National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Releases YouTube Tribute to 'Geometric Abstraction Painting Master' Lee Seungjo

'The Gap Between Oblivion and Illusion' Still Cut [Photo by National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art]

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Byung-hee] The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) will release the premiere video of the contemporary music dedication piece "The Gap Between Oblivion and Illusion," commissioned in connection with the exhibition "Lee Seung-jo: Rows of Pillars," on YouTube at 4 p.m. on the 5th.

"The Gap Between Oblivion and Illusion" is a dedication piece honoring the work world of Lee Seung-jo, a pioneer of modernism who led Korean geometric abstraction painting, commissioned to composer Song Hyang-sook.

"The Gap Between Oblivion and Illusion" is a chamber music piece that reinterprets the plasticity of painting as temporal listening and residual vibrations, based on the phenomenological thinking revealed in Lee Seung-jo’s artist notes. It is composed of wind and string instruments, vocal, and percussion, centered on the theme of the intense brushstrokes and the time of craftsmanship that are endlessly replayed on the canvas.

The seven movements, starting with the clear and high sound of the piccolo woodwind, proceed in the order of "Frame, Rhythm Within," "Colors of Erased Boundaries," and "Play: Fluid and Segmented Song," reaching a climax in the fourth movement, "Stain of Speed." The following movements, "Consciousness and Action," "Weightless Relationship," and "Frame, Its Opening," are organically connected.

Composer Song Hyang-sook, who has collaborated with various media such as art, dance, and video, stated, "I hope Lee Seung-jo’s spiritual manifestation is reduced to another layer of vibration." She especially explained, "The artist’s act of painting, erasing, and repainting to create gloss was transformed into a contrapuntal structure by varying the relationship between utterance and silence." Song Hyang-sook graduated from Seoul National University’s Department of Composition and the Conservatoire National Sup?rieur de Musique et de Danse de Lyon. In 2017, during the 100th anniversary week of Yun Isang’s birth, she released "Solos," commissioned by composer Jin Eun-sook as part of the "Winners & Masters Series."

This performance was premiered without an audience in Exhibition Hall 1 and the Central Hall of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Gwacheon, where the "Lee Seung-jo: Rows of Pillars" exhibition is currently underway. It weaves together the collision of spontaneous sounds along with Lee Seung-jo’s works, which aimed for pure painting reduction, conveying the infinite nature of constructive painting that the artist devoted his entire life to. The performance featured six musicians: Kim Eun-hye (percussion, harmonica), Park Shin-hye (violin), Seo Ji-won (flute·piccolo), Lee Soo-jung (cello), Jung Won-kang (saxophone), Jo Yoon-jo (vocal), and conductor Kim Seung-rim.

The performance can be viewed for about 20 minutes on the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art’s YouTube channel starting at 4 p.m. on the 5th.

Yoon Bum-mo, director of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, said, "To commemorate the 30th anniversary of Lee Seung-jo’s passing, we commissioned a dedication piece honoring the artist’s work world to the young composer Song Hyang-sook," adding, "We hope this collaboration with contemporary music will be an opportunity to further expand understanding of the artist’s works and abstract art."

Meanwhile, the "Lee Seung-jo: Rows of Pillars" exhibition can be viewed until the 8th.

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