Arirang -Coexistence 5
1989 · 68×47 cm · Woodblock Print
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- Text Review 1989-08-23 · Choi Tae-man
Arirang: Self-Affirmation and Generosity (1989)
The consistent theme that governs Shin Jang-sik's work is the optimistic and realistic will to life rooted deep in the consciousness and emotional fabric of the Korean people. This theme manifests in his work under the title 〈Arirang〉. is the most representative of all Korean oral folk songs. It is commonly understood as expressing han—the sentiment of sorrow. Yet it is not merely a passive refrain or onomatopoeia that reflects han as a resigned, withdrawn emotion.
carries the longing of the people to cross over from the suffering and oppression of present reality into a better future. Take the lyric "I go over the Arirang pass": the speaker is not the lover who abandons and departs but the very subject who crosses the pass. Here, the pass symbolizes a reality saturated with contradiction and hardship. In the end, Arirang expresses the will to overcome such a reality rather than to evade or resign before it. It is neither a distorted lament of grief and tragedy, nor a complacent, optimistic hum. Within it are the emotions that perpetually arise in real life—joy and sorrow, despair and hope, defeat and resurgence, negation and affirmation, anger and forgiveness, the tragic and the optimistic—expressed in composite and total form. Arirang, therefore, can be called a symbol of future-oriented consciousness reflecting the dialectical posture and way of life by which our ancestors accepted and sought to transcend the contradictions of reality through the social practice of labor.
What Shin Jang-sik attends to in is precisely this positive worldview that lies hidden within it.
He has labored to discover the genuine values embedded in and to express them in his own distinctive language. He has already revealed one fruit of these efforts in last year's painting exhibition at To Gallery and his print exhibition at the 3rd Gallery. To give visible form to the composite meanings Arirang carries, he has studied folk paintings (), shamanic paintings (), and traditional patterns and visual symbols. Such traditional objects—the (blue-and-red silk lanterns), the obangwisaek () and saekdong (rainbow stripes), flags, the , and religious imagery such as the bicheonsang (heavenly maidens) and lotus motifs—were used in everyday life and combine aesthetic, practical, and symbolic qualities. He reinterprets the meanings inherent in these objects in fresh ways.
As one sees in the series 〈Arirang — Wish I〉, the traditional objects he introduces into his works function as symbols revealing his affirmative vision. The series is composed of countless simplified candle flames. As the title "Wish" already suggests, the candle is a symbol of purification (jeonghwa) and longing. Though it bears religious meaning, it also carries the practical meaning of an implement that illumines darkness. In its composition, recalling the main hall of a Buddhist temple where countless Buddha statues are enshrined, this work shows numerous candles radiating their small lights toward a great circle centered above, metaphorically revealing one of his core themes: sangsaeng (mutual generation) and unification. It is at once a gathering of humble wishes and the splendor of a brilliance born of small lights converging. This summation of flames is the union of a healthy consciousness rising to shake off suffering and contradiction (darkness).
The content carried in Shin's work rests on such healthiness. Through cheerful, bright colors and simple, lucid forms, he reveals the content he wishes to express clearly and directly. In particular, he chose the woodblock as the medium that could most successfully bear such content and form within the print medium. The woodblock not only suits his temperament in material and technique but also, as he came to know through experience while producing many kinds of prints, proves apt for absorbing the content he had in mind. He has independently developed a technique called somyeolbeop (the reduction method), thereby surpassing the expressive limits of the woodblock and opening up its richer flavor and possibilities. Through the repetition of cutting and printing, the form that gradually emerges fully reflects the charm of the handmade print. The image acquires a distinctive beauty in which the artist's plan and will combine with accidental effects and even the characteristics of the material itself (the wood grain).
Shin Jang-sik knows well that the woodblock is the medium most fittingly able to receive the content and meaning he pursues. Furthermore, he actively draws on the fact that wood, as a material, is not exclusive but receptive—he believes that the woodblock can naturally absorb the subjects of his work.
This strength of his work derives, at its root, from his optimistic worldview. It rests on the conviction that accompanies the spiritual generosity of magnanimity and self-affirmation. He is therefore wary of any vision that grasps art as something supremely transcendent. Such a vision risks veiling art behind an esoteric mystique or subordinating it to abstruse ideas and theories. This is precisely why he loves, especially among traditional objects, those that satisfied both aesthetic consciousness and utility, those widely used among the common people.
The appeal of his work lies in its positive and active vision of the world and the self—that is, in its securing of the healthiness of consciousness.
- Text Artist's Note 1989-08-23 · Shin Jang-sik
Artist Note — Shin Jang-sik "Arirang" Print Exhibition (1989)
This work depicts the joyful day through the image of swaying (blue-and-red silk lanterns), rendered in woodblock print. The direct subject comes from the closing ceremony of the 1988 Seoul Olympics: the final program, "Annyeong (Farewell)," where every performer and spectator waved these lanterns to celebrate the success of the Games and to bid farewell to those returning to their homelands. I redesigned the lanterns in a contemporary form, based on those preserved at the Dankook University Costume Museum. The multicolor woodblock prints were produced using somyeolbeop (the reduction method), newly adapted here to woodblock printing.
is the folk song that most fully represents the emotional landscape of the Korean people. Rather than emphasizing han—the sentiment of sorrow—my intention is to express the spirit of hope and will that carries one over the Arirang pass.
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