The exhibition, Neo-sansu is designed to show how traditional sansuhwa or landscape painting and its aesthetic has been appropriated and modified for contemporary art in a contemporary manner in the age of technology (post-Internet). The exhibition brings together works by 31 Korean artists currently active in a wide range of genres in order to explore the meaning of the new landscape painting of our times.

Human beings have existed with nature for millions of years in both the East and the West. Humans have lived in tune with the rhythms of the natural environment surrounding them. For instance, Siddhartha Gautama tried to become one with the cycle of transmigration, or birth and death and rebirth, departing from ideas of cause and effect or dependent origination in the mundane world. Truth-seekers disciplined themselves to become spiritual immortals, realizing the principle of the universe in “Tao”, signifying the primordial essence or the fundamental nature of the universe. Human sensibility and spirit has pursued a bonding of man and nature, and all religions and arts as well as romantic ideas and back-homing instinct have been stimulated by this unity between man and nature. All works of art by great masters are thus valued according to how this confluence of man and nature is represented in their works. This is often associated with the matter of “representation” in art, so all traditional paintings in the East and the West intend to depict humans assimilated into nature.

Oriental landscape painting reflects a return to nature or the spirit of unity, interpreted as the virtue of life or the aesthetic norm of art. Exquisite landscape painting has been considered a representation of humanity’s ideals, emotions. An angler himself can be part of nature, and peasants featured in The Angelus by Jean-Francois Millet are also the same. As such, Eastern and Western landscape painting has assumed the metaphorical role of enhancing the worth of ideal nature and man. Numerous art trends have pursued diversity, but the only shared value they have consistently sought after is an ideal union between nature and man, despite different forms of expression.

And yet, nature has undergone drastic change in the modern age of technology. Nature no longer takes a crucial position in the human environment, and it is not in concert with humans. Nature has degenerated into an object of consumption like daily supplies and food. In this sense, modern landscape painting is different from traditional landscape painting in all respects.

First, modern landscape painting is no longer an object of representation but an object of mere technical manipulation. Second, modern landscape painting does not depend on any common aesthetic and does not bring about any sense of unity between the artist and viewer through nature. Third, if art reflects the technical environment, modern landscape painting can be seen as a sort of humor, manipulation, or mockery of traditional sansuhwa and nature. Consequently, landscape painting today has been imparted with meaning in the system of sign and image, refusing the assertion that nature is the force and symbol of the universe.

“I am not so interested in something like romanticism or sublime beauty. We are not too naïve to see nature as such. Nature portrayed in landscape painting is basically fake, and I initially had no such concept as harmonious nature. I have never thought about nature in the past tense.” (Kong, Sung-Hun) This exhibition will obviously present what neo-sansu, new landscape painting, is like in this technical environment.

Section one: 11 Feb - 18 May
Section two: 28 Feb - 1 June

*image (left)
Paradise Regained, 2003
artificial trees, artificial flowers, stuffed birds, nature sound, artificial scent, styrofoam,
dimensions variable
courtesy of Jeongeun Shon