● KIM Whanki <Poetry of Time>

August 29th (Thu) – September 8th (Sun), 2024, 20:00 – 22:00
Exterior façade of DDP
about 8 minutes

‘A Great Artist’s Moments Recorded Forever’: DDP Poetry of Time Schedule

“KIM Whanki’s world of art showcases formative beauty achieved through the use of deep, radiant colors with lyrical sensibility. As a result, his works not only reveal Korean sentiments, but are appreciated by people around the world.” It is these dual components of Kim’s work that accounts for his profound national admiration and his international popularity.

A short biography:

KIM was born in 1913 at the beginning of the Japanese Occupation of Korea, he moved to Japan in 1933 to study art in Tokyo and had exhibitions there in the mid-late 1930s; he returned to Korea in the 1940s and had exhibitions in Seoul and Busan as well lecturing in Western Painting at Seoul’s Hongik University relocated to Busan during the Korean War. At this time he was at the forefront of Avant Garde Abstractionism in Korea and a leading exponent of Korean Modernism. He moved to Paris in 1956 and had a series of exhibitions there until returning to Korea in 1959. It was in Paris that his work became deeply influenced by Eastern philosophy and where he invented the term ‘formative poetry’ to describe the naturalistic and specifically Korean based cultural subject matter of his paintings: sea and sky, mountains and trees, round moon and white porcelain jars. His mother died while he was in Paris and this affected him greatly (Sacre Couer painting). In 1963 he moved to New York on a JD Rockefeller Fellowship where he lived until his death in 1974 aged 61. In New York he had exhibitions at the Poindexter Gallery while also showing his work in major exhibitions in Seoul.

“Poetry of Time…is a media art installation that reinterprets KIM Whanki’s quest to capture the essence of eternal time and his formative poetry. It features KIM Whanki’s works in reverse chronological order, beginning with contemplative explorations of connections and relationships—concepts KIM Whanki delved into even when on his deathbed.”

Dot Painting Synchronicity in the 1970s:

Kim Whanki, New York 1970s, All-over dot painting style

Clifford Possum, Central Desert 1970s, sand paintings represented on canvas

Yayoi Kusama, New York 1970s, polka dots on fabric

KIM Whanki, 2024 Dongdaemum Design Plaza LG OLED: DDP Poetry of Time Schedule

Special thanks to: