Park Han-sol reports on Korea's financial regulators, along with fintech and insurance. She previously wrote about the art world, from biennales and exhibitions to fairs and auctions, with a focus on Seoul and the figures shaping the scene. Before joining The Korea Times, she spent a year at ABC News' Seoul bureau, contributing to coverage of major Asia-Pacific events.
Tracing enthralling theme of light across Tate Collection
John Brett's “The British Channel Seen from the Dorsetshire Cliffs” (1871) is on view in the Buk-Seoul Museum of Art's exhibition, “Light: Works from the Tate Collection.” Courtesy of the Tate
By Park Han-sol
By Park Han-sol
A single lit candle flickers and flutters faintly inside the steel shell of a cathode-ray tube (CRT) television. In Paik Nam-june's “Candle TV,” while the flame represents the beginning of civilization, TV becomes a symbol that has ushered in a new digital era of human culture.
This intriguing interplay between natural light and contemporary technology presented in Paik's piece is what marks the beginning of the Buk-Seoul Museum of Art's new exhibition, “Light: Works from the Tate Collection.”
“Candle TV, centering on light, visually encapsulates human history from the start of civilization to the present day,” curator Oh Yeon-seo noted during a recent press preview. “The museum placed this work as a poetic introduction to the wide range of displayed works, from traditional paintings to contemporary installations,” which incorporate light as their subject matter, material or means of expression.
Jointly organized by the Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA) and the Tate, the show traces the theme of light captured and explored over the past 200 years of art history, across the breadth of Tate's collection.
From the religious masterpieces of late 18th-century England, to French Impressionist paintings and contemporary international installations, 110 works produced by period-defining creators, such as William Blake, Claude Monet, Wassily Kandinsky and Olafur Eliasson, are on view at the museum.
Because light as a source of visual and aesthetic inspiration was never limited to one particular era or genre, the exhibition itself steers away from isolating each group of art into strict chronological order. Instead, the contemporary works are nestled throughout the show, presented side by side with the 18th- and 19th-century paintings, thereby creating a new point of dialogue between the old and the new that transcends time.
Claude Monet's “Poplars on the Epte (Les Peupliers au bord de l'Epte)” (1891) / Courtesy of the Tate
One section that highlights such a curatorial decision is “The Impression of Light,” showcasing the iconic Impressionist painters of late 19th-century Britain and France: John Brett, Monet, Alfred Sisley, Camille Pissarro and Armand Guillaumin, among others.
The section boasts pieces like Brett's “The British Channel Seen from the Dorsetshire Cliffs” and Monet's “Poplars on the Epte,” which defined the art movement, with an emphasis on documenting the fleeting effects of light according to the passage of time, atmosphere and movement, through visible brush strokes. In other words, light became the artists' subject in itself.
What stands in the middle of this gallery space, surrounded by these paintings, is none other than Yayoi Kusama's “The Passing Winter” ― a mirrored cube that reflects the Japanese artist's interest in the different behaviors of light when it bounces off reflective surfaces.
Installation view of the exhibition's “The Impression of Light” section / Courtesy of SeMA
“While Impressionist painters transferred their impressions of light onto canvas through the brush, Kusama has transferred hers ― and viewers' ― onto the reflective mirror,” Oh said. “By presenting these works within the same space, viewers can then observe the effects of light on the paintings with their eyes and experience them in the mirror with their own bodies.”
Another section connecting the old and the new is “Interior Light,” dedicated to showcasing pieces that seem to suspend time by capturing a particular moment of light as it is cast through windows.
What highlights Vilhelm Hammershoi's early 20th-century depictions of subtly lit scenes of domesticity is a curious carpet designed by Philippe Parreno.
Its title, “6:00PM,” implies that the carpet's pattern ― which is created by cutting and putting together three different shades of carpet pieces into one ― portrays light and shadow entering through a window in the evening.
However, viewers are soon reminded of the fact that the gallery is windowless and therefore, the image will never change or disappear, even at nighttime.
Installation view of the exhibition's “Interior Light” section / Korea Times photo by Park Han-sol
In addition to drawing this fascinating relationship between artworks of different eras that transcends time, the exhibition features works that incorporate light as an innovative, visual and technical tool.
These pieces include English painter J. M. W. Turner's “Light and Colour (Goethe's Theory) ― the Morning after the Deluge ― Moses Writing the Book of Genesis” and “Shade and Darkness ― the Evening of the Deluge.”
Here, the artist turns the ideas of Goethe's formal “Theory of Colours” ― especially related to the psychology of colors ― into paintings. According to Goethe, red and yellow can be associated with happiness and warmth, while blue produces feelings of anxiety and coldness.
Turner visualized this theory in a set of works: cooler colors to portray a biblical scene in which God floods the earth, and warmer colors to illustrate a sense of hope following the complete ruination.
J. M. W. Turner's “Light and Colour (Goethe's Theory) ― the Morning after the Deluge ― Moses Writing the Book of Genesis” (exhibited 1843), left, and “Shade and Darkness ― the Evening of the Deluge” (exhibited 1843) / Courtesy of the Tate
The invention and popularization of lightbulbs in the 20th century further allowed artists to manipulate artificial light into works of art.
American contemporary artist Dan Flavin is known for having brought commercial fluorescent tubes into the realms of sculptures and installation art.
His “'monument' for V. Tatlin” in honor of Russian artist Vladimir Tatlin, points to the deliberately produced disparity between the commercial, unexceptional material of the piece, and the traditional magnificence of monumental sculpture.
The exhibition, “Light: Works from the Tate Collection,” runs through May 8, 2022, at Buk-Seoul Museum of Art.