Reopening of Suwon City I-Park Museum of Art, Retrospective Exhibition of Baek Young-su from the Sinsasilpa Group

Exhibition of 105 Works Until August 9

Baek Young-su 'On the Way to the Market', 1953, Oil on canvas, 116x89 cm

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Byung-hee] The Suwon Museum of Art in Gyeonggi-do will hold its first planned exhibition of 2020, "Walking Through a Century: Baek Young-su 1922~2018," from May 12 to August 9 at the Suwon I-Park Museum of Art. The Suwon I-Park Museum of Art had been closed due to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) but will reopen on the 12th.

Baek Young-su, born in Suwon, was active as a member of the New Realism Group alongside Kim Whanki, Yoo Youngkuk, Jang Uk-jin, and Lee Jung-seop. He is recognized for establishing a unique artistic world characterized by lyrical and harmonious tendencies and participated in over 100 exhibitions held in Italy, France, and other countries. In 2016, he was awarded the Silver Crown Order of Cultural Merit by the Republic of Korea in recognition of his contributions.

This exhibition features 105 works by Baek Young-su. Additionally, the exhibition space is decorated by recreating the artist’s atelier and includes an archive section.

"Walking Through a Century: Baek Young-su 1922~2018" is divided into two parts: Part 1, "Walking Through Baek Young-su’s Life," which consists of the artist’s atelier and archive, and Part 2, "Walking Through Baek Young-su’s Works," which displays 105 of his artworks.

Part 1 is an archive space that explores Baek Young-su’s creative world and traces of his life. It introduces a systematically organized chronology, photographs, brochures and catalogs from solo and group exhibitions, and posters. Notably, the atelier space where Baek Young-su’s works were created is recreated, and the painting tools he actually used are displayed inside. Also, a documentary video showing Baek Young-su creating the work "Tree of Maternity (1998)" filmed in his Paris atelier in 1998 and the 2001 work "Ear" is available. Interview videos featuring people who had close relationships with the artist, such as Kim Dong-ho, former chairman of the Busan International Film Festival organizing committee, Kim Myung-ae, director of the Baek Young-su Museum of Art, and Kim Yoon-seop, director of the Korea Art Management Institute, as well as family members sharing anecdotes about Baek Young-su, are also provided.

Part 2 presents 105 works by Baek Young-su created from the 1940s to the 2010s in chronological order.

The period from the 1940s to the 1960s can be seen as an exploratory phase during which Baek Young-su endeavored to establish his own painting style. Frequent motifs in the artist’s work include mother and child, a boy resting while lying down, yards and houses, and figures tilting their heads, revealing his unique thematic characteristics. In works such as the 1960 painting "Greenery," one can observe Baek Young-su’s distinctive feature of "multiple perspectives." The artist’s pictorial characteristic of not clearly distinguishing perspective through light and shade but depicting subjects as observed from various angles appears in many subsequent works.

"The Road to the Market" was exhibited at the 3rd New Realism Group Art Exhibition in 1953. The original painting was lost and only remained on film, but it was recreated in 2010. The New Realism Group was a pure plastic art movement that advocated purity in plastic arts, free from political factions or extraneous factors in the art world at the time. "The Road to the Market" shows Baek Young-su’s exchanges with artists who had already formed the main stream of Korean art, such as Kim Whanki, Lee Jung-seop, Jang Uk-jin, and Yoo Youngkuk, and his continuous passion for creation even before and after the war.

Baek Young-su 'Recording', 1960, Oil on canvas, 60x72 cm

Baek Young-su 'Family', 1984, Oil on canvas, 89x116 cm
Photo by Suwon Museum of Art

From the 1970s, based on his previous explorations and experiments, Baek Young-su’s settled method of human figure representation emerged, characterized by pointed hands and feet and simplified body forms. The 1975 work "Mother and Child" is an early example of the mother and child motif most commonly used in Baek Young-su’s paintings. The 1984 work "Family" is a representative piece that contains all of the artist’s uniquely simplified forms.

In the late 1990s, new forms began to appear in Baek Young-su’s paintings. Exotic architecture encountered during a trip to Marrakech, Morocco, left a strong impression on Baek Young-su in his mid-70s and marked a turning point toward a different style of painting from the themes he had drawn throughout his life. The 1998 work "Marrakech Landscape" signals the beginning of simplified, flat paintings depicting the texture of building exteriors, which continued into the 2010s.

The late-period 2011 work "Star" expresses Baek Young-su’s love for his family. It is said that when his wife, who loved stargazing, went out every day to see the stars even in the cold winter, Baek Young-su made the "Star" painting saying, "I will paint the stars for you, so please stop going out." The painting features a navy blue background densely studded with cross-shaped stars, resembling a night sky shining with starlight.

Exhibition visits are possible by making a reservation in advance through the museum’s website, following the "social distancing in daily life" guidelines. There are four sessions per day (10 a.m., 12 p.m., 2 p.m., 4 p.m.), with a limit of 40 visitors per session, and up to four people can be reserved per person.

Detailed information can be found on the Suwon Museum of Art website.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.