Arirang -Vitality
1992 · 120×80 cm · Woodblock Print
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Related materials for this work
- Text Interview 2008-09 · Artist's Blog
Interview with Shin Jang-sik for the 13th Busan International Film Festival (2008)
Q. The Busan International Film Festival has reached its 13th edition. This year, your work has been selected as the source painting for the festival's official poster, marking your involvement with the festival's history. Which aspect of 〈Arirang — Hope I〉 do you think aligned with the character of the Busan International Film Festival?
A. I shall replace my reply with the festival's official statement.
— The official poster of the 13th Busan International Film Festival is a design by BIFF Art Director Choi Soon-dae, based on the source painting "Arirang — Hope I" from the 〈Arirang〉 series by the Western-style painter Shin Jang-sik, who reinterprets our traditional culture and is absorbed in reproducing the bright, vital, life-rich aspects our culture carries. "Arirang — Hope I," expressing our exquisite and animated saekdong (rainbow-striped) culture, is a painting that aligns well with the character of the Busan International Film Festival, which is regarded as one of the most passionate film festivals in the world. This year's official poster, based on it, also well reveals the identity and direction of the BIFF, which dreams of a bright future grounded in the joy and tradition of a festival. — BIFF Official Statement
Q. Please tell us also what you sought to embed in the work.
A. "Arirang — Hope I" is one of the works in the series. Arirang is the representative folk song of our people, and thus a song that speaks for the sensibility of our people. I have been working under the theme of Arirang in order to paint a "song-painting" condensing our sensibility today.
While the of the colonial era emphasized han — the sentiment of crossing the Arirang pass (separation, hardship, suffering, etc.) — I emphasize instead the will and hope of crossing the Arirang pass (newness, a new world).
The lotus has always been around us, growing into beautiful form within muddy darkness — a subject well suited to the concept of I seek to express (hope, vitality, will).
Against the dark lotus leaves and the achromatic silver background, the lotus flower is rendered as radiant, vital, and powerful, and the force and energy radiating from it into the world is expressed in obangsaek (the ).
Q. You served as assistant art director for the Seoul Olympic Organizing Committee. You have many connections with international events — perhaps because of your attempt to show our tradition through your work. Through what elements do you express the sensibility of our people as contemporary art?
A. The Seoul Olympics was an important means and opportunity to show "what is ours" to the world. For me, who had studied contemporary art, it was an important opportunity to take interest in and study what is ours. I felt keenly that the imperative of our contemporary art is realized only through ceaseless research into what is ours and through new expression.
At first, I took interest in the formal vocabulary hidden within the small and large implements formed in our life and history and pursued new form through them. For example, I studied the forms, proportions, , and meanings of , traditional instruments (drum, gong, do), flags, masks, Gyeongbokgung, the lattice patterns of Singyesa, and made new expressions from them.
Next, taking interest in the environment around us, I turned to the expression of vitality within nature — wild grasses, flowers, the pine, Dokdo, constellations, and so on.
Recently, I have taken interest in , which holds these elements in combination, and am absorbed in "Mt. Geumgang paintings."
What I seek to express through such subjects can be called the "Arirang of hope" sung through painting.
Q. Have you visited the BIFF before? If you have any memories of it, we would like to hear them. (Films you have seen, or stories of film figures, are also welcome.)
A. This time I shall participate in person.
I have a connection with film. About ten of my paintings appear in director Kang Woo-suk's 〈Hanbando〉. The painting above Ahn Sung-ki's bed (he plays the president); the painting between Ahn Sung-ki and Moon Sung-keun in the final scene where they face each other; paintings and Mt. Geumgang paintings hung throughout the presidential office in the film. I would be happy to see our paintings appear more often in dramas and films.
Q. This year's BIFF will be especially meaningful for you. Will you visit Busan during the opening ceremony or the festival period? We would like to hear your plans.
A. As the poster artist, I plan to hold a solo exhibition in Busan during the festival.
— Shin Jang-sik Solo Exhibition "Arirang — Hope," September 30 (Tue) – October 26 (Sun), 2008, Ches Art Center (Ches Art Building, 1491-7 Jung 2-dong, Haeundae-gu, Busan; Dalmaji-gil)
Please take an interest in the solo exhibition.
Q. Looking ahead, what kind of festival do you hope the BIFF will grow into?
A. A festival representative of Asia. A 21st-century representative festival that realizes the values of Asia in film within the world. I hope the BIFF becomes a true homeland of Hallyu in film.
Q. We are curious about your current work and upcoming exhibition plans.
A. I will work around themes such as , , our formal language, a peaceful world where human and nature are in harmony, how the various expressive languages of Korea might grow into universal world-languages capable of moving others, and twenty-first-century art. Another good opportunity like this will surely come.
Thank you.
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