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Contact: Erika Lindsay,
SAM Public Relations
(206) 654-3158;
email: PR@SeattleArtMuseum.org
First American Museum Exhibition Dedicated to Acclaimed Korean Contemporary Ceramic Artist
Mountain Dreams: Contemporary Ceramics
by Yoon Kwang-Cho
November 13, 2004–June 19, 2005
SEATTLE, January 25, 2005 – The the Seattle Asian Art Museum is hosting the first solo U.S. exhibition of Korean ceramic artist Yoon Kwang-cho in Mountain Dreams: Contemporary Ceramics by Yoon Kwang-cho on view at the Seattle Asian Art Museum from Nov. 13, 2004 through June 19, 2005. Organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Mountain Dreams will include approximately 30 objects drawn from the artist’s collection as well as private collections in Korea and the U.S.
The title of the exhibition, Mountain Dreams, refers to the dramatic view that the artist’s studio commands in the mountains outside the city of Kyongju (the ancient capital of Korea). The exhibition features a representative selection of Yoon’s ceramic creations from his early experimental works, to his abstract and painterly pieces of the 1980s, and large-scale vessels incised with Buddhist text of recent years. The exhibition will also include a sampling of Yoon’s utilitarian wares for food and drink, and sketchbooks containing his preparatory drawings. In addition Yoon’s works will be complimented by an installation of the 15th-and-16th century punch’ong ware from the museum’s permanent collection.
One of the master potters of his generation in Korea, Yoon Kwang-cho bases his work on traditional Korean ceramics known as punch’ong, which is gray-colored stoneware bearing white slip decorations. Punch’ong originated during the Choson dynasty (1392-1910) and is characterized by its freedom of design, unusual shapes and coarse potting techniques. In sharp contrast to porcelains and celadon, traditional punch’ong does not hide the natural color and texture of its original clay. It represents a true Korean tradition, as opposed to the Chinese techniques for producing porcelain and celadon that were introduced to Korea. Over the centuries, its decorative elements gradually changed and varied in each region, reflecting the artistic sentiments and special attributes of its place of production. Thus, a broad variety of punch’ong ware exists, ranging from the elegantly refined to the coarse and rustic. Yoon has adapted this traditional form to create his own distinctive wares of triangular and rectangular shapes, with bold swathes of white brushwork or characters on their surfaces.
Yoon Kwang-cho (b. 1946) enrolled in the prestigious Ceramics Department at Hong-Ik University in Seoul, graduating with a BFA in 1973. That same year he received the Grand Prix at the 7th annual Craft Exhibition sponsored by the Dong-A Daily Newspaper in Seoul. Yoon’s talent won him a government scholarship in 1974 to study at a kiln in Karatsu, Japan, where the first Korean potters in Japan had worked 400 years earlier. There, the tremendous impact that Korean ceramics had on Japanese cultural traditions was evident to him. When he returned to Korea the following year, Yoon was determined to explore further the ceramic traditions of his ancestors.
Yoon’s ceramics are in the collections of the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Seoul, Korea; the Ho-Am Art Museum in Seoul, Korea; the British Museum in London; and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. Yoon Kwang-cho was designated “Artist of the Year 2004” along with another ceramic artist Kim Yikyung by the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea, where their combined exhibition will be held October – December 2005.
In conjunction with the exhibition at SAAM, Yoon will present a lecture on Friday, Feb. 4, and lead a ceramics demonstration and workshop on February 5-6, in collaboration with the Seward Park Art Studio and University of Washington School of Art ceramics program.
Yoon’s Buddhist practice in the Son tradition (the Korean term for Zen) is also an element of his ceramic work and way of life in his isolated mountain studio, Kopwol-dang or “Reaching for the Moon Hall.” Copying the well-known Buddhist text known as the Heart Sutra is a time-honored Buddhist devotional practice, and Yoon’s transcription of this sutra onto ceramics is a ritual part of his work. In creating the Heart Sutra vessel in the exhibition, created over a long period of time, Yoon sat for a period of meditation before incising each character with a nail. In this meaning, creating ceramic work for Yoon is a ritual event. This devotion to Buddhism also serves as a unique counterpoint to the ongoing exhibition Discovering Buddhist Art: Seeking the Sublime, on display in the adjacent galleries at SAAM in Volunteer Park.
SAAM’s presentation of the exhibition is a project of the consortium Awake: Art, Buddhism and Dimensions of Consciousness, a national consortium of arts institutions, creators, performers, scholars, and members of multiple cultural communities, who are exploring relationships between Buddhist practice and contemporary art, developing individual projects, and working to bring about new modes of public engagement with the arts.
Mountain Dreams: Contemporary Ceramics by Yoon Kwang-cho is organized by the Philadelphia Museum
of Art.
This exhibition is supported by a leadership grant from the Korea Foundation. Sponsors include the Blakemore Foundation, The Wallace Foundation and Asiana Airlines.
Deepening the Dialogue, an initiative funded by The Wallace Foundation, is a key component of this exhibition, strengthening SAM's programming and community partnerships.
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