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Lot Essay
‘The beauty of art is that it transcends theory.’ ——Kim Whan-ki
Spanning two and a half metres wide, 9-XII-71 #216 is a monumental dot painting by Kim Whan-ki, a renowned pioneer of Korean abstract paintings who foreshadows the Dansaekwa movement from the 1970s. Created in 1971, the present work is populated with myriad laboriously painted dots constituting a whorled pattern that invokes the intrinsic form of nature—a quintessential subject that informs Kim’s practices. With his iconic all-over dot artistic idiom, the artist depicted a universe where fundamental exchange with nature occurs, resulting in a transcendence state where matters can be observed through formative poetry. 9-XII-71 #216 epitomises Kim’s lifelong devotion to synthesising aesthetics and philosophy to express the essence of nature, which sets him apart from other monochrome painters whose works inquire into the artistic condition for formalistic painting aesthetics.
The present work represents the pivotal point for both spiritual and technical maturity of Kim’s all-over dot aesthetics in his iconic blue palette. In 1970, a year before 9-XII-71 #216 was made, Kim received the grand prize at Hanguk Misul Daejeon with another full-scale dot painting of similar scale and shade. As early as 1965, the artist began to employ mosaic-like patterns in his paintings. Yet it was not until 1970 that such artistic vocabulary expanded into cascading lines and concentric arcs traversing his pictorial plane. Kim filled his entire canvas with dots painted with a thin calligraphic brush in order to create a mesmerising effect in the manner of traditional Asian ink paintings. The cell-like dot resembles the basic structure of life that constitutes the world. Diluting the oil paint with turpentine, the artist rendered his canvas in a great range of blues, from deep cobalt to light azure. 9-XII-71 #216 affirms the artist’s virtuoso control of the variation in tonality and washes in generating an arresting sense of infinite space and depth through the elemental form.
‘My work is a spatial universe. I paint dots as I think of Seoul and a thousand of things.’ ——Kim Whanki
Born in 1913 in Korea, Kim Whan-ki, like many other modern Korean painters, first encountered Western abstract art during his art training in Japan. Attending art university in Tokyo, Kim learnt art movements like Cubism and Fauvism, liberating his creative spirit by extending his artistic capacity under new autonomy. Kim considered nature and tradition equal in their potential to spark inspiration, as he once expressed in his poetic notation, ‘"round sky, round jar/blue sky, white jar they are surely one pair’ (quoted in N. Yun, ‘Modern Literary Painter Who Sang about Nature’, Kim Whan-ki, Gyeonggi-do, 2012, p. 40). He thus explored indigenous objects and natural landscapes. Between 1956 and 1959, Kim went abroad to Paris with his wife, while continuing to explore formative elements that resonate with Korean landscape and cultural artefacts in simplified forms and lines. It was during this brief yet prodigious period that Kim’s artistic endeavour began to flourish and that his signature blue palette began to appear.
In 1963, after participating in the Sao Paulo Biennale for the first time, Kim relocated to New York on a Rockefeller scholarship. It was the exhibition of works by Adolph Gottlieb, who represented the United States pavilion at the Venice Biennale, that led Kim to Manhattan. Befriended Gottlieb, Kim was introduced to Mark Rothko, a painter whom Kim greatly admired for his rigorous ideology and metaphysical understanding of colours. Barnett Newman is another Colour Field painter who inspired the Korean artist to develop large-scale works in monochrome. Kim was also fortunate to be surrounded by like-minded Korean expats, including the Fluxus video artist Nam June Paik, painter Kim Tschang-Yeul, and sculptor Han Yong-Jin, who reminded him to pursue a synthesis of Eastern and Western culture.
9-XII-71 #216 creates a symbolic and implicit poetic screen with narrative lyricism substituting the strictly simplified formal elements, exemplifying the artist’s relentless exploration and embrace of a variety of materials and influences he encountered in New York, forging a style that is uniquely his own. Blue as a colour that associates with earth and virtue, not only defines the most accomplished period of Kim from the 1970s, but also holds significant meaning in the artist’s own culture as an evocation of hope and immortality. Accentuating the rooted connection between art and nature, Kim once named his art “Suhwa” (‘to speak with the trees’). The countless dots the artist mindfully placed create distinct spaces that separate you and me as one perfect universe. In the present work, each dot has its own place in relation to others and the universe. Together they channel Kim’s sentiment of his homeland and resonate his longing for oneness with nature.
Spanning two and a half metres wide, 9-XII-71 #216 is a monumental dot painting by Kim Whan-ki, a renowned pioneer of Korean abstract paintings who foreshadows the Dansaekwa movement from the 1970s. Created in 1971, the present work is populated with myriad laboriously painted dots constituting a whorled pattern that invokes the intrinsic form of nature—a quintessential subject that informs Kim’s practices. With his iconic all-over dot artistic idiom, the artist depicted a universe where fundamental exchange with nature occurs, resulting in a transcendence state where matters can be observed through formative poetry. 9-XII-71 #216 epitomises Kim’s lifelong devotion to synthesising aesthetics and philosophy to express the essence of nature, which sets him apart from other monochrome painters whose works inquire into the artistic condition for formalistic painting aesthetics.
The present work represents the pivotal point for both spiritual and technical maturity of Kim’s all-over dot aesthetics in his iconic blue palette. In 1970, a year before 9-XII-71 #216 was made, Kim received the grand prize at Hanguk Misul Daejeon with another full-scale dot painting of similar scale and shade. As early as 1965, the artist began to employ mosaic-like patterns in his paintings. Yet it was not until 1970 that such artistic vocabulary expanded into cascading lines and concentric arcs traversing his pictorial plane. Kim filled his entire canvas with dots painted with a thin calligraphic brush in order to create a mesmerising effect in the manner of traditional Asian ink paintings. The cell-like dot resembles the basic structure of life that constitutes the world. Diluting the oil paint with turpentine, the artist rendered his canvas in a great range of blues, from deep cobalt to light azure. 9-XII-71 #216 affirms the artist’s virtuoso control of the variation in tonality and washes in generating an arresting sense of infinite space and depth through the elemental form.
‘My work is a spatial universe. I paint dots as I think of Seoul and a thousand of things.’ ——Kim Whanki
Born in 1913 in Korea, Kim Whan-ki, like many other modern Korean painters, first encountered Western abstract art during his art training in Japan. Attending art university in Tokyo, Kim learnt art movements like Cubism and Fauvism, liberating his creative spirit by extending his artistic capacity under new autonomy. Kim considered nature and tradition equal in their potential to spark inspiration, as he once expressed in his poetic notation, ‘"round sky, round jar/blue sky, white jar they are surely one pair’ (quoted in N. Yun, ‘Modern Literary Painter Who Sang about Nature’, Kim Whan-ki, Gyeonggi-do, 2012, p. 40). He thus explored indigenous objects and natural landscapes. Between 1956 and 1959, Kim went abroad to Paris with his wife, while continuing to explore formative elements that resonate with Korean landscape and cultural artefacts in simplified forms and lines. It was during this brief yet prodigious period that Kim’s artistic endeavour began to flourish and that his signature blue palette began to appear.
In 1963, after participating in the Sao Paulo Biennale for the first time, Kim relocated to New York on a Rockefeller scholarship. It was the exhibition of works by Adolph Gottlieb, who represented the United States pavilion at the Venice Biennale, that led Kim to Manhattan. Befriended Gottlieb, Kim was introduced to Mark Rothko, a painter whom Kim greatly admired for his rigorous ideology and metaphysical understanding of colours. Barnett Newman is another Colour Field painter who inspired the Korean artist to develop large-scale works in monochrome. Kim was also fortunate to be surrounded by like-minded Korean expats, including the Fluxus video artist Nam June Paik, painter Kim Tschang-Yeul, and sculptor Han Yong-Jin, who reminded him to pursue a synthesis of Eastern and Western culture.
9-XII-71 #216 creates a symbolic and implicit poetic screen with narrative lyricism substituting the strictly simplified formal elements, exemplifying the artist’s relentless exploration and embrace of a variety of materials and influences he encountered in New York, forging a style that is uniquely his own. Blue as a colour that associates with earth and virtue, not only defines the most accomplished period of Kim from the 1970s, but also holds significant meaning in the artist’s own culture as an evocation of hope and immortality. Accentuating the rooted connection between art and nature, Kim once named his art “Suhwa” (‘to speak with the trees’). The countless dots the artist mindfully placed create distinct spaces that separate you and me as one perfect universe. In the present work, each dot has its own place in relation to others and the universe. Together they channel Kim’s sentiment of his homeland and resonate his longing for oneness with nature.