The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) is launching a comprehensive retrospective exhibition celebrating the artistic legacy of Kim Tschang-yeul, the renowned Korean contemporary artist famous for his distinctive water droplet paintings. This major exhibition marks the first retrospective of Kim's work since his death in 2021, offering visitors an extensive exploration of his life and artistic journey through approximately 120 carefully selected pieces, including 31 paintings that have never been displayed to the public before.
"This exhibition seeks to supplement the gaps in existing studies of him and provide a comprehensive view of the artist's oeuvre, particularly works from under-explored periods," explained MMCA Director Kim Sung-hee during a press conference held on Thursday. She emphasized the exhibition's significance, stating, "I hope that this retrospective will serve as an opportunity to rediscover and reassess Kim as an artist, while offering a rare occasion to encounter the distinctive aesthetics and sentiments inherent in his life and art."
The thoughtfully curated exhibition is organized into four distinct thematic sections that chronicle Kim's artistic evolution. The first section, titled "Scar," focuses on his early works and formative period. "Phenomenon" covers his crucial transitional years spent in New York and Paris, while "Waterdrops" highlights the flourishing period of his iconic water-droplet paintings. The final section, "Recurrence," explores his sophisticated use of language and imagery in his later works.
Several significant works are being presented in Korea for the first time, offering art enthusiasts unprecedented access to Kim's lesser-known pieces. These include eight paintings from his transformative New York period, eleven drawings from the same era, and two historically important water-droplet paintings from 1971 that actually predate "Event of Night" (1972), which was previously considered his first work in the water droplet series.
Kim Tschang-yeul was born in 1929 in Maengsan, a small mountain town in North Korea. His formal artistic education at Seoul National University was dramatically interrupted after just one year when the Korean War erupted in 1950. Despite this setback, Kim's artistic passion remained unwavering. In 1957, he collaborated with several like-minded artists to introduce Korea's Informel movement, successfully adapting the European abstract expressionist style to Korean artistic sensibilities.
The 1960s marked Kim's emergence onto the international art scene with significant exhibitions at prestigious venues including the Paris Biennale in 1961 and the São Paulo Biennale in 1965. After studying at the Arts Students League of New York from 1966 to 1968, he made a life-changing decision to settle in France in 1970, where he married a French woman and spent the following 45 years of his life.
The pivotal moment that defined Kim's artistic legacy occurred one morning in the early 1970s. In a 2016 interview with Yonhap News Agency, the artist recounted this transformative experience. Waking up in the Parisian suburban barn that served as both his studio and home, he discovered the canvas he had sprayed with water the previous night to remove old paint. As morning sunlight streamed through a small window, the water droplets on the canvas were shining with spectacular beauty. "It was spectacular. It was like a symphony," he recalled with evident emotion. "I took pictures of them and started thinking about how to express them on a canvas. Then began my lifelong task."
Kim's dedication to painting the same subject matter repeatedly was driven by deep personal motivation rather than artistic limitation. He humbly described himself as a "fool who couldn't do anything else," but this perceived "foolish act," sustained over decades, became his method of finding inner peace and healing the profound psychological scars that had haunted him since experiencing the Korean War. "For me, thinking about transparent water drops is an act of making bad things go away. I've dissolved and erased horrible memories by painting them countless times," he explained, pausing thoughtfully before adding, "I'm almost cured, I think."
The exhibition, simply titled "Kim Tschang-yeul," officially opens to the public on Friday and will run through December 21 at the MMCA's Seoul branch, providing art lovers and cultural enthusiasts with an extended opportunity to experience the healing power and artistic brilliance of one of Korea's most influential contemporary artists.
