Artist Park Seo-bo poses on the first floor of his home in Yeonhui-dong, Seoul. Behind him is a newly planted red plum tree in the garden. Hyukjae Kwon Photo Reporter
Artist Park Seo-bo (90),’Master of Monochrome Paintings’ will open a solo exhibition at the White Cube, which is considered the best gallery in the UK from the 17th. This is the third time since the first exhibition in 2016 at the London White Cube. Painter Park held solo exhibitions at the Neuss Langen Foundation in Germany in September 2019, just before Corona 19 took off, and the Perrotin Gallery in Paris, France in October. He is the first Korean to hold a solo exhibition at the White Cube in London and set a record of’complete sales’, and he is receiving love calls from one of the world’s leading galleries. ‘Starting from 80′ and ’10 thousand years of active duty’ is not an exaggeration to him at all.
Interview with artist Park Seo-bo
Yecheon, Gyeongbuk, Gugi-dong Museum of Art, Seoul
“I will give back to my work society”
Design Request Letter to Peter Chumthor
He is now busy with an important project in his life. Park Seo-Bo Art Museum (Jongno-gu) will be built in Gugi-dong, Seoul, Park Seo-Bo Art Museum, which will be built in Yecheon, Gyeongbuk, and the Park Seo-Bo Memorial Hall in Yeonhui-dong, Seoul. On the 19th of last month, he signed a’business agreement for the construction of an art museum’ with Jongno-gu, Seoul, and is looking closely at the design drawings of art museums that are progressing one after another. The museum that will be built in the middle of Namsan, Yecheon, Gyeongbuk, his hometown, has been preparing for a long time. The museum, which Yecheon-gun is promoting to build, is expected to contain the entire life and works of artist Park Seo-bo. Both museums are created with works donated by Painter Park.
Recently, he sent a handwritten letter to the world-renowned Swiss architect Peter Zumthor (78) requesting a design and 14 catalogs with his signature. Kim Hak-dong, the capital of Yecheon County, also sent an official letter to Chumtor and received a reply from Chumlore saying, “The place where the museum will be built is promising. I want to visit it in person.” If Chumtor is in charge of the design as Hwabaek Park and Yecheon-gun wishes, the Park Seo-Bo Art Museum in Yecheon is expected to attract the world’s attention through the meeting of a legendary painter and an architect. What does it mean to prepare an art museum with one’s name in Gusoon? He met Painter Park at his home in Yeonhui-dong, Seoul, which he named’base’.
![Park Seo-Bo's work to be presented at the White Cube in London, UK from March 17 to May 1. park-seo-bo-ecriture-no-37-73-1973-1 [사진 화이트큐브]](https://i0.wp.com/pds.joins.com/news/component/htmlphoto_mmdata/202103/01/66bc59bd-1789-44d5-ad93-1e7e70ff4006.jpg?w=560&ssl=1)
Park Seo-Bo’s work to be presented at the White Cube in London, UK from March 17 to May 1. park-seo-bo-ecriture-no-37-73-1973-1 [사진 화이트큐브]
Painter Park Seo-bo is posing in Yeonhui-dong’s studio on the 24th. Hyuk-jae Kwon Photo Reporter/20210224
- Seoul and Yecheon. Two museums are being prepared.
- “I’ve been thinking about giving back all of myself to society, and I’m trying to realize it. I want to donate my works so that many people can enjoy art to their fullest without owning a painting.”
- Isn’t there a lot of memorial space?
- “I can’t sell my paintings right now because I don’t have my paintings, but since I’ve been drawing pictures even though it’s not selling well in my life, there are quite a few works. I worked 14 hours a day every day before I fell from myocardial infarction in 2009. There are many large works. I’m going to bring it out to society.”
- How are the two museums different?
- “The Park Seo-Bo Monochrome Art Museum, whose goal is to be completed next year, will be donated Esquis, drawings and prints focused on monochrome, and 120 representative works will be donated to Yecheon-gun, which will show the change of my work by period.
- Even though it is not selling well, I have been working tirelessly.
- “I thought it would be difficult to draw when I was old. I thought I had to do it when I had energy and time and materials because it was okay if I didn’t sell it. Even if I didn’t sell, I donated the work before I left the world and drew it to remain in the museum. That’s right (laughs).”
- You wrote a letter to the Chumthor architect.
- “Yecheon is my hometown and is a small rural town with a population of only 50,000. I want to leave an art museum that can be proud of the world in this place where the nature is beautiful, there are many traditional cultural heritages, but relatively lack of modern cultural facilities. To that end, Seobo Park My name alone is not enough, so I thought it would be nice to create a synergy effect with a world-class architect.”
- “It was ideological above all. Chumtor is an architect who knows the meaning of’silence’ and’stillness’ better than anyone else. (Chumtor is an architect who knows the meaning of’silence’ and’stillness’. (Chumtor lives in silence. Architecture gives form to this stillness. “I once said.) His philosophy fits the monochromatic work I’ve been working on all my life.”
In his letter to Chumthor, painter Park explained that “monochrome painting is not a simple painting, but a tool for practice, and the result of the zero purpose of action and infinite repetition. The change of physical properties to mental ones in the process of work is a monochrome.” In response, Chumtor replied, “I want to visit Seoul to meet you in person and see your work. The most important thing for me is the place-related nature. I want to visit the site of Yecheon.”
Designed by architect Cho Byeong-soo, a space with a home and workroom in Yeonhui-dong, Seoul. The gallery space on the 1st floor was built with the in mind that it would be used as an exhibition hall at the Park Seo-Bo Memorial Hall after he passed away. Hyukjae Kwon Photo Reporter
- The current house in Yeonhui-dong (designed by Jo Byeong-soo) was also designed with the memorial in mind.
- “There are houses on the 3rd and 4th floors, but the 1st floor is designed to be used as an exhibition hall. The 2nd floor currently has my own studio, and there is room for it to be an exhibition hall or other space depending on the case.”
- I seem to be step by step preparing to leave.
- “Of course. I’m going to die (laughs). I’ve already had two myocardial infarctions and one cerebral infarction, and I’ve passed the point of death. Recently, my best friend Chang-Yeol Kim left was a big shock. If I didn’t prepare, I had no chance. You must also prepare this in advance.”
- “It’s fun to prepare like this. It’s obvious to leave, but there’s no reason to go down. I said I would accept (death) happily. Death is also life. A life named death. Of course, I want to go to a healthier painting in this world. Yes, but I’m leaving anytime. I prepared my grave at Bundang Memorial Park, but recently, it was sunny and so beautiful.”
After moving to Yeonhui-dong in 2018, he said that his health had deteriorated and he and his family were well prepared. He chose his grave carefully and decided. “The place where I will be (the crypt) was beautifully looked at by architect Cho Byeong-soo, who designed our house, and I finished preparing with all the reliefs and names of my face inscribed there. And my motto on my tomb,’If it doesn’t change, it will fall. I’ll do it.”
Painter Park’s “thorough preparation and perfection of work” was famous in the art world. It is known that when he organizes an exhibition from a young age, the meticulous and detailed preparation process from the layout of the pamphlet to the pamphlet makes the people around him bored. The end of his life seemed to be in one context for him.
Painter Park Seo-bo is posing in Yeonhui-dong’s studio on the 24th. Hyukjae Kwon Photo Reporter
- What does it mean to fall if it doesn’t change, fall if it changes?
- “We have to keep trying new things and constantly seek change. Change does not come at a moment. It is impossible without the expansion of thinking that I look at myself coldly. But even if I change wrong, I fall. Change that I cannot fully digest with my own. Rather, it shortens the writer’s life. It means to be wary of it.”
- What kind of writer do you want to be remembered as?
- “I was born and educated in Korea, and I only painted for more than seventy years. I believe that someday the world will recognize me. Even if I grew up with a clay spoon, even if I can’t study abroad, I can be recognized in the world if I have’my true things’. It would be nice if I could give you hope. It was a long lonely and difficult time, but I wanted to show my work all over the world after eight days, so things get overturned like this. Life is like that (laughs).”
Painter Park said, “My personality never knows to give up, and there is an extreme aspect, and the painting was a tool for me to refine this personality, that is, to polish the degree.” He then asked, “Korean art does not seek quality, it pursues quality. Please understand and remember the quality of our art.”
◆Park Seo-Bo = 1931 Born in Yecheon, Gyeongbuk. Graduated from Hongik University Art School. Art movement as the leading role of the declaration of anti-national war in 1956. In 1957, he worked as the first Informel writer in Korea. Since the 1970s, he has built an unrivaled world of art through a series of Myobeop (描法), and served as Dean of the College of Art at Hongik University.
Eunjoo Lee, Senior Reporter of Culture [email protected]
