BAE JOONSUNGThe Costume of the Painter

BAE JOONSUNGThe Costume of the Painter

the cross-cultural alchemistDr. Iain Robertson, Head of Art Business Sotheby’s Institute of Art

Academic oil painting, which was once a staple of every self-respecting European collection, fell out of fashion with the arrival of Modernism. The ramifications for the works of once prized artists like Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, and Lord Leighton, whose magnificent houses complete with cupolas, were testimony to their contemporary fame and wealth, was almost a century of neglect. Today, these great masters of technique and composition are embraced by a new generation of Asian collectors, particularly in China, where two Alma-Tadema mythological paintings sold recently for multi-million dollar sums.

The Korean artist, Bae Joonsung, grew up with a passion, not for the masters of Korean painting, but for the work of these European Classicists. He enrolled in the oil painting department of the prestigious Seoul National University and began to investigate the aesthetic building blocks of the art of the Salon. His solution to vanishing point perspective, perhaps Europe’s greatest contribution to Asian art, was to offer a variety of visual possibilities through the introduction of a lenticular, so that a work like ‘Phantom in the Painting, J.S.Sargent family jk’ (No.14) cleverly disturbs the logical prism of perspective by transforming the painting within the composition into a multi-point visual puzzle. The choice of Sargent, particularly the ghostly ‘J.S. Sargent Back’ (No.21), is interesting in its own right. Sargent was himself an émigré. He studied at one of the many private Parisian studios and, exceptionally for a foreigner, gained entry to the École des Beaux Arts, where he learnt to paint swaggering portraits of flâneurs and society women. The painting, ‘Phantom in the Painting, J.S.Sargent family hn’ (No.7) is adapted from the American artist’s group portrait of ‘The Sitwell Family’ (1900). Bae has replaced the towering figure of Lady Ida Sacheverell Sitwell with a lenticular of a diminutive Korean woman, thereby distorting the composition, interfering with the perspective and also transforming the meaning of the scene by introducing an alien element. The Asian interloper is clearly out of time, out of place and, in her unclothed state, sorely lacking in fin de siècle social etiquette.

The many images of neo-Grecian women, notably Madame Recamier, that are captured by the great Classicist, Jacques Louis David, is eluded to subtly in Bae’s painting, ‘Phantom of Museum Gm, J.L.David red shawl hn’ (No.1). The graceful insouciance of the phantom-like Asian female lenticular observing herself through a mirror into which a gallery visitor is gazing, while to the left another glass reflects a seated form of a second Asian woman, in the pose of ‘Nude from the back’ (1808) by Ingres, also created out of a lenticular, is a visual pun with a rich historical lineage. Velazquez introduced a small mirror (until 1688 technical limitations meant that mirrors were diminutive) on the surface of which we see reflected the head and shoulders of the King and Queen. Goya suggested the existence of a much larger mirror outside the confines of the picture in his portrait of Charles IV and family, and Manet played with our eyes and intellect in ‘A Bar

at the Folies-Bergère’ (1882). Visual trickery is again at work in the painting, ‘Phantom of Museum L. W. House Pandora’s Box’ (No.15) in which we see human statues adopting neo-Classical poses, but also an allusion to the piercing of the interior, pictorial space in the form of a doorway opening into another room, a device which was a pre-occupation of the seventeenth century Leiden fijnschilders. The introduction of still-lifes into his most recent oeuvre seen to good effect in ‘Still life with human image vase 060608 & Still life with flowers’ (No.19), re-enforces Bae’s attachment to Dutch and Flemish art from the golden era.

The European Museum is a significant concern of Bae Joonsung. Museums represent Western cultural hegemony, and Bae confronts both his own and Asian acquiescence to Western art and its values in a series of works dealing with these cultural institutions. In ‘Frames M W1’ (No.12) and ‘Frames DR W1’ (No.9), with characteristic humour, he rebelliously inserts an Asian woman lenticular into a wall of established nineteenth century portraits. In ‘B.Board I’ (No.6) it becomes a chiaroscuro. In ‘Garden I’ (No.4) and ‘Garden II’ (No.11), the museum walls are impregnated with a vaguely oriental landscape that enfolds the paintings, suggesting Arcadia, and in the form of the standing contra-posta foreground statue with its back to the viewer, the eighteenth century European realisation that there is beauty in landscape. The artist also implies in these pictures that the aesthetic ambitions of Europe in this regard are shared in Asia. The works in which the artist introduces audiences into the museum, such as ‘Phantom of Museum L, Nike with bouguereau js’ (No.3), share the intention of the Düsseldorf photographer, Thomas Struth. Struth was concerned with human behaviour within the museum, a place where crowds congregate to gape but rarely look carefully at pictures. The bustling crowds are barely aware of the Greek Goddess of Victory or its doppelgänger, a Korean woman masquerading as Nike. Visitor eyes gaze into the middle distance, unaware of the visual wonders that are unfolding before them. In a final twist to the Museum series ‘Phantom of Museum K, Red Wall Sketch Girl’ (No.2) a child covers the floor of the gallery, the pictures of which are arranged like those in Zoffany’s ‘Tribuna of the Uffizi’ (1772-7), in what appears at first glance to be graffiti. Further inspection, on the contrary, reveals that her scribbles denote the work of the abstract calligraphers, whose work is in polar opposition to the paintings that line the walls, but are now confined to the same mausoleum - in order to be labelled art.

The concerns of Bae Joonsung are, on one level, whimsical, but ultimately, like the Korean photographer Atta Kim and the Chinese Political Pop oil painters, he is questioning his own artistic allegiance. Why is it that a contemporary Korean artist is so drawn to the high art of Europe at the expense of his own culture? Within this riddle lies the answer not just to meaning in Bae’s art, but to a pan- continental, social phenomenon that is at the very heart of contemporary art dialogue today.

lenticular + oil on canvas

Lenticular technology refers to a sheet of acrylic lens consisting of an array of optical elements called lenticules that create a convex perspective of multiple images. When viewed from different angles, different areas under the lens are reflected to the viewer. Views are spliced and arranged under the lens so that each eye is projected a different view. The brain then processes these views to a single coherent 3D, Flip or Animated image. Lenticular sheets consist of lens grooves on one side with coating on the back for printing interlaced images. From the lenticular lens groove side, we can see a very thin line of the image on the other side of the lenticular sheet, and this image line’s location is determined by the observer’s view angle. If an image is printed at each lens interval, the observer will see different images when looking from different angles.

1 The Costume of Painter - Phantom of Museum Gm, J.L.David red shawl hnlenticular and oil on canvas 182 x 259 cm (72 x 102 in)

2 The Costume of Painter - Phantom of Museum K, red wall sketch girl lenticular and oil on canvas 227 x 182 cm (89 x 72 in)

3 The Costume of Painter - Phantom of Museum L, Nike with bouguereau js lenticular and oil on canvas 162 x 227 cm (64 x 89 in)

4 The Costume of Painter - Garden I lenticular and oil on canvas 182 x 227 cm (72 x 89 in)

5 The Costume of Painter - Museum K, Pygmalion lenticular and oil on canvas 227 x 182 cm (89 x 72 in)

6 The Costume of Painter - b.board I lenticular and oil on canvas 130 x 194 cm (51 x 76 in)

7 The Costume of Painter - Phantom in the Painting, J.S.Sargent family hn lenticular and oil on canvas 130 x 162 cm (51 x 64 in)

8 The Costume of Painter - Museum Tp, legs lenticular and oil on canvas 70 x 240 cm (28 x 94 in)

9 The Costume of Painter - Frames DR W1 lenticular and oil on canvas 112 x 146 cm (44 x 57 in)

10 The Costume of Painter - Sculpture of Museum L, Sketch girl with woman lenticular and oil on canvas 162 x 112 cm (64 x 44 in)

11 The Costume of Painter - Garden II lenticular and oil on canvas 182 x 227 cm (72 x 89 in)

12 The Costume of Painter - Frames M W1 lenticular and oil on canvas 97 x 130 cm (38 x 51 in)

13 The Costume of Painter - Museum Au, Window Landscape Waterfall lenticular and oil on canvas 162 x 130 cm (64 x 51 in)

14 The Costume of Painter - Phantom in the Painting, J.S.Sargent family jk lenticular and oil on canvas 194 x 130 cm (76 x 51 in)

15 The Costume of Painter - Phantom of Museum L, W.House Pandora’s box lenticular and oil on canvas 182 x 259 cm (72 x 102 in)

LED panel + oil on canvas

16 Tarzan of Balzac Museum LED panel and oil on canvas 194 x 259 cm (76 x 102 in)

In this work, Bae Joonsung embeds an LED panel directly into the canvas. This section depicts through animation, the swinging ‘Tarzan-like’ figures within the branches of the tree.

lenticular

17 The Costume of Painter - Doodling on the wall S, little girl, a square lenticular 80 x 80 cm (31 x 31 in) edition of 7 | lenticular 120 x 120 cm (47 x 47 in) edition of 5

18 The Costume of Painter - Ingres handrail hy 2 lenticular 120 x 80 cm (47 x 31 in) edition of 7 | lenticular 180 x 120 cm (71 x 47 in) edition of 5

19 The Costume of Painter – Still life with human image vase 060608 & Still life with flowerslenticular 116 x 80 cm (46 x 31 in) edition of 7 | lenticular 173 x 120 cm (68 x 47 in) edition of 5

20 The Costume of Painter - Still Life with sculpture hn, a square lenticular 80 x 80 cm (31 x 31 in) edition of 7 | lenticular 120 x 120 cm (47 x 47 in) edition of 5

21 The Costume of Painter - J.S.Sargent Back lenticular 123 x 80 cm (48 x 31 in) edition of 7 | lenticular 185 x 120 cm (73 x 47 in) edition of 5

22 The Costume of Painter - Still Life with poppy in bookcase lenticular 128 x 80 cm (50 x 31 in) edition of 7 | lenticular 191 x 120 cm (75 x 47 in) edition of 5

Bae Joonsung

1967 Born in Kwangju1990 B.F.A. College of Fine Arts, Seoul National University, Seoul2000 M.F.A. Graduate School of Seoul National University, Seoul

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2013 Moving Still Life, Keumsan Gallery, Seoul2012 Moving Still Life, Gallery Ihn, Seoul Moving Still Life, Gallery Touchart, Heyri Art Valley 2011 The Costume of Painter, ’Moving Still-Life’, Art Seasons, Singapore2009 The Costume of Painter, Severance Art Space, Seoul2007 The Museum, Gallery HYUNDAI, Seoul2006 The Costume of Painter, Gallery Touchart, Heyri Art Valley The Costume of Painter, Canvas International Art Gallery, Amsterdam The Costume of Painter, Avenuel Department Store, Seoul2004 The Costume of Painter, Paik Haeyoung Gallery, Seoul2003 The Costume of Painter-travel with C.Lacroix, Daelim Museum, Seoul2002 The Costume of Painter, Museum of Beaux-Arts in Tours, France2000 Naming, Gallery Ihn, Seoul1997 Naming, Sal Gallery, Seoul1996 Impression of Books and Paintings, Kumho Museum of Art, Seoul

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2013 Modern Art, Challenge the Originality Ewha National University, Seoul AHAF 2013, Mandarin Oriental, Hong Kong Trace Of Korea modern art, Seoul National University Moma, Seoul Era of grand navigation Korean art, Pusan museum of art, Pusan Art Basel Hongkong, Hong Kong convention center, Hong Kong Gauguin and his friends, H ∙ art Gallery, Seoul Inhabiting History ‘Portraiture, the Mirror of an Era’, Jeonbuk Museum of art, Jeonbuk AHAF 2013, Conrad, Seoul2012 Gold DNA, Ilju&Sunhwa Gallery, Seoul KIAF2012, Coex, Korea Korean Eye 2012, Saatchi Gallery, London The power leading contemporary art, Superior Gallery, Seoul Art HK 12, HK Convention & Exhibition center, Hong Kong

2012 Living & art, Funiture, Yooartspace, Seoul Catoon World ‘Fun+asy’, Soma Museum, Seoul Discovered future, Vit Gallery, Seoul Korean Contemporary Art, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan 2011 Zeitgeist, Interalia, Seoul The senses; Interactive Perception, HADA Contemporary, London Korean Collective Den Haag, Galerie Noordeinde, Den Haag, Nederland Bae Joonsung, Sata show, Gana Art, Busan Fashion into art, Plateau Gallery, Seoul Paranoid Scene, Interalia, Seoul A Glocal View – Korean Contemporary Art, Uppsala artmuseum, Sweden 38°N Snow South : Korean Contemporary Art, Gallery Charlotte Lund, Stockholm2010 Korean Eye – Fantastic Ordinary, Korea Foundation Cultural Center, Seoul Korean Eye – Fantastic Ordinary, The Art House, Singapore Korean Collective London, Albemarle Gallery, London Korean Eye – Fantastic Ordinary, Saatchi Gallery, London Multi Effect , Gallery IHN, Seoul2009 Art & Techne , Jeju Museum of Art, Jeju The Magic of Photography, Museum of Photography, Seoul 2009 Photo Korea ‘Shooting Image’, COEX, Seoul What is real? , GANA Art Center, Seoul Ingres and the moderns, Musee Ingres in Montauban, France 3rd Play and Magnificence-, Moran Museum of Art, Kyungkido From Yeonhui-dong, Yeonhui-dong Projects, Seoul2008 Daegu Textile Art Documenta 2008, Daegu Culture Art Hall, Daegu Artists, What is Science for you?, KAIST, Daejeon Lee yongduck , Bae Joonsung Show, Art Seasons, Zurich First Step, Art Seasons, Beijing Blue Dot Asia, Seoul Arts Center, Seoul Collector’s Favorite, H Gallery, Seoul First Step, Art Seasons, Singapore2007 SH Contemporary, Shanghai, China Art Amsterdam, Gallery Skape, Amsterdam Gallery LM, Seoul, Korea 2006 Photo Show 1010 06, Gana Art Center, Seoul Paris Show 2006, Paris Art37 Basel, Basel Now Korea, Canvas International Art Gallery, Amsterdam May show, Skape Gallery, Seoul

2006 Beijing Art Fair, Beijing2005 3rd Frieze Art Fair, Legent’s Park, London Summer Show, PKM Gallery, Seoul Art36 Basel, Basel 3 Days & 7 Artists, Skape Gallery, Seoul 15th Anniversary Special Exhibition 86, Kumho Museum of Art, Seoul Arco Art Fair, PKM Gallery, Madrid The Costume of Painter, Window Gallery-Gallery Hyundai, Seoul2004 2nd Frieze Art Fair, Legent’s Park, London Skape, Skape Gallery, Seoul Extensions, John Chelsea Art Center, New York Art35 Basel, Basel 1st Beijing Art Fair, Beijing The Armory Show 2004, Pier92, New York Atelier Report, Savina Museum, Seoul2003 Tradition & Innovation II, Gallery Hyundai, Seoul Moving Still Life, Do Art Gallery, Seoul Crossing 2003: Korea/ Hawaii, the Contemporary Museum, Hawaii Hiddening / Revealing, Kwangju Civic Museum, Kwangju Art34 Basel, Basel New Acquisitions 2002, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Kwachon2002 Kang Honggu Bae Joonsung Show, Artinus Gallery, Seoul Boiling Point, Sinsa-dong House, Seoul Korea Contemporary Art , Korea embassy, Bruessel, Belgeum Art33 Basel, Basel Korea Contemporary Art-tradition & innovationII, Museum zollverein halle 6- essen, Germany, un office-geneva Photobiennale 2002, Moscow Les Metamorphoses du Modele, Dalim Museum, Seoul Living Furniture, Anyang Art Hall, Kyungkido Beyond Image-Four Gracious Plants, Garam Gallery, Seoul2001 Model & Mode, Moscow Museum of Art, Moscow Representation of Representation, Sungkok Museum of Art, Seoul The eye of korean Contemporary Art, Sungkok Museum of Art, Seoul Come Together, Art Space of Kongdu, Seoul The Costume of Painter, Window Gallery-Gallery Hyundai, Seoul2000 Western Painting History, Kongpyung Art Center, Seoul Kim Hakryang, Bae Joonsung show, Dam Gallery, Seoul History of Kangkyung, Hanlim Museum, Daejeon Arles Photo Festival, Arles Museum, France The Exhibition of Good for Brain, Gallery Savina, Seoul

2000 Sil, sil, sil… exhibition, Sagan Gallery, Seoul Sun Rise from Eastern Side, Hanlim Museum, Daejeon Korean Figure and Landscape , Korean Cultural Center, Paris1999 Im Jahre des Tigers’ in Korea, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Kwachon Peindre la Peinture, Hanlim Museum of Art, Taejeon Art & Artwear, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Kwachen Art Festival in May, Chosun Gallery, Seoul One by One Show, Sungkok Museum of Art, Seoul The 14th Logos & Pathos, Kwanhoon Gallery, Seoul Daejeon Photo Festival, Daejeon Civic Museum, Daejeon Seoul Photo Festival, Seoul Civic Museum, Seoul Korean Contemporarily Art-’90s, Elenkim Murphy Gallery, Seoul Kumho Museum of Art 10th Inaugural Exhibition, Kumho Gallery, Seoul1998 In The Year of Tiger, Ludwig Form, Achen, Germany Kiss Exhibition, Gallery Savina, Seoul Looking at Men & Women Adversely, Sungkok Museum of Art, Seoul Intro- Exhibition, Sai Gallery, Seoul Kongsan Art Festival, Kongsan Gallery, Seoul Face of a Turning Point, the Korean Culture & Arts Foundation, Seoul Kangwha Art Studio Open Studio, Kangwha Art Studio Kangwha The 13th Logos & Pathos, Kwanhoon Gallery, Seoul The Frame is Better than the Painting, Kumho Museum of Art, Seoul1997 Arts & Hand in Modern Society, Sinsegae Gallery, Kwangju Young Artists Show, Civic Museum of Art, Seoul The 12th Logos & Pathos, Kwanhoon Gallery, Seoul 2nd Kwangju Biennale, Civic Museum, Kwangju I& am, Eunpyung Art Hall, Seoul1996 Cinderella Report Exhibition, Dukwon Gallery, Seoul Inter-net Exhibition-gig, represented by Gana Art, Seoul T.V exhibition , Kongpyung Art Center, Seoul The 11th Logos & Pathos, Kwanhoon Gallery, Seoul Install-scape Exhibition, Taegu Art Center, Taegu Seoul in Media,1988-2002, Civic Museum of Art, Seoul

AWARDS

2000 Young artist Prix, Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Korea1995 Grand Prix, Chung Kyungja Art Culture Foundation, Korea

© Albemarle Gallery 2014

ALBEMARLE