Ik-Joong Kang

Exhibition Catalog

BRIDGES - INTERSPACES - SKY

Pruess & Ochs Gallery

By Jaana Pruess

 

 

 

Within the XXIst World Congress of Architecture UIA 2002 in Berlin, the project, space, time and architecture¡° takes place in 25 galleries. The sequence of exhibitions, strongly connected to architecture, is initiated by the involved galleries and the BDA - Bund Deutscher Architekten.

Finding ideas in the collaboration with Ik-Joong Kang, the Buro 213 related to the collides of different worlds in the works of the artist and to the bipolar ways of working which the artist uses. Starting from an existing, not renovated and therefore not developed construction - a building of period of promoterism in Sophienstrasse 18 - the intention of the Buro 213 is to give the thoughts and ideas of the artist an adequate platform.

The challenge of trying hybrid and non-disciplinary working operations in the areas of development and concept, lead in April of 1997 to the foundation of Buro 213. Since then, the architectures Schell and Ziegler are working together with fine artists as with theorists, software experts and graphic designers. The interest is focusing on locations offside, new relations, coherence and interspaces which needing more attention.

 

In this context, the two unused towers of the stairways in the second yard of Sophienstraⓒe 18 (Berlin Mitte, where both Pruss & Ochs Gallery and Buro 213 has their location) were discovered as the starting point for the exhibition. The stairways, pointing each other vice versa, offer an ideal structure for the bipolar ways of working, characteristically for Ik-Joong Kang. They can be connected in different ways. The inside of the staircases will be re-activated: the wall of the staircase will be used as an exhibition area, the opposite banisters will form a continuous wall covered by a special material reflecting the opposite exhibition space.

In the outward area, all floors of the both opposite staircases are being connected through a scaffold. The visitors can move from one side to the other and pause there. The structure is playing with the idea of traditional Asian architecture connecting in- and outdoor areas. Not only the buildings of the neighborhood, also the sky is becoming part of the project.

Ik-Joong Kang is replying to this platform with different works; new works, which he has developed in the new areas created by the architectures and existing works like ?100 000 dreams¡°, which have been showed in the demilitarized zone between North- and South Korea.

Integrated in the 'Bridge-Situation', a workroom for children will exist in a small shed in the garden of the gallery. The project 'Amazed World' is to be initiated from here; the arising drawings will be collected for a later installation.

BRIDGES - INTERSPACES - SKY

The unexploited towers of the staircases in the second court yard of the gallery were rediscorved as a starting point for the row of exhibitions. The staircases offer an ideal structual option for the

bipolar working ways of Ik-Joong Kang, who lets different worlds in his work - East - Weast, North and South Korea - collide. The staircases are facing display surface. The view onto the roof is also lined with a mirrored layer. The Two opposing staircases are connected onto the outside with scaffolding. Vistors can move from one side to the other on the scaffolding and linger on it. The structure plays with the idea of traditional Asian architecture, connecting inner and outer spaces.

 

 

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United Nations Secretariat news (November - December 2001)

"Amazed World"

By Val Castronovo

 

 

 

Amazed World is a towering showcase of miniature drawings from 34,000 children from 132 countries. Constructed by Korean artist Ik-Joong Kang, the monumental installation is sponsored by the Republic of Korea and UNICEF and will be on view until May, when the General Assembly will be holding its Special Session on Children.

Kang's three-tiered, multimedia oeuvre is a shock of primary colours, so-called "danchung colors," which according to Korean belief symbolize harmony and the universe. Tiny mirrors are interspersed throughout the mosaic, and windows are carved in the walls, adding depth and dimension as you peer through them Alice in Wonderland-style.

The three towering, parallel walls, linked by silk-screened beams, are the artist's vision of a global house. "The house holds three concepts of time - past, present and future," Kang told Secretariat News. "The danchung colors and the Korean concept of harmony symbolize the past. Look at yourself in one of the mirrors, and you see the present. The children and their drawings represent the future."

It took two dozen studio workers laboring for six months to assemble Amazed World. Each child's drawing was mounted on one of the artist's signature, 3 inch x 3 inch wooden blocks, "little windows looking into their dreams." Walls of pictures become walls of sound as taped voices of the children sounding their visions of the future in a multitude of languages play from speakers embedded in the beams.  The dense mix of sound, image and color almost overwhelms, so grand is the scale and ambitious the plan. But what seems big - gargantuan even - to the spectator seems small to Kang, who envisions enlarging his installation to include participation "by a million or 10 million children."

In the short term, he hopes to add a fourth wall to the exhibit, dedicated to the victims of 11 September. It will incorporate thousands of children's drawings the artist has received since the tragedy, each with its own healing power, he says.

In the long term Kang hopes to locate a permanent venue for his evolving work, which will be a "monument to children's dreams that will grow like a tree."

Kang solicited the artwork in a letter that read: "Hello! What is your dream? I am very curious about how you imagine your future, the future of our world… if you send your dream I will use it like a brick, making a big bridge for people to cross over into the future."

Special efforts were made to have artwork from children facing severe hardships, including orphans in Croatia, refugees in Azerbaijan and slum children in Kenya. More than 300 drawings came from Afghan children in refugee camps in Pakistan. The project was an opportunity to let children speak for themselves, and all submissions were accepted.

One picture from a young Mexican girl depicts a Palestinian child shaking hands with an Israeli child. Another from a child in Cuba expresses the desire to become a doctor to help heal children.

"Many people who visited the exhibit after the World Trade Centre bombing saw the irony," says Kang. "They saw the innocence of children who were trying to tell us to stop for a moment and see their world - to believe in them, to believe in mankind. Why don't we focus more on this?" he asks.

 

 

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Amazed World Exhibition catalog, 2001

Amazed World

By Soon-Young Yoon

 

 

 

In December 1999, Ik-Joong Kang, a New York based Korean artist, worked with children from South Korea to create “100,000” Dreams.” Thousands of children’s miniature drawings styled in his signature 3 inch x 3-inch canvas were displayed inside a one-kilometer vinyl tube in the wasteland of the South Korean demilitarized zone. At night, the gigantic tube lit up like a fat glowworm, hoping to attract North Korean children on the other side to come out and play.

By including children’s drawings from all around the world, “Amazed World” expands upon the meaning of “10,000 Dreams.” The occasion is the United Nations Special Session on Children, an event that brings together head of state or government, non-governmental organizations, UN agencies and advocates of children’s rights. In the visitors’ lobby of the United Nations in New York, nearly 34,000 children’s drawings from over 125 countries are incorporated into Kang’s artistic installation. Displaying the primary colors of the world’s flags, three parallel walls proudly hold the children’s drawings. Overhead, the sterling silver Sputnik from Russia shines like a robot moon. Near a mural on a back wall, a statue of Greek god hurls his lance across time. The installation complements the setting. In Kang’s “Amazed World,” the past and future merge with timeless hopes and dreams.

The two exhibit entrances allow the viewer to choose a course of travel. You can peer through a window and imagine which drawings make up a spontaneous canvas. Overhead are beams, reminiscent of a Korean temple silk-screened with the five scared colors of the rainbow and the five directions of traditional Korean cosmology. You may want to start at the shorter end of the ten-foot wall and work your way to the 18-foot high hallway, so that you senses gradually adjust to the towering scale of the collection contained in this unusual archive.

If you listen closely, you can hear the murmur of children’s voices from behind the paintings talking to you and to each other. Kang speaks of these painting as if they were children attending a virtual international festival. His letter to the children said: “Hello! I would like to gather all of your dreams for the future and show them in one place so everyone can see! What is your dream? I am very curious about how you imagine your future, the future of our world. Do you dream from the mountains? Maybe you dream from you home near the ocean, or desert, or city with tall buildings.” An Azerbaijan girl drew a picture of her wish for a baby brother. Other drawings depict Ugandan children at school, a Portuguese circus and its lion, a Nigerian doctor helping children, and a Sri Lankan astronaut. The messages are likewise varied: “Fly in airplane and jump,” “World Photographer,” “I love USA,” “Bahamas,” and “True Love Fashion magazine.” Kang assembled these ima! ged randomly. It would be unthinkable for him to restrict their freedom. He believes that respect and continual commitment are the two essential expressions of love that these children deserve.

With children’s participation as its core message, “Amazed World” stimulated a global response. The Muscogee Creek Nation Tobacco Prevention and Control Program contributed drawings from Native American children. Drawings by disabled children and orphans came from Croatia’s UN Permanent Mission and its Ministry of Social Welfare. The National Guidance and Empowerment Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS in Uganda as well as the Center for Human Environment in Ethiopia sent drawings that reflected a world free of HIV/AIDS. There are drawings by refugees from Azerbaijan and drawings by slum children who had never even painted before from GROOTS in Kenya. One schoolteacher in Switzerland organized all her students to draw, and China is planning a national competition for its young contributors.

As the dead line for submission approached, a girl from Ghana who had missed the date wrote: “My mother is everything I have on this Earth. Just a month ago I lost my one and only sister. Now, art is my life. The purpose of writing you is to plead you with you to give me another chance because I was among those in the art competition.” She didn’t have to ask; Kang accepted all drawing as if they were his own. As he put it, “We are all connected. I am relieved that I am not alone. I am a part of these children, and they are a part of me.” Kang did not want the project to become a global competition.

Paintings continue to pour into his studio. “Amazed World” is an evolving work, a distinct maker in the changing vision of his art and the artist’s role. Gone are the themes of cultural adaptation seen in earlier works like “8490 Days of Memory,” when his own life was the rich text of his artistic diary. In this international series, Kang has stepped back and put children’s own voices forward. Yet the role of the artist is not just as a curator; he has his own dream to fulfill. As he explained to the children, “If you send your dream I will use it like a brick making a big bridge for people to cross over into the future.” This exhibit is another stop in journey across a bridge of hope, led by a humble pied piper named Kang.

 

 

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Press Release, 2001

The Amazed World

By Ik-Joong Kang

 

 

 

"I have six sisters and want one brother", says a 12 years old Uzbekistan girl in her drawing of herself pushing a little brother in a stroller. A boy from Congo made a beautiful drawing with an inscription, " the way to survive in Africa - never see, never talk and never hear". A young Switzerland student designed a beautiful house walking with its robot legs. A 10-year-old Italian boy is making a wonderful over- head kick in a soccer field. One of the first drawings received for our 'Amazed World' exhibition held at United Nation was from a child in Cuba, whose dream is to become a doctor helping other children. This drawing was later displayed next to the drawing by a 13-year-old Vietnamese friend who invites us to his dinner party at his flower- blooming back yard. You can also find an amazing drawing with an image of a Palestinian child and an Israeli child shaking hands, done by a girl from Mexico.

The "Amazed World" received drawings from 34,000 children in over 135 countries. Each child was given a 3"x3" canvas to draw their goals and dreams. With each 3"x3" that we received, we saw in them a window of each child's world and heard voices of their cries and joys. Some wanted to climb the highest mountain while a 12-year-old Uzbekistan girl just wanted a brother. Each dream was mounted and exhibited next to another. When 34,000 finally filled the walls of the United Nations, we saw the harmony of it all. At a simple glance, it was one world filled with one dream - harmoniously existing with the other. But each canvas tells a story of its creator.

Ironically, on the day the "Amazed World" exhibition was to open was September 11, 2001 - the day of the World Trade Center bombing. Sadly, world peace craved by children who participated in the show was shattered by the event. United Nations where the show was being held was closed indefinitely and all the people evacuated. 34,000 paintings proudly done by children all over the world hung in the midst of chaos and uncertainty. It wasn't until many days later that the building was re-opened to the public. However, there was still lingering the threat of biological warfare, more bomb threats, and possibility of more plane crashes. There was a calm sea of panic everywhere. If a bus went off the road or a plane crashed while taking off, people assumed it was the doing of our "enemy. As people's panic rose, we all became patriotic and wanted revenge. Through these tragic events, the voices of the 34,000 children became faint and almost lost. Many people who visited the exhibition after the bombing saw the irony of it all. They saw the innocence of children who were trying to tell us to stop for a moment and see their world - to believe in them - to believe in the mankind. Fortunately, the people who were able to see the exhibition amidst many layers of security check into the United Nations building, were taken aback by these voices. The exhibition which was to close on October 29, 2001 was extended until September of 2002. Perhaps the voices of these children can be heard if the world allows them.

 

 

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The Virginian Pilot -The Daily Break, January 27, 2000

Sweet Salute

By Teresa Annas

(Staff Writer)

 

 

 

Tribute arose out of artist's desire to freeze his memories of home.

MacArthur, in chocolate.

A well known artist has rendered Gen. Douglas MacArthur in creamy Korean chocolate.

At 9 feet, Ik-Joong Kang's statue might keep a pack of hungry children sugar-charged for days. If they were allowed to gnaw in his shoes and slacks.

But the art installation, titled"8490 Days of Memory," is in a please-don't touch-or nibble-gallery.

Tonight, Kang's 7-ton sculpture goes on view at the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia in Virginia Beach. It's part of a show called "Six Degrees of Inspiration," featuring work by prominent immigrant artists.

Displayed so close to MacArthur's Norfolk memorial and burial site-and days after his widow passed way-some might think Kang was daring to trivialize the popular, five-star general. The truth is quite he opposite.

"MacArthur is probably most important man in Korean history. He was almost a Superman too many people," Kang said, speaking last week from his home in Manhattan.

"Even during the demonstrations against American government in the 1970s, his statue as unharmed by any demonstrator."

Kang didn't experience the Korean War. But growing up, the effects, the stories, were vivid to him.

Most of his countrymen knew how MacArthur, in 15 days, had overtaken South Korea, bullying Communist forces back across the 38th Parallel.

That was in 1950, a decade before Kang was born.

American and Korean cultures were well mixed in the town where Kang grew up-It'ae Won, site of a U.S. Army base. It was unique among Korean town, in the extent to which business catered to American; most signs were in both English and Korean.

The artist's family was not well off. Luxuries and treats were rare.

He recalls running after Jeeps packed with American soldiers tossing candy bars to youths.

"The memory of the chocolate was very sweet." He said. "The memory of war was very bitter."

Memory of an accident also left a sour taste.

He was chasing a Jeep with another boy when his friend was hit by a car. The youngster was hurt, but not fatally. "Then I had to run and tell his mother. I remember his mother screaming and crying. I remember really strongly."

He places that bittersweet contrast with other yin-yangs he's seen or read about.

"When I look back in my Korean history, even though MacArthur was a good man with a good heart, I was comparing him with Christian missionaries. They came to our land with rice in one hand, a bible in the other," Kang says.

"Then they five out candy to children, was I kind of public relations reason? May be not. May be they gave chocolate from caring mind."

"It really didn't matter to me at the time. The chocolate was so sweet. I couldn't really eat it all at once."

"When you open foil, you smell. You don't eat right away. You lick the chocolate with your tongue, little by little. You eat slowly as possible."

"Very precious."

Kang moved to New York in 1984. He was 24, and came to pursue a master's degree n art from Pratt institute in Brooklyn. While studying, he worked two jobs, leaving him no studio time for making art.

His solution: During long subway rides from job to class to job. He created hundreds of pocket-sized, multimedia paintings and drawings.

For a newcomer, it was a way to process the flood of strange sights. Every work was a quick impression, and personal response.

By 1994, he was successful enough to quit his jobs and work full time at art. Yet he continued to make many small pieces, and have those like-scales components comprise his art installations.

Kang's career is going well. He's shown worldwide in prestigious venues, including two shows at the Whitney Museum of American Art, one with the MacArthur sculpture. He represented Korea at the 1997 Venice Biennale, where he earned a major international award.

In 1997, he also showed at the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia. His "English Garden" installation resembled a Buddhist temple covered in small paintings; tapes broadcast both the chanting Korean monks and English language lessons.

As was " English Garden." The "8490" piece is about the artist's attempts to hold on to memories.

Kang was in American for 12 years before he returned to Korea.

" I realized my memory about my hometown was gone. And my memory of my small school."

He felt urgent about that loss of personal history.

"So I had to freeze, just freeze my memories. So it doesn't fade away."

On that trip, he connected with a gallery in Seoul and told them his idea. In 1995, the Korean economy was booming, so the gallery handed Kang $250,000 to build his "8490 Days of Memory."

It remains his most expensive artwork.

Since MacArther is a close copy of a memorial in Incheon, near Seoul. Same height. Same posture, with field glasses held down at his waist. In uniform, and a tad pudgy at the middle.

Kang started his statue with a clay model. Then he cast it in plaster, resulting in a hollow form that he pulled of in sections and rejoined.

He got about 44 pounds of Korean chocolate donated by a Korean company. Then he set up a double boiler in his studio, melting the chocolate, then icing it on with a wide, bamboo brush.

At time, to get in the tight spots-around the general's face, for instance-he's put in rubber gloves and smear the hot chocolate on by hand. Ouch.

This is the fourth showing for "8490." Five years since it was made, the original chocolate remains.

Kang has cut the statue in two, to make shipping easier.

Touch ups, however, are required with each new showing.

Kang generally installs his work. But he learned his other-in-law would be having open-heart surgery in Monday, the day he was due in Virginia Beach. So he and his wife dashed off to Korea.

Earlier this week, staff at the Beach arts center were doing as Kang would have done. They were heating chocolate and brushing it on. At the very least, they had to heal the seam between the two main sections.

May be an elbow or nose was scuffed. Needed a little fresh chocolate.

The figure now stands on 8,490 3-inch plastic cubes, each containing a tiny toy. Each cube represents a day in his life in Korea, prior to moving to the United States.

His mother collected every one of those toys. "It's kind of her life also. Kind of root. So I think it's important she collect, and we make together."

He's reclaiming each day from his childhood, and freezing it.

But the yin-yang two-sidedness also is encapsulated.

On that chocolate MacArthur:

"When you talk about Buddha, Buddha was covered in gold. When you go to any temple in Asia, Buddha statue usually has gold coat."

The gold is a sacred material, symbolic of holiness. But in Korean history, wars were fought to obtain gold.

"Chocolate-same thing. Sweet, and bitter."

 

 

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Neueus aus Sammlung Ludwig, Exhibition Catalogue 1999

The Art of Ik-Joong Kang

by Eugenie Tsai,

(Senior Curator, Permanent Collection Whitney Museum of American Art)

 

 

 

Buddha Learning English (1999) resembles the interior of a small pavilion of the sort we might see nestled amidst distant hills in a traditional Asian landscape painting. A curved wall covered from top-to-bottom with 3060 jewel-toned paintings, all measuring three-by-three inches, encloses a chocolate statue of a seated Buddha. The statue rotates slowly on its base, accompanied by the repetitious sound of chanting. This figure of Buddha is modeled on Seated Maitreya, a Korean National Treasure from the sixth century, which Kang admired in the inaugural exhibition of the Korean Galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in 1998. Working from a postcard showing the front of the statue, and a drawing he made of the back, he recreated the masterpiece in resin, and added the finishing touch of a layer of melted milk chocolate.

In contrast to the serene, contemplative attitude of the statue, the paintings project a loud, boisterous presence. Each canvas bears a different phrase (for example, "garden clogs", "city taxi", "erotic context") randomly selected by Kang from his daily reading of The New York Times and other newspapers and magazines. The artist's treatment of individual letters and larger phrases-outlining words in black, employing blocky capital letters, dividing words at odd junctures-highlight the abstract, graphic qualities of language in ways that parallel strategies found in concrete poetry. While whole-heartedly embracing American culture, the word paintings also refer to a Korean artistic tradition. The unmodulated, highly saturated hues of red, green bright yellow, gold, white, and blue, and the use of black outlines, are Kang's play on Don Cheong, a painting technique and color scheme found at temples, such as Bulkuk-sa, an eighth century temple in Kyongju, designated a National Treasure.

Buddha Learning English, incorporates themes and structures utilized in Kang's work since he arrived in New York in 1984, where he came to attend graduate school at Pratt Institute. As an impoverished student, he worked two jobs, one by day, and one by night. This left him little time to spend in the studio. He discovered that three-by-three inch canvases fit into his pockets and into the palm of his hand, allowing him to work on them during his long commute between his jobs and school. The subway became a mobile studio. The paintings produced by Kang at this time were immediate and diaristic, recording his amazement and wonder at everyday encounters with a foreign culture. Hung in a grid formation, several thousand at a time, the ensemble of canvases presents a continuum of Kang's life in a newly adopted culture.

A few years later, other aspects of Kang's production drew upon his memories of Korea, particularly of school trips to Buddhist temples. An earlier series entitled Buddha Learning English (1992-92) juxtaposed a grid of three-inch-square paintings, each bearing an iconic image of a seated Buddha, with the artist's voice on tape, carefully enunciating phrases in English.

Kang's fascination and struggle with the English language is also evident in several series of drawings (1992) devoted primarily to the written word as image. These include drawings on gridded white paper with vocabulary words taken from the study guide for the Graduate Record Examination written in English using red ink, and the Korean equivalent written in blue. In other series, the artist filled sheets of lines paper with a single phrase, like "good luck," "happy," scrawled longhand until no empty space remained.

With his installation 8490 Days of Memory (1996), Kang once again revisited his childhood. He utilized chocolate, with its distinctive aroma and taste as a material to evoke his initial encounter with American culture during the Korean War. During this time of great impoverishment, he and his friends would stand near a gate of a US Army base near his school where Gis would throw candy bars to Korean children. A nine-foot chocolate statue of General Douglas MacArthur dominated the installation. Eight-thousand-four-hundred-

-ninety three-inch squares of chocolate, hung on the wall, each bearing a different insignia from the U. S. army.

As we have seen, Kang's past work has reveled in the most mundane aspects of the material world, exemplified by American popular culture, including the printed word. With Buddha Learning English, we see a reevaluation of the artist's attitude toward this world. The downcast gaze and contemplative pose of the seated Buddha, slowly revolving in a cacophonous world of minutiae suggests a letting go, a release of all attachment to the everyday world of appearance and things. Having examined his past and relished the present, perhaps on the eve of the Millenium, Kang is looking toward the future.

 

 

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