FRIEZE 2025 Kim Tschang-yeul, the painter who made fleeting waterdrops eternal

Kim Tschang-yeul's "Waterdrops" (1979) / Courtesy of MMCA

A drop of water vanishes as soon as it appears — gliding down glass, sinking into earth, evaporating into air. Kim Tschang-yeul (1929-2021) seized these fleeting beads and made them eternal.

For half a century, the artist returned to the glistening droplets with monastic devotion, painting them again and again like a solemn mantra. Sometimes, they perched weightlessly on his canvas, as if newly fallen; at other times, they seemed to slide downward, forever suspended in motion.

Each work was more than simply a feat of photorealistic illusion. For Kim, the waterdrop was a symbol of the unspoken scars of war and displacement, carrying within its fragile curve both the ache of loss and the possibility of solace, erasure and transcendence.

But as potent as the droplet may be, to dwell on it alone risks obscuring the man behind it and the long, circuitous path that led him to his signature motif.

It is this winding journey he took across continents, navigating shifting artistic currents before arriving at his own visual language, that the landmark retrospective “Kim Tschang-yeul” at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), Seoul brings vividly into view.

The exhibition traces the painter’s storied odyssey from postwar Korea to New York to his breakthrough in Paris through more than 120 works, including 31 being shown for the first time in Korea.

Installation view of Kim Tschang-yeul's landmark retrospective at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul / Courtesy of MMCA

Postwar trauma

Kim was born in 1929 in South Pyongan Province, in what is today North Korea. He fled to the South alone at age 15, shortly after the end of Japanese colonial rule in 1945.

In 1947, he became a disciple of the renowned artist Lee Quede, and two years later, entered Seoul National University as an art major. His studies, however, were cut short by the outbreak of the 1950-53 Korean War, a conflict that would leave an indelible mark on him.

The bloodshed he witnessed haunted him for decades. “Sixty of my 120 middle school classmates were killed during the war,” he recalled in one interview.

Eventually seeking refuge on Jeju Island, Kim briefly worked as a police officer. When the ceasefire came in 1953, he returned to a Seoul scarred by loss, with millions left dead and entire neighborhoods he once knew reduced to ash.

In the following decade, the artist poured his agony and despair into bleak Art Informel abstractions, many collectively titled “Rite.” These early dark-hued works bear rough slash marks and circular dents, evoking tank treads and bullets tearing through flesh.

Kim Tschang-yeul's abstractions in the early 1960s bear rough slash marks and circular dents, evoking the violence of the Korean War, as seen in this installation view. Courtesy of MMCA

‘Age of darkness’ in New York

In 1965, Kim seized a rare chance to move to New York with support from a Rockefeller Foundation grant. His mentor, the abstract painter Kim Whanki, had already settled there, and while living in the city he crossed paths with fellow Korean expatriates like Nam June Paik.

Yet such camaraderie did little to soften his growing disillusionment. His textured Art Informel paintings, steeped in anguish, found little resonance in a world captivated by the rise of pop art.

On view at the MMCA are works from Kim Tschang-yeul's New York years, when he began summoning bright, fluid forms, some of which seemed to spill forth like living entrails. Yonhap

Kim Tschang-yeul's "Untitled" (1969) / Courtesy of MMCA

The emotional dissonance he experienced was profound. “For an artist who had borne witness to countless corpses and shattered lives during the war in Korea, the capitalist abundance of New York only deepened his crushing sense of alienation,” noted MMCA curator Seol Won-ji.

Although Kim would later speak of these years as an “age of darkness,” this chapter in his life also brought him a step closer to his signature waterdrops.

With little money and no clear path to recognition, he gradually turned toward a new style, conjuring bright, fluid forms that throbbed with strange vitality — shapes that seemed to spill forth like living entrails. He dubbed them “intestine art.”

Birth of waterdrops

In 1969, Kim resettled in France. On the outskirts of Paris, he converted a weathered 100-square-meter stable into a studio.

It was there, in the stillness of solitude, that the vision came. One dawn, after working all night, he noticed a single bead of water clinging to the canvas, shimmering in the early light. From that fleeting sight emerged “Evenement de la nuit” (1972) — a painting of a single, suspended tear-like bead of water.

Kim Tschang-yeul's "Evenement de la nuit" (1972), right, long hailed as the first of his waterdrop paintings, is exhibited alongside two newly unveiled canvases with similar motif created from the year before. Newsis

While long hailed as the first of his waterdrop paintings, the piece is recontextualized at the Seoul retrospective, where it is joined by two newly unveiled canvases from the year before, in which pearl-like drops had already begun to glisten.

“I crouched in the studio like a monk, like a hermit, living no differently from someone in spiritual training,” Kim once recalled. “That was where my ‘Waterdrops’ were born. In that moment of deepest hardship, both financial and spiritual, the drop burst forth.”

Once he had found his language, critical recognition followed. His 1973 solo show in Paris earned praise from the poet Alain Bosquet and drew celebrated visitors like Salvador Dali and Catherine Deneuve.

He conjured his ephemeral beads again and again, on hemp canvas, newspaper and traditional Korean mulberry bark paper known as “hanji.”

A visitor views Kim's "Recurrence SNM93001" (1991), where he placed his transparent droplets against classical East Asian texts, particularly the "Cheonjamun" (The Thousand Character Classic). Yonhap

Another turning point came in the 1980s, when Kim began placing transparent droplets against classical East Asian texts, particularly the “Cheonjamun” (Thousand Character Classic), which he learned from his grandfather, a master of calligraphy.

Inspiration struck while painting over a sheet of newspaper, with him noticing tension between the printed characters and his waterdrop. The resulting “Recurrence” series represented a return to childhood, to memory and to his heritage.

Installation view of "Kim Tschang-yeul" at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul / Newsis

For the artist, painting waterdrops was ultimately an act of dissolution in which all dreams, sorrows, pain and anxiety could melt into nothingness.

After a lifetime spent chasing these transient forms, he left his family with a quiet, lingering confession: “There are still many waterdrops I have yet to paint.”

“Kim Tschang-yeul” runs through Dec. 21 at MMCA Seoul.