〈12 Scenes of Mt. Geumgang〉

The 1988 Olympics in Seoul, Republic of Korea, were enough to astonish the people of the world. Of a Korea that had endured the harsh Japanese colonial seizure of the early twentieth century and that, with the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, had been split into South and North and reduced to utter ruin, the foreign correspondents of the time called it "a country with no tomorrow." That Korea staged the 1988 Olympics successfully alongside dazzling economic growth. The message Koreans sent to the world, after overcoming their tragic modern history, appears in the theme song of the Seoul Olympics, "Hand In Hand." Beyond the ceaseless ideological strife in the world and the East–West confrontation, it expressed the longing for "peace," to go forward together. In spite of such yearning, in 2015 the Republic of Korea still confronts the North across the line, gun barrels facing one another. North Korea's armed provocations against the world remain ongoing as if scarcely new. Worse, the sheer misery of the lives of the North Korean people — where the dignity of the human has wholly collapsed and they suffer hunger and poverty — sounds a historical alarm to us who live in the "modern" age called the twenty-first century. As in the Seoul Olympics theme song, we would like to take hand in hand, but a historical boundary keeps us from meeting — a long triple wire fence running across the middle of the Korean peninsula from west to east. At its end, beyond the armistice line, sits "Mt. Geumgang," famous for breathtaking scenery and revered as a historical landmark, today a symbol of the yearning for "peaceful unification."

Shin Jang-sik is well known in Korea as the "Mt. Geumgang" painter. For twenty-two years, from 1993 to the present, he has been absorbed in the subject of "Mt. Geumgang." Before turning to his journey toward "Mt. Geumgang" and the survey of his artistic world, there is a part of his record we cannot leave out: he served as assistant art director for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1988 Seoul Olympics. For him, the experience of the "Olympics" became a great landmark in forming his subsequent body of work. The core question that runs through his work is precisely "What are Korean values?" This is not a discourse circling only within a single nation but a concern shaped by the historical question of an "encounter with the world." Today there are many words and varied images about Korea shared with the people of the world — K-POP, Samsung — yet the problem-consciousness placed before the young painter Shin Jang-sik in 1988 was, compared with today, more fundamental. It was a search not for a packaging of the so-called "Miracle on the Han" — astonishing economic development — but for the embodiment of the culture and spirit, the historical identity carried within it. To stand confidently before the world for the first time through the Olympics, Koreans shed blood, sweat, and tears; the longing to share these as the universal global values of "affirmation" and "hope" while embedding within them a Korean aesthetic consciousness — this was the "zeitgeist" he felt deeply through the Seoul Olympics. The first overseas exhibition of the painter Shin Jang-sik, "Arirang," in Berlin in 1989, was precisely the fruit of that. His interest then turned toward a broader historical recognition, and that direction was "Mt. Geumgang."

Since the division of the South and the North, Mt. Geumgang was, for Koreans, a mystical and longed-for object — within sight, yet beyond reach. With the start of Mt. Geumgang tourism between the two Koreas on November 18, 1998, Koreans could for the first time in half a century see Mt. Geumgang with their own eyes. Mt. Geumgang then took its place as a site symbolizing the seeds of South-North exchange and reconciliation, peace and unification; even reunions of separated families were held there. The painter Shin Jang-sik's Mt. Geumgang painting too can be seen to have changed in expression around 1998. Until he saw the actual Mt. Geumgang in person, the Mt. Geumgang he painted for some five years can be called "gwannyeom sansuhwa (conceptual landscape painting, 관념 산수화)." Unreachable, it was for him not a sensuous object but an imagined space — a conceptual object that might appear in legend. Mt. Geumgang was a landscape that existed clearly and nearby, yet, blocked by historical barriers, could only exist in imagination — a place to be sought only in forgotten documents and in paintings left by our ancestors. The traditional subject-matter and decorativeness characteristic of his works in the early 1990s, transposed through the ideational medium of "Mt. Geumgang" and through the traditional East Asian form of sansuhwa (Korean landscape painting), became more structured. He could therefore build a formal world not through a descriptive method reflecting ordinary landscape but in a more spiritual, ideational form. Many critics who surveyed his body of work tried to explain it through the bipartite frame of harmony of form and content, theme and expression. Such criticisms, however, can be seen as merely internal debates within the small category called "art." Rather than understanding Shin Jang-sik's body of work nationally, or by the internal principles of art, what matters is to bring forth the historical implications that could only hide beneath the cloak of "formal vocabulary." The core question, accordingly, must be more challenging: "What does Mt. Geumgang mean to the people of the world?"

The tragic war, the Korean War, and the South-North division that took place on the Korean peninsula at the edge of Northeast Asia is by no means only the domestic history of the Republic of Korea. In the mid-twentieth century, the center of global confrontation and conflict — the battlefield of ideology and the Cold War — was precisely the darkened Korean peninsula. The U.S. political scientist Zbigniew Brzezinski's concept of "geopolitics" well shows the context in which the history of the Korean peninsula could only flow as it did. Brzezinski described the Korean peninsula as a "pivot." A "geopolitical pivot" is a globally contested zone arising from the collision of maritime and continental powers. The "Balkans" can be cited as an example. Against the historical whirlwinds that sweep over such regions, the lives of individuals can only arrive as fate. Despite such fated and severe historical trials, Koreans have made painstaking efforts to overcome them. The astonishing economic growth of the Republic of Korea, and the urgent longing for the unification of the Korean peninsula, can be called the urgent yearning for "peace" that does not lose hope even amid ruin. Accordingly, the step toward overcoming division and toward a unified Korea stands on the historical road that realizes the universal values of humanity.

Until 1998, the Mt. Geumgang painted by Shin Jang-sik abstractly and paradoxically revealed the historical idea — invisible in form — of "Cold War" and "ideology" that justified the South-North division. Yet the Mt. Geumgang he painted is by no means a painting bound only to "idea" — confined to an imagined frame. Across a solemn, energy-filled blue canvas, his signature dripping technique reveals a living vitality. Although it is an imagined landscape, a landscape shaped by formal vocabulary, the artist's expressive will, his will to freedom filled with energy, is ardently revealed on the canvas. After the first Mt. Geumgang tours began in 1998, the wonder he felt on seeing the site in person can scarcely be imagined. Only after witnessing with his own eyes the long-longed-for landscape he had patiently held within himself could his Mt. Geumgang undergo a new transformation. It became the occasion for being born again from "gwannyeom sansuhwa (conceptual landscape painting)" into "jingyeong sansuhwa (true-view landscape painting, 실경 산수화)." Compared to his earlier abstract expression, the more concrete depiction of the mountain forms and the harmony of increasingly varied colors strengthened the lyricism of landscape and expressed a more hopeful, future-oriented, positive energy. Even so, his thirst, manifested through Mt. Geumgang, cannot be said to have been fully quenched. Constrained by the nature of tourism, he could see only restricted places; and above all, the core — the historical reality of "the division of the Korean peninsula" — had not changed at all. In 2008, after the incident of a tourist being shot dead, Mt. Geumgang tourism has been suspended to this day. His body of work seemed once again to sink back into waiting.

Some may ask: can "culture" and "art" truly change the world? Those critical of the idea insist that behind religion, culture, art, and further behind humanity's spiritual activities lies "economic logic." Many materialist scholars have indeed established this. Coldly seen, this is hard to deny. Even so, the reason culture and art continue to play an important role is in producing the force of "recognition." Such "recognitions" gather and form "justifications," draw out "practice," and open new worlds. In September 2013, the daughter of a high-ranking figure in North Korea secretly defected while studying in China and entered the South. The decisive motive for her defection was nothing other than her admiration for Korean culture as reflected in the media. What is another historical subject through which the force of "recognition" opens a better world? Precisely the question of "human rights." From U.S. President Lincoln, respected in America, to Dr. Martin Luther King, the struggle for the dignity by which humans may live as humans was never an easy road. The historical flow is, like an unseen underground current that gathers to form vast rivers and then a sea, a flow that demands long patience. Even if, against the history of humanity, our lives of less than a hundred years are short struggles, history is also the truth that endlessly continues. The lives of the people of North Korea, revealed in UN human rights reports — that actuality is unspeakably grave. Yet movements to address this and to look toward a better world are gradually becoming more visible. From precisely such a flow and view, "culture" and "art" — though they require long patience and historical struggle — can become a clear medium through which the world can be changed.

In 2015, the exhibition of the painter Shin Jang-sik in New York, which one can call the center of the world, will become a crucial turning point in measuring the body of work he will go on to open. If he first faced the world through the 1988 Olympics and began his concern with "Korean values," and if he has, through the theme of "Mt. Geumgang," repeatedly elaborated cultural and historical recognition and concern, the question of what comes next cannot but be asked. Is "Mt. Geumgang" still meaningful? What meaning can "Mt. Geumgang" carry to the people of the world? It is precisely the question of the future. To consider such a call positively and with courage may begin where the artist's own perception of the world expands. What is the greater recognition, the historical implication and justification, that remains for him? From the question "What are Korean values?" given to the young painter in 1988, what is the historical question now placed before the painter Shin Jang-sik in his middle years? Nothing other than "What are the values of a unified Korea?" Ironically, the wheel of history is a fate that repeats, whether small or great. This is precisely the moment one cannot but recall the Olympic theme song "Hand In Hand," which must have struck his heart twenty-seven years before.

Painting the 12 Spectacles of Mount Geumgang "Here and Now"

On November 18, 1998, a tour ship set sail for Mount Geumgang. Though access was limited to the outer Geumgang area, it was the first time in more than 50 years for South Koreans to set foot in the Geumgang Mountains. This event marked the reopening of exchanges between the North and the South on the divided Korean peninsula, and in June 2007 parts of the inner Geumgang region also were opened to tourists. In July 2008, however, the program was discontinued, and Mt. Geumgang went back to being an object of aspiration, as in the classical song Longing for Mount Geumgang, a Korean favorite.

Mt. Geumgang is known for its distinct appearance in each season. Poetic names have been given it, such as bongrae in the summer when shades of green cover the landscape, pungak in the fall when the tinted foliage spreads throughout the peaks and the valleys, and gaegol in the winter when the leaves are gone and the rocks are revealed. During the Goryeo Dynasty, paintings of Mt. Geumgang formed a significant part of tributes to China, and in the Joseon Dynasty many artists explored the mountains in attempts to express their beautiful form. There is a story from the late Joseon period about an artist named Choi Buk, a successor of the jingyeong (true-view landscape) painting style, who tried to jump into Guryongyeon pond while traveling through the Geumgang Mountains. He is said to have exclaimed, "It would be fitting for a celebrity like myself to die at such a celebrated mountain." The story reveals the extent to which these mountains have been a cherished destination since long ago.

Artist Shin Jang-sik had been painting the Geumgang Mountains for some time before they were opened to visitors. Upon the start of the tours, he boarded the Hyundai Geumgang, the first vessel to sail from Port Donghae to Port Jangjeon. Since then he has visited Mt. Geumgang often and with increasing exhilaration, and has brought back beautiful scenes of the mountains in his picture-planes. Mt. Geumgang has motivated his work, and moved him to search for the reasons behind it. His works, while true to the real landscapes, do not simply represent the scenery. Through them Shin reveals the skin and the inner flesh of Mt. Geumgang, by his own unique method. And this would be impossible without the sense of awe he feels toward the mountains.

Having continuously painted the Geumgang mountains as he sees and feels them first hand, and having shown them in numerous solo exhibitions, Shin Jang-sik is now holding an exhibition on the theme "12 Spectacles of Mt. Geumgang." To provide some traditional background: Chinese Confucian scholar Zhu Xi, who founded Neo-Confucianism in his hometown in Mt. Wuyi, Fujian Province, left a poem titled Wuyi-jiuquge (song of the nine river bends in Wuyi), which expressed the beauty of nine valleys in the Wuyi Mountains. Later, many artists made paintings based on this poem. Another example is Xiaoxiang Bajing-tu (picture of eight scenes of the Xiao and Xiang rivers), which are paintings of the beautiful scenery surrounding the Xiao River and Xiang River, flowing into Dongting Lake, located midstream in the Yangtze River. While these theme-based paintings used famous scenic places as subject and subject matter, portraying each spectacle in a series consisting of eight or nine pieces, another Eastern tradition with a long history was seasonal paintings (sagyedo), which showed the scenes of spring, summer, autumn and winter in a certain landscape. Though Mt. Geumgang is a vast, deep mountain range with many mysterious scenes, Shin approached it by painting the 12 months of the mountain landscape. This shows his intention to include time in the works, in addition to space.

The charm of his 12 Spectacles of Mt. Geumgang increases as we savor them one by one, as if we were reciting 12 poems. The works can be appreciated in many ways, such as grouping them according to certain times of year, or considering them as a single organism as we travel through time. For example, in Light of Okryudong, in which the pine tree in the foreground is done in silhouette while the mid-range scene of the rocky mountains is fully depicted and the distant view is expressed in a blue tone; Spring of Onjeongri, in which flowers in full bloom are painted against a background of the hazy Sujeong Peak; and Light of Sujeong Peak, in which the shades of green deepen—in all of these scenes, viewers can feel the vibrant life of spring in the mountains through the use of light. Next we come to Light of Manpokdong, which reveals nature maturing with fresh trees and plants at their height; the July Manmulsang, concealing itself in the rain; and Summer of Haegeumgang, where the coastal rocks stand tall as they face the waves in the scorching sun; and we feel as if we are truly immersed in the full beauty of the Bongrae Mountain. We then step into the Pungak Mountain, in the climax of its beauty in the Baekdudaegan mountain range of September, worthy of the title "Geumsugangsan (beautiful rivers and mountains like silk embroidery)"; Samseonam in its brilliant new costume; and Jipseon Peak with its bizarre rock formations exposed in preparation for winter. Finally, we are humbled by the perpetuity of nature at Biro Peak, welcoming a time of silence. After viewing the Light of Cheonhwadae, named for its resemblance to flowers blooming in the sky, a painting of the snow-covered peaks and mountains in a blue tone, spectators then arrive once again at Manmulsang, now surrounded by trees and plants just about to sprout their buds of life.

Flowing through this travel in time is the light of Mt. Geumgang. In Shin's work this light emerges in a bluish hue. It is the auspicious energy that intertwines his works, and the driving force that gives them life. Mt. Geumgang must be reopened, even if it is for the sole reason of being submerged in that light once more. Shin Jang-sik's 12 Spectacles of Mt. Geumgang exist before us in the present tense, because they enlighten us of the fact that the Geumgang Mountains are "here, now."

Choi Tae-man, Art Critic

A report by Roh Chang-hyun, New York correspondent for Newsis, on Shin Jang-sik's invitational solo exhibition 〈12 Scenes of Mt. Geumgang〉 at SPACE IN ARTS (SIA NY) in Chelsea, New York, from April 30 to May 13, 2015. The show featured paintings rendering Mt. Geumgang across twelve months in acrylic on canvas, alongside ten of the artist's representative woodblock prints from 1992 and 1996.