Exhibition Information

Jungsook Ahn Tension 2022 C-4
2022 oil on canvas 136 x 136 x 11 cm

Jungsook Ahn Tension 2021 F-2
2021 oil on canvas 160 x 130 x 11 cm

			Eternal Dialectics of Time and Infinitude


Though we like some popular song of a great singer, we long for the singer's unreleased hidden songs at the same time. Comparing Korean contemporary art to that singer, we are fond of known great songs, but we still wait for unreleased hidden classics. Since 2010, Ahn Jungsook(1961- ) approached us with proud and vivacious energy after having kept herself veiled for quite a while. In Korean Dansaekhwa held in the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Gwacheon in 2012, in company with great artists such as Yun Hyongkeun (1928-2007), Park Seobo (1931- ), Chung Sanghwa (1932- ), Lee Ufan (1936- ), Kim Guiline (1936-2021), Ha Chonghyun(1935- ), Lee Kangso (1943- ), Lee Dongyeob (1946-2013), and Kim Tschoonsu (1957- ), Ahn Jungsook confidently displayed the vitality and philosophy of her work. This way, she was recognized as part of grand wave of Korean Dansaekhwa.
The logic of painting that Ahn Jungsook has consistently manifested in her Tension series since the 1990s is strictly separated from the agenda of “overcoming of modernity” or“the world itself” stated by Lee Ufan, as well as the “neutral structure”or“Korean spirituality” raised by Park Seobo. The art world represented by Ahn Jungsook is far from the logic of Monoha (もの派) as the will of overcoming the modernity mentioned by Lee Ufan as follows: "we explore the structure of the world and the existence of humanity through the relationship between simple materials and humans." Moreover, her art world goes one step further from the belief of Lee Ufan in that“human action” can serve as an opportunity to re-recognize “the relationship between humans and materials, and the relationship between humans and nature. Here, Lee Ufan aims at the reflection on the subject-object dichotomy of anthropocentrism.
On the other hand, Park Seobo states, "The reason for giving up expressing images does not come from realizing that failure of modernism, the end of anthropocentrism, or embodiment modernity were nothing but an illusion of an ideology... but comes from the fact that there is intention to live in inaction and innocence.” Beyond the phenomenological world and self-contemplation to overcome modernity, Park Seobo paid attention to the inner world as inaction
and innocence. Through the painting, he showed the logic of “Li Yi Fen Shu” in that the encounter with the inner world of inaction and innocence leads to self-discipline where the matter is inseparable from the spirit and the principle of the world as one, where the principle dwells in all things and humans.
Paintings of Ahn Jungsook start from the question of the square. In the art history, we are well aware that "Madonna della Seggiola", the work of Raffaello Sanzio (1483-1520) of 1514 work was painted on a round canvas. We are also aware of the shapeless painting style of the French contemporary painter Claude Viallat (1936- ). It is known that Raffaello chose a circular structure symbolizing equality to represent the most human figure of Saint Mary embracing the Christ child. In fact, in the circular structure, the psychological distance between God and humans is resolved. On the other hand, Claude Viallat adopted shapeless or amorphous repetition by rejecting the signature and date as a gesture of demystification to remove the myth of a rectangular canvas. The convex and concave shapes of Anish Kapoor (1954- ) are a paradoxical concept intending to rather dramatize spirituality by representing the infinite boundary of the eternal equilibrium that occurs in materials. Then, what could the amorphous paintings of Ahn Jungsook possibly represent? Although they have different styles of expression, they encompass all the intentions of the aforementioned artists. In addition, her paintings open the door to another truth untold by these three artists.
Today, countless directives expressing contemporary culture or art trends are constantly being created. From the early 1990s to the present, many terms such as remodernism, performatism, hypermodernism, automodernism, renewalalism, aftermodernism, digimodernism and metamodernism have been generated without interruption and the discussions on the terms are unceasing. As is well known, perhaps the most powerful one among them must be the intense content presented in “The Postmodern Condition”by Jean-François Lyotard (1924-1998). In fact, no strict distinction exists between modernism and postmodernism. However, Lyotard just assumed the grounds of the possibility of philosophical division, after having witnessed the phenomenon of cultural fragmentation. Jean-François Lyotard found the postmodern condition from the narrative of history. The outline drawn by Lyotard can be roughly summarized as follows. In the perspectives such as enlightenment-oriented teleology implied in the word “social evolution,” the history of human intelligence, Christian eschatology, and Marx's view of history, there is something in common in the sense that history has a metanarrative that encourages it. For this reason, Lyotard states as follows:

“Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity towards metanarratives.”

Even beliefs in the evolution of science that are accepted as truth have been gone through damages by progress and the consequent insights into quantum mechanics, cybernetics, dissipative structures, information theory, fractal theory, chaos theory, and string theory. Moreover, technological changes in communication and mass media have entirely shaken the concept of which science and society make progress. Therefore, the Irish poet William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) predicted the aspects of the future as follows, in his representative work, ‘The Second Coming’ in 1919.

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”

Ahn Jungsook did not trust the linear development scheme of history even from the beginning. The squares in painting are the symbols of patriarchal authority, whether it is representational art or abstract expressionist art. Painting, which occupies the uppermost part of the hierarchy of the human spirit, locks the viewer in the artist's gaze and thoughts, by reproducing and expressing the world on a square-framed canvas. The viewer of the painting is limited to the world of the scope of the artist’s understanding. This equally happens to materiality-based painting or monochrome painting. For Ahn Jungsook, history revolves in a helix form and not in a straight line. For her, the world is neither water as a stagnant cubic structure in a swimming pool nor a noun. It is a gyre in the stream. It is a vivacious adjective that resonates with immense vigor by the numberless living creatures combined with the sound of water. Therefore, the artist breaks away from the myth of painting given by the square frame and moves to the space of demystification. (She takes off the myth of authority to create the myth of possibilities). The artist's painting resembles the frame of Raffaello’s “Madonna della Seggiola” in that she insists on equality between the object (world) and myself (subject). It is reminiscent of Anish Kapoor's convex-shaped work “Cloud Gate” in the sense that she draws an infinite trajectory without losing the eternal dynamic equilibrium (center). Nevertheless, her paintings do not portray an equilibrium state where materials and spirit fail to meet each other.
The unfoldment of all events implies the improbable or the absurd of infinitude hidden (enfolded) behind the phenomenon that appears as probability. For example, the fact that I myself exist is the result of an accidental probability. In case one of numerous ancestors of mine had been married to another spouse, the current me must be different or would have never existed. The fact that the tree over there exists is the result of an accidental probability. There may be different species of trees, or they must have been situated in different locations depending on birds, winds, and topography. Therefore, all living beings contain infinite different possibilities. Therefore, rather than being a self as an “I” with a capital letter, I imply the possibility of numerous others. In addition, considering that I myself imply the possibility of the other, I must devote myself to the other. In this context, Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995) says that we see God’s face in the face of the other.
The canvas of Ahn Jungsook has a round circle with a pronounced concave form. The arc of the arrow pulled with extreme tension demonstrates the power of movement in the middle of calm by concentrating high-level energy. If we see it from the front, it is a line. However, approaching it from a slightly different angle, a variety of shapes and shades of colors continuously change. It shows a number of different shapes, while displaying dynamic changes depending on time and location. Therefore, the ‘Tension’ series of Ahn Jungsook is both actuality (energeia) that appears in reality, and potentiality (dynamis) imbued with the shape of infinitude. While possessing the identity as an object, it conceives infinite others at the same time. Therefore, her ‘Tension’ series reminds us of the Chapter 22 of Laozi.

To be crooked is to become perfect. Bending makes one straight.
Being empty makes one full. Being worn out keeps one new.
Having little gives one access. Having much leads one astray.
In this way, the sage embraces the One (Tao) and becomes a model for all under Heaven.
He does not flaunt himself, thus he shines.
He does not insist that he is right, thus his rightness is manifest.
He does not boast about himself, thus his merit is acknowledged.
He avoids self-importance, thus he long endures.
It is because he does not contend that none among all under
Heaven can contend with him.
As the ancient saying has it, "Stepping aside keeps one's wholeness intact."
How could this ever be an empty saying!
Truly, such a one will revert to it with his wholeness intact."

In the above text, the key point consists in one principle that the sage takes as a rule, and the reason for entering this principle is the content described in the first sentence, “To be crooked is to become perfect.” Although this expression (曲則全) is usually interpreted as “To be crooked is to become perfect”, Wing-Tsit Chan (1901-1994) translates this, “To yield is to preserved whole."
The second sentence is also translated as “to be bent is to become straight.” In other words, if you insist on yourself excessively, you will lose the entirety. Contrarily, If you put aside your argument for a while and take a step back and observe the whole, you will find many opportunities to come. Afterwards he says, “to be bent is to become straight.” In my view, Laozi must have considered the image of a tree when talking about this expression “曲則全” referring to“to be bent is to become straight. ”People do not cut down bent trees. A bent tree survives by preserving itself for a long time. Since ‘Tension’ series of Ahn Jungsook also has a tensely curved shape, it is possible to pursue the whole. The artist’s arc is rhetoric, which obtains the infinite whole by bending the self instead. Etymologically, the terms “whole,” “holy,” and “health” have the same origin. All aim at complete oneness. For this reason, Cheng Ming Dao (1032-1085) mentioned, “The benevolent regards the heaven, earth and all things as one, so everything includes part of himself.”
Levinas talks about a moment when the doorbell rings and he opens the door while staying alone at a private space, an apartment, after having been immersed himself in something. From the momentary eternity of the moment until identifying the person who rings the doorbell before confirming the face, he talks about the ghastly instants of the faces of a number of people flashing by. According to him, the countless faces that flashed by in the momentary eternity are the whole of people, and that is the face of God. Similarly, the paintings of Ahn Jungsook bring the viewers closer to the front to invite them to look at the paintings from the side or from the bottom, making the viewers remind of the numberless images that flash by in the ephemeral eternity. The images that come up innumerable times close to infinity is something beyond the linguistic description. It is both the place of indeterminacy (Unbestimmtheitsstelle) and the unlimited form as defined by Roman Ingarden (1893-1970). Therefore I call it “the eternal dialectics of time and infinitude.”
There is one last thing to point out. As we have reviewed earlier, in the middle of distrust of the postmodern, conceptual words referring to countless trends or tendencies have been established in an uncontrolled manner. Among them, the painting world of Ahn Jungsook goes in line with the discussion of performatism. Performerism refers to a full-scale counterattack against postmodernism that began in the 1990s. It was the ardent desire of artists and philosophers to replace postmodern irony and skepticism with positive energy such as artistically mediated belief and the experience of transcendence. It was the will to invigorate new artistic vitality by connecting art with positive values such as love, beauty, reconciliation and transcendence. It was a great effort to eliminate the distrust that was the symptoms of the time, by giving special inspiration. In the paintings of Ahn Jungsook, I spontaneously appreciate values such as love, beauty, reconciliation,and transcendence.



Lee Jinmyeong: Art critic & specialist in Aesthetics and Oriental Studies


(Source=date gallery)