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Kim Chung Sook's Sculpture Blends Korean Tradition With Western Modernism
| Article
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12289 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1987 |
1,380 Words |
| Author
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Betty Rogers Rubenstein
Betty Rogers Rubenstein is an art historian and critic
residing in Tallahassee, Florida. |
Like the dancer or the skier, the aviator or the eagle, we all would like to soar high into the air, free, even momentarily, from the downward pull of our own weight and the drag of the earth's gravity.
This buoyant desire is caught in the art of Korea's noted sculptor Kim Chung Sook. Flying forms in marble and bronze mark the culmination of her long and varied career.
Kim has been a prizewinning artist ever since her first one-woman show in 1962. She represented Korea at the 1967 Sao Paulo Biennale. In 1985 she was named Woman of the Year for her achievement in both the arts and community service. Recently her sculpture were prominently displayed during the Asian Games in Seoul.
Towering thirty feet above Sajik Park, Kim's bronze statue of Confucian scholar Yi Yulgok (1536-1584) reminds the viewers that public art in Korea is not just for art's sake but also for the sake of preserving the best of traditional values, even as the country soars into modernization.
Kim's large bronze plaques at the entrance of the National Christian Council Building and her relief sculpture at the Seoul YWCA dramatize the importance of the Christian mission in Korea. They also demonstrate the multidimensional quality of her art.
As a visit to Kim's home indicates - with its sculpture garden and room crowded with her artworks, and all the evidence of a rich life spent with other artists, family, and friends - her sculpture ranges from a moderated realism to the semi-abstract.
Born in 1917 during the Japanese occupation of Korea (1910-1945), Kim's best option for advanced study in the arts during her college years was in Japan. But her parents refused to allow her to go. At the end of the Korean War (1953), following her graduation from the Fine Arts College of Hongik University in Seoul, however, she was one of three artists chosen by the Korean government to study abroad. Kim was the first Korean to study sculpture in the United States.
When Kim came to Cranbook Academy near Detroit, the world of modern sculpture opened up to her. Studying first with Leo Steppert, she was influenced by the art of such sculptors as Brancusi, Arp, and Carl Milles. The works of Henry Moore and Giacometti also had a major impact on her
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