2021. 7. 2 – 7. 28

A moon jar that blooms in a real aspiration

Moon jars rarely appeared in literature or other paintings, but they appeared more than 200 years later in paintings and writings by Kim Hwan-ki. He confessed that he saw the beauty of Korea in this jar, saying, “Simple circular, simple white is so complicated, and such subtle and mysterious beauty cannot be given off.”

Considering Kang Ik joong’s moon jar as “a vessel containing the sky and the heart,” he also carried out an art project to connect the division of the two Koreas through the moon jar during the production of the moon jar, saying, “It was originally two, but it broke through fire and merged into one.” Under the reality of the divided country, the moon jar is still a “moon of dreams” for Kang Ik-jung.

Ko Young hoon creates the moon jar, “time swallowed” that has endured more than 200 years on canvas. Painting reveals that the jar that has been sucked in for such a long time is becoming a creature rather than a simple object. He creates the illusion of the moon jar, the simulacre of the moon jar, in a very refined and ecstatic way.

Photos of Koo Bohn chang, a moon jar that seems to have been removed a gloss, make moon jar feel like a creature, especially a human. Because of the texture of the jar surface exposed in the background of the light treated with salmon pink color, the inanimate pottery seemed to have breath and flesh. Even the loose, blurred boundary between pottery and its background shows more clearly the tension as a creature in the environment. he took a picture of pottery, but it was taken as if it were not.

Kim Duck young reveals the time the moon jar holds through the tree. He carved the moon jar on the traces of time piled up in the grain of wood. The time and emotions of pottery were planted by digging into the tree’s bonds. Kim Deok-yong shows that the sign of the moon jar is flowing away from the signifier of ceramics and is becoming conceptualized.

Kim Young jin has implemented moon jar with metal pin. More than tens of thousands of pins are twisted and planted one by one to create the moon jar in a flat three-dimensional form. It looks like a ceramic shape due to optical illusion but it has nothing to do with ceramics. The image of the moon jar is independent of its material properties and reveals its presence on its own.

The moon jar boom, which began in the early 2000s, is now at its peak. Kim Pan ki and Lee Yong soon are representative artists who want to approach the moon jar as a reality. It is to show the moon jar that has gone back more than 200 years.

Choi Young wook gives a strong meaning to “Bing-ryul (氷裂),” a fine crack on the surface of a moon jar. It shows the metaphor for human life, which revolves around in the relationships and relationships of people who are woven like threads, through the surface of the moon jar. Bing-ryul occurs and disappears depending on the temperature of the glaze on the surface of the pottery, but it also occurs over time.

Bernard Richie called the moon jar in the Korean Pavilion of the British Museum “natural unconsciousness,” while Choi Soon woo called it “immature and innocent beauty,” and “an quiet beauty” and “loose eldest daughter-in-law and slow” because of the irreproachable taste of the circle. Yoo Hong-joon also called it “the height of Korean beauty.” Most of these expressions are embodied in the basic logic and language of folklore advocated by Yanagi Munayoshi. These expressions come from the tradition of aesthetic standardization of the simple, natural world of “inorganic techniques” based on the strident feeling of Lao Tzu’s “daegyo-jok.” Artists such as Ko Young hoon and Koo Bohn chang are crossing the boundaries of Korean beauty defined by Munayoshi, realizing their contemporary artistic vision by formally accepting objects from more than 200 years ago called moon jars, just as Picasso or Matisse achieved new formative innovations through Africa’s primitive masks or medieval arabesque patterns.

Kim Woong gi (Art Criticism)

gallery NoW
16, Eonju-ro 152-gil, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Korea
+82 2 725 2930

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