Lacquer painting_curation on restoration art and 'artifact' of trans

[갤러리담]

Lacquer painting_curation on restoration art and 'artifact' of trans-species

Hee-Jung, Shim (art critic)

                                                                                                                Sonya Park (Translated by)

1.    Confessions about the social life of ‘artifact’

I am an artifact, and was created by natural human who cautiously protects me to treasure the precious from being broken and being fracture. I am a vessel as being existing like as an shaped artifact that is able to be filled and be hold with life and death. My origin is a part of a tree like a glimpse found in Deokcheonri, Changwon, Gyeongsangnamdo in the Bronze Age in the B.C.4C. The white of my ancestors is the egg of life that speaks of the beginning of universe and the black is the majesty of the moon that illuminates the dignity of death. The epic poetry in the tradition of Korea is symbolized like as a traverse table indicating the mountain range, land, sea, river, and zone that belongs to the direction of the East, South, West, and North.[i] It is said that life and death are one vessel, the tenacity and conformity of life flowing the weaving of warp and weft, that are called for ercting the fate of living.

In 2014, we were born in the righteous circle contained living and in the arrangement of the way of living. I was going to the fine art gallery or museum that was calling for naming the artcrafts and the folk, getting in a car transforting ‘artworks’. She called me and my family on all such occasions.

Cherry blossoms at Night, One Day, Scenery in jeju,

     Early Spring, Spring Again, Gotjawal, A fragmented Scene,

A Hill with the rising sun, Oreum 1, Oreum 2, Oreum 3,

Mountain, Winter mountain, In the Forest Trail,

     the way of going back, the way of coming back, Unfamiliar, Ruins,

Broken branches, Traces of a windbreak tree, Tree

The growth, As it is, Not overflowing, Raging, Heavy sun, Oriental,

The roaring, Heavy sun tropics, Tropical nights Still, Flowing,

The skin, Pit-pat, pit-a pat, Free from thought,

Icarus, hope, the hold,the white night sea,

 Nowadays, our relatives argue about some news topics. Two activists from ‘Just Stop Oil’, an environmental group wants to object further driling fossil fuel and natural gas in the UK, poured tomato soup over Van Gogh's Sunflowers (1888). (CBS, 2022.10.17.) Relatives, lighter or heavier than us, thicker or thinner than us, are taking action

Fine art painting:

“It’s hard to be famous.”

“As the Covid-19 is over, many people come to museums and art galleries,

People are tired because of the Ukraine-Russian war, we would manage a lot of work to do.”

Sculpture: “Well, people have changed.”

Printmaking art: “It’s the Age of video art.”

Ceramics: “People say we are heavy.”

Wooden Furniture: “Some people like us.”

Photography: “The photo industry is going down.”

Clatter, the door opened. Some relatives have left and we were the only ones here. More precisely, we are with a curator who is like a court of hypotheses guiding to where we are headed for audience’s appreciation.

Curating 1: Sall we follow the convention? Is it craft?

Curating 2: Do I follow the example? I mean, is this painting in topology?

                   The artist also made printmaking. It is the plate.

Curating 3: There is a back side as well.

Is it a conceptualization about putting and woven something as installation?

Curating 4: One on the left, it should be hang like a picture.

No, no, one on the right.

Curating 5: Should the direction of the caption be created with light?

Shall we make it with color?

Curating 6: Is it presented in the same flowing as other works,

or in the different flow?

Curating 7: How much is it?

Curating 8: Is it natural? Shall we go with the artificial?

Curating 9: In what proportion? Do you mean the intention of realistic?

Is it the intention of abstract?

                    Which one would be more interesting?

Curating 10: Are the ingredients multinational? or just Korean?

Curating 11: Is it metaphorical dress? Is it lacquer?

How do you we identify the language function in this?

I follow the knowledge of the museum, a hall of social conventions and characteristics, and styles and cases as a cultural artifact. It is simple but also complex. Any 'thing', 'object-like', or 'even matter' knocking on the door of art museums cannot get away from the suspicious gaze that belongs to taxological attributional knowledge of museums and galleries curation. Isomorphic or heteromorphic eidos as the logical structure says, our qulification such as the dignity of the high class, the properties of the causal, IDentity of Thing(IDOT_object authentication system) that must be correspond to the regularity of Modernism and Post-Modernism, when we inculding you and me can be the usage of the function. This is our “The Social Life of Things” and sometimes we made guest appearance as an “objet” between “art and agency”. This is not the end yet.

Our ideal is to be a changeable and sustainable self-propulsion similar to a space shuttle. As far as I can, the isomorphic relatives who denied the above words and went to fall asleep on the land, after that, some of them might become changeable or unchangeable once until now, after people woke up. However, we could not even recognize the heteromorphic when we see their flexibility. Even if it were so, these take a position in a museum.

It can be possible for us as next generation to be placed on a site by exchaging or ciculating. What about our social life? How sad!

People love the world. The bigger the global hypothesis of curation, the more strange-looking we are here, and the people there. When a famous philosopher called it “a piece of driftwood” (George Dickie,1974, Art and the Aesthetic), we thought that our social life was able to be elevated into existence, but the time on the earth goes into being hot,  lacquer trees that live in cool places has been disappeared one by one.

2.    About the Blossom_Peeum of Lacquer Painting

Ecological art does not discover as a typical object. The artist tells a story that experiencing nature we confront with can be coming like coincidences of luck, flowing like the rhythm of life beyond our day life or rational understanding, when the experience occurs from being sympathized with nature. The encounter with oneself who acknowledges and approves the joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure of self-recognition is the record by feeling the self which diversity of emotion that flows like nature, the memory of coexistence that engraves like natural process.

In general, lacquer painting of the traditional crafts comes from natural lacquer materials. The basis of lacquer painting is that not only Najeon lacquerware represents the beauty of the Joseon Dynasty, but also the harmony of Eastern ideology is established as an aesthetic custom. The harmony of black and red of lacquerware, and the hardness and elegance of wood grain like the breath of wood indicate ‘Gungli_궁리(窮理)’ which is our ancestors’ attitude and method regarding deeply studies the world of things relationship between color of lacquer and emotion. This perspective suggested the principle of approaching craftsmanship and craftwork, led by Van der Leeuw (1993)'s study in the second half of the 20th century, which in a broad sense reveals the relationship between the material and social change constituting craft. It also helps to understand the artist's work.

Their approaches are horizontal and vertical(geological) topology, taxonomy of parts and wholes of specific types(the partonomy=meronomy), and the sequence. To put it simply, the spatial phase system dictates the horizontal and vertical ratios of 'unfold' and 'standing', which are the way things are laid out. The taxonomic hierarchy refers to the relation between parts and the whole, and the continuity refers to the proportion or composition. This means a thin spread resembling the sun and moon in lacquerware, reaching the circular(盤_the basic) and modeling tetragonal box containing all kinds of things like form of a rice paddy or a farm. They are placed in the center of the modeling and the patterns and colors were re-contained as the image of nature.

The fuction of lacquer comes from water resistance, and has the effect of preventing decay and corrosion. The wisdom of the beginning using properties of nature is melted into technological opportunities for 'craftsmanship' along with the layer of development of society and use of artificial enhancement or evolutionary adaptation of objects conform causes between consumption and  production and cultivate making procesure. This was the startpoint of craftsmanship in the 21st century, and the relationship between social and material change has converged into the aspect of change and continuity. If the craft technique is stabilized, it soon enter into a variation of the aesthetic sense that enhances usage and experience of the beauty. One says that working intrinsic rhythm by feeling the aestehtic would reduce the aesthetic sense in the direction of simultaneity indicating nowhere, if the form is satisfied and strengthened in the direction of maintaining the original form at some point.

The trajectory of the process of change and continuation of lacquer as the intrinsic rhythm of the aesthetic sense let the foundation for a specific way of fundamental elements of the historical tradition of craftsmanship arrage, and it suggest that measure of the relationship between art and technology can be implied as a cultural archetype illuminating the relationship between spirit and matter.

The three immanents, the phase of topology, the hierarchy of partonomy, and the continuity in lacquerware can be shared with consciously or unconsciously by the activity of artcraft field and also it can be regard as the specific and universal styles of lacquerware, as being assumed to be the sum of numerous opportunities for all stages involved in production and outcomes. Craftsmens have been being the variability of the potential for change in the manufacturing process and their opportunities regarded the initial method of any technique can keep to preservate the convention or the changes of customizing.  Lacquer craftsmen call the inherent of color blooming-Peeum(spreading color), despite the constraints of social pressures or environmental restraints, these are active efforts of craftsmen. For this reason lacquerware is less affected by changes in different social scale, unlike other form of arts, and rather, the continuous action of the form of artifacts can be observed. The craftsman's waiting for the natural and structured state of the material, the procedural steps for the material and its transform process, is unique enough to distinguish the manifestation of natura principle flowing betwwen before and after with the artificial intervention. In addition, the final production is not only the result of various strategies of social consumption and production, but also the sequential step of the the artistic in that it is an individual's creative rhythm with respect to the aesthetic sense, moreover,  that it can be posssoble for presumption that environmental conditions and the properties of craftsmanship can be infulenced by the various connections of relatives.

 'Myochil' (描漆) is of the manufacturing process in lacquer painting. This is the result of constant potential action in the experimental approach to obtaining color. As can be seen in the color surface of modern abstract paintings,  the color indicates the meaning of 'myo', which signifies ‘to paint or coloring’ as inward or outward significances invoving with working emotion as social convention and the feeling of the individual as a basement or ground in the meaning of the black layers of lacquer. Therefore, the meaning of ‘Myochil’ is like the string of instruments which may be thus interpreted, can be the meaing that the color express metaphorically emotion in a sence what emotion blossom. As general convention of the use of the word by the craftman, flower Peeumm, that is, expresssioning emotion can refers to the 7 colors of white, black, yellow, red, blue, green depended on processing and smithing of natural minerals and natura sources. They were joy(喜), anger(怒), depression(憂), anxiety(思), sadness(悲), surprise(驚), fear(恐) and they could be refered to the seven emotional states related to the understanding its humanities progressed on during the period of Joseon Dynasty.

In the aspect of ecological science, the relationship between color and emotion is the ability to touch people's emotions and generate emotions as an property of art. Emotional responses to color indicates the sublimation of pleasure, laugh, surprise, pride, and emotion including happiness, when people are emottional, whether they are absorbed into long term memory, furthermore, 'attitude', 'contextual factor', 'personal abilities' and 'habits' relate to interpersonal behaviors as well as. Even if people feel emotion such as confidence, emotional distance and refusal status that people can have in this society, even if  rather in isolation, this feeling is inspired the subjec’s the action of fear, sadness, and anger caused by ecological status and understanding emotions in terms of environmental degradation. The efficiency cause of color is a major factor that supplies the subject status with a memory of self-regulation that mediates unfolding and folding, such as painting the mind and tapping on the environment, as a components according to life and environment.

China has viewed lacquer painting as an act of handicraft(手藝) and a new type of art since 1980s. It is seen as the harmony and interaction of painting and craft, art and technology. In that the production of lacquer painting as an art follows the general principle of painting and the unique principle of lacquer painting, its characteristics are believed to be derived from the tools they produced and the natural properties of the lacquer that they produced. The characteristics of design, craftsmanship, and picture quality of Chinese lacquer paintings are unique to the nation, just as they differ from the artifical manufacturing or drying of hanji, Korean paper, in Korean medium (in the sense of connecting and joining different trees). Isn't there a repetition of folding and gluing burlap or cotton fabrics? Chinese studies eval‎uate lacquer as a unique cultural development. Black and red were used as important colors in lacquer, but the linguistic expression‎ of black lacquer is pitch black like ebony in Chinese character, for example, Red lacquer in Chinese character expressions are the end of red, deep red, and pale red.

Metallic pigments such as gold and silver are also used in lacquer. Their reflection qualities created the chines expression‎ of “a clear watercolor” as Blue and permeated independently of other pigments, leading to a multi-colored effect, when overlapped with the inherent lacquer of translucent lacquer. The mother-of-pearl and eggshells are inlaid to enrich the color dynamics of lacquer, and are difficult to imitate, and are effective in creating a variety of surface effects by providing the natural and delicate smooth layers and flakes found in ceramics. Tools such as sponges and balls can also be used to achieve the natural surface characteristic of lacquer painting. These tools create a weave nature's pattern. Chinese studies on the potential of lacquer painting explain the vast application of artificial colors, natural surfaces, and varnishes. We can question how natural qualities of Korean layers converge into our lives in a friendly way.

The above description leads us to investigate about the artists’ work now in the menaing of ecological status. Its task is the Korean blossom_Peeum of the expression‎ of coexistence inhabiting natural and social systems presented by ecological art, and eco-scientific observation of sustainability and change in our nature, such as ocean and coasts indexical projects. In connection with ecological context, the work requires a humanistic direction to indicate 'restorative art' from tradition, suggests the explicit possibility of 'trans-species art' in ecological art, and is a narrative that attaches early modern poetry and modernity, and makes people anticipate the blossom_Peeum of Korean nature through the blossom_Peeum in branches and art.

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[i] a blue dragon(靑龍) signifies mountain range of the East inculding height, foundation, room, mind, behind, and winnow, as that a red phoenix(Ju-zak_朱雀) represents mountain range of South including an well, goblin, wagon, two days, mercy, wing, and road, as that a white tiger (白虎)signifies the mountain range of the west writng, looking up, naming, finisging, engazing, and connecting, as that black tortoise(Hyunmoo_ 玄武) signifies the mountain range of the North.

* Reference

Jeoung-eun Kim, Damda Garden(circle)_artist book, 2015~2016.

_____, Looking up and down_artist book, 2012~2013.

Min-woo Choi, A Study of Chae-Hwa Ottchil-ware whoch using the shapes of tray, Department of Ottchcil Art Graudate School of International Business and Commerce Paichai University, 2011.

Sánchez, Gilda Hernández.“THE STUDY OF MATERIAL CULTURE.” In Ceramics and the Spanish Conquest: Response and Continuity of Indigenous Pottery Technology in Central Mexico, 29–41. Brill, 2012.

David J. Curtis, Nick Reid and Guy Ballard, Communicating Ecology Through Art with What Scientists Think, Ecology and Society, Vol 17, NO,2, 2012,   

Sandra Simon, Systemic Educational Approaches to Environmental Issues : The Contribution of Ecological Art, Syst Pract Res, 2006, 19: 143~157

Qiao Shi-Guang, with Yu Xiao-Xing, On Lacquer Painting, Leonardo, Vol.17, No 1. 1984 pp.24~26

David K. Lewis, Convenion : A philosophical study, Harverd University Press, 1977.