1990s, print media began to reflect the rapidly changing social phenomena brought about by dramatic leaps in the various media and science technologies. Artists began to conduct interdisciplinary experimentations between the boundaries of print media and other genres, such as integrating photography or animation to prints or replacing printing processes with digital prints. This era discovered artists attempts to overcome limitations in print media and to find their own original techniques of expression, going beyond the mere printing of ink on paper, to casting aluminum or clay or embossing on stainless steel. Yi Inchul, Landscape of Shin Chon, 1991, Woodcut, silkscreen, 60x92cm, 13/13, MMCA Collection Lee Youngae, Floating Lives '03, 2003, Aquatint, Mezzotint, cm, 1/10, MMCA Collection

6 Kim Hongshik, The Room #15-Looking Down From Babel, , Embossed work, Ink, Silkscreen on Stainless Steel, (3)cm, (4)cm, MMCA Collection Print as Medium vs. Attitude Where does Korean contemporary print media, in over sixty years of its history, locate itself in the contemporary art world today? The works in Gallery 6 offer clues to the long-standing task of the genre of print media, which has always had to pass down and develop the traditional aspects of the print technique while also experimenting with the versatile aesthetics of contemporary art. The common notion of print media as an attitude refers to a flexible characteristic which can be discovered in works that capture the attributes of prints, even if the work does not specifically focus on the medium or consciousness of prints. The various forms of print media, painting, installation and drawing in Layers and Spaces offer the opportunity to observe how print media, one of the oldest genres of art, can expand to become an attitude of artists in the contemporary art world today. Yun Sei Hee, Allignment of Waterdrops, 2006, Drypoint, 60x60cm, AP, Courtesy of the Artist Yun Sei Hee captures the cityscape through the drypoint technique which is one of the most detailed methods of portrayal in copper plate printmaking. For Yun, drypoint is a medium which best demonstrates the uniqueness and duplicity of the city in a way that cannot be expressed through painting or photography. While Yun s landscapes are based on spaces that actually exist, they are reinvented by the process of being transferred onto the plate through the gaze of the artist, ultimately becoming charged with an aura that s both familiar yet unfamiliar.

7 Bae Nam Kyung, Teo s Milonga-Leah and Jay(color), 2010, Wood block print, cm, 1/2, Courtesy of the Artist Bae Nam Kyung s wood block prints use mainly ink or Korean paint pigments on Hanji paper and demonstrate a unique sense of color and texture. To arrive at such expression, she prints the same plate as little as 20 and as many as over 30 times, overlapping the same image on top of each other. This process reflects Bae s performative attitude in facing her subject of choice in a serious manner and obsessive expression of it, and reinvents seemingly ordinary scenes into extraordinary moments. Lee Yun Yop, Spring Day Returned, 2016, Woodcut, 76x56cm, 4/17, Courtesy of the Artist A witty expression of farmers, laborers and simple things around him, Lee Yun Yop s work sheds light on the coarse but warm attributes of woodcut print, characteristic of bold lines on white empty spaces. For Lee, woodcut is a medium that is physically engaging, involving the act of engraving on wood, handling the tools, and making the body of the artist move. Such medium builds solidarity and sympathy among those who understand the meaning of labor, as well as promoting the viewer s understanding of the value of labor. Noh Sangho, There's a Town Where All The People Have Had to Keep Their Eyes Closed Since They Were Born 1, 2014, Carbon paper drawing on canvas, 260x190cm, ARARIO Collection Noh Sangho uses images he collects from the internet in his carbon paper drawing works. The reproduced image is then infinitely distributed for consumption through SNS, etc. For Noh, who deals with the generation and consumption of images based on the way print media operates, printmaking exists as a concept that can open up the singularity of the work and be readily available for many people at once like merchandises in a store.

8 Park Jung Hae, Comma, 2016, Acrylic on canvas, 90.9x72.7cm, Courtesy of the Artist Park Jung Hae s painting creates the illusion of a print through its flat surface that seems to have been pressed by a press. The unique attributes of print media the element of indirectness, chance and planarity can be read in her canvases on which paint has been rolled over with a roller. And in this context, Park s work becomes a site on which long-standing conventions of painting and printmaking engage with each other. Kim Dong-Ki, Rocky Island, 2013/2017, Silkscreen, Cutting, Dimensions Variable, Courtesy of the Artist Working with printmaking and installation, Kim Dong-Ki is an artist who most directly demonstrates the expansion of the medium of print media. He mass produces the image of a red brick house that s been demolished in urban redevelopment, then recycles the images as architectural material for installation work. In Rocky Island (2013/2017), the brick house where the artist spent his childhood and the plants native to Jeju-do where he currently lives, interweave into each other, creating a site where different times and spaces intersect.