In 1959, art student Youn Myeung-ro received the top award from the National Art Exhibition, considered the gateway to success in the careers of Korean artists. That would have been the easiest path for Youn to reach fame.

But he took the road not taken. Rebelling against the status quo of the art world, he refused to show his prize-winning work at the actual exhibition. He established a new artist group and showed his work on the stone wall of Deoksugung Palace, the venue of the National Art Exhibition, considered a shocking gesture at the time.

Since then, Youn has established a unique style of painting in the form of abstract art, challenging existing artistic practices and authority, and experimenting with new materials and processes.

Fifty-four years on, the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea is presenting Youn’s retrospective exhibition, showing 60 paintings that retrace Youn’s artistic development in Informel abstract art.

The exhibition follows the changes in his artistic practice, categorized by decade, as well as his life experiences through key events in modern history ― from the Japanese colonial era, the Korean War and the division of the Korean Peninsula.

“When I was born, I had no country. My family name and first name were changed to Japanese. When I got my Korean name back, the country was divided into two. I was in third grade of elementary school when I arrived in the South from the North,” Youn wrote in his press release.

Like the life he lived, his artworks show dramatic transformation in pursuing new methodologies and expressions.

Youn’s early works in the 1960s show the dynamism of Informel abstract painting expressions that had just entered Korea, at the time when he was struggling to establish his identity as an artist in the impoverished country recovering after the Korean War.

“Wall A,” based on the novel “Wall” by Jean-Paul Sartre, is one of the several pieces from the period that show dark color tones and a sense of materiality in the medium. 

The 1970s saw the dynamic and passionate expressions in his paintings replaced by geometric forms in monochromatic colors such as slate gray and white.

In “Ruler,” he symbolizes the regulations and orders of society at a time when he saw the rules of the world collapsing.

In the 1980s, the artist adopted the flows of lines as seen in “Ollegit,” a word formed by joining two words ― “olle,” kite reel, and “jit,” meaning a certain action.

The artist called the artworks created in the next decade “Anonymous Land,” to express the “unlimited energy flowing on canvas.”

After retiring from teaching at the art school of Seoul National University, Youn went on to explore deconstructing what was perceived as the conventional materials and methods of drawing the traditional Korean landscape paintings. 

He used powdered iron instead of paints or inks to create distinctive visual effect of ink paintings and subtle changes of colors from the oxidation of the iron powder.

Applying fine iron powder with a brush and knife, and then wiping off the powder with a cloth, Youn created the abstract images found in “Homage to Gyeomjae.”

The exhibition “Youn Myeung-ro: Traces of Spirit” runs through June 23 at Gwacheon Museum of the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea.

For more information, call (02) 2188-6114.

By Lee Woo-young  (wylee@heraldcorp.com)