Daily Sports, "Today's Perspective: A Search for Tradition" — Park Shin-ui Critique (1989)

What lies at the core of Shin Jang-sik's Arirang project is the search for tradition and its realization. Yet the mere fact of embodying the meaning of tradition in painting is not, today, particularly novel or remarkable. What deserves special attention in his work is rather the angle from which he views tradition and the form in which he interprets and concretizes it.

Above all, the aesthetic form of tradition he achieves does not result from a romantic taste or preference for traditional motifs grounded in folk art. Rather, it must be seen as something attained by grasping tradition itself as something shaped by the concrete and vivid demands of a particular era's life. Likewise, his attempt not to see tradition's intrinsic vitality and health as an immutable form fixed in the past, but to reproduce it as a form that ought to be newly recovered from the standpoint and horizon of today, carries a particular significance.

From this vantage, the meaning-structure of tradition Shin weaves begins by recognizing the existence of opposing pairs (broadly classifiable as yin and yang) and, at the same time, by positing the form of all forces that ceaselessly engender these pairs. The recognition of opposites is significant not for the differences between them but for the proposition of a law in which their collision integrates yet another principle of life. The law of vitality thus completed appears throughout his works as an element to be sustained into the present, and his works as a whole accordingly carry a bright, vigorous atmosphere.

In 〈Arirang — Morning〉, this will to vitality is expressed with an almost epic resonance. At a glance it shows the spectacle of sunrise, but within it the energy that may be the generative principle of the universe is made visible through the law of condensation and emission, accompanied by vigorous movement. The source of that movement is given by the squares at the four corners of the picture plane—signifying the four cardinal directions—and the sun at the center. The sun is depicted as a nucleus that gathers the forces dispersed in all directions and again radiates them outward.

This principle of condensation and emission also transforms into the meaning the artist assigns to Arirang. It is no longer the meaning of han (the deep Korean sentiment of unresolved sorrow and resilience born of historical hardship) that one must merely endure, nor the sentimental or defeatist sense of pain as before, but is proposed as a bright, healthy force oriented toward a more active overcoming. Even in 〈Arirang — Unification〉, the artist replaces the iconography of the taegeuk with two phoenixes intertwining their necks, conveying the intention of treating the oppositional condition of division with bright, humorous resolution.

Alongside this attention to the production of tradition's meaning-structure, we also discover throughout the works the artist's effort to develop traditional forms. Above all, the format that deforms the edges of the picture plane to follow the shapes of traditional flags, the redistribution of motifs in the manner of folk painting, and the handling of color come close to the typical patterns of traditional form. Elsewhere, the use of tree branches and additions of pencil drawing endow the surface with a sense of reality in their own way, while becoming entangled with the wish to project tradition through a present-day lens.

To pay attention to traditional iconography and to concretize, from a present standpoint, the meaning-structures inferred from it—this is undeniably one of Shin Jang-sik's important achievements. Yet the most decisive shortcoming within these gains lies in the fact that his approach and interpretation of folk art and tradition is not yet comprehensive. As a result, the depth of symbolism he achieves on the picture plane remains shallow, and the bright, healthy will to life he has already gained and embodies does not confront the countless historical problems that should be its overcoming. One must not forget that a vague hope and optimism toward vitality alone cannot reach the genuine force that has flowed unbroken through tradition.

— Selection Rationale (Selection Committee: Park Yong-suk · Yoon Bum-mo · Park Shin-ui)

The past month, too, was relatively rich in exhibitions. Across solo shows, group shows, and the various opening exhibitions of new galleries, the activity of artists in their late twenties to early thirties was more striking than ever before. Among them, the exhibitions to which we wished to attach special meaning were those in which the artist used a solo exhibition to attempt a turn in his or her artistic world.

Some attended to history; others attended to the contexts of tradition and culture. Shin Jang-sik (May 17–23, To Gallery) belongs to the latter case. For this reason we selected his work as "today's notable work," and despite a few limitations he still carries—a superficiality of meaning, or a precedence of form, arising from a still-neutral perspective on tradition—we regarded him as an artist and a body of work worth continuing to watch.

— Interview (Reporter Lee Nam)

At thirty, Shin Jang-sik (申璋湜) is an emerging artist striving to express our tradition in a contemporary formal language. His solo exhibition last month, themed "Arirang," presented this painterly world and drew the attention of the art scene. "Arirang, which speaks for our sentiment, carries the hardship, han, and sorrow of crossing the passes of history. But from our present standpoint, I think we must emphasize not that sorrow but rather the will and hope of crossing the pass."

Thus Shin is absorbed in the work of bringing back the bright, joyful aspects of our culture, and the vitality that brims with force. This will of his is most concentrated in the search for "our color."

"Our color is, outwardly, the white of the people-clothed-in-white. But our inner culture of the inner room is the saekdong (rainbow-striped) culture—delicate and vivid. Until now, however, only the white that speaks for the sentiment of han has been emphasized."

Shin came to turn his eye to tradition while serving as assistant art director for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Although he had faithfully studied the techniques of modernism at Seoul National University's College of Fine Arts and worked accordingly, something did not suit his temperament. While taking up the Olympic art assignments that sought our tradition and color, he came to feel the force and vitality our culture carries. He felt particularly strong visual appeal and affirmative power in our traditional flags and has continued to work with flags ever since.

Having actively shown his work through group exhibitions such as Réalité Séoul, the Painterly Spirit Exhibition, Engagement, and Seoul Print, he held his first solo exhibition in January at the Roho Gallery in West Berlin. He plans to hold a woodblock print solo exhibition this August.