Chang Ucchin exhibit keeps things simple at MMCA in Deoksu Palace

Arts & Design

Published: 23 Sep. 2023, 07:00 Updated: 25 Sep. 2023, 09:27

Chang Ucchin exhibit keeps things simple at MMCA in Deoksu Palace

"Family" (1955) by Chang Ucchin, his first painting of a family, has been unveiled for the first time at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art's latest exhibition at its Deoksu Palace branch in central Seoul. [MMCA]

Chang Ucchin (1917-1990), one of Korea’s most celebrated modern artists, is known for his childlike yet affectionate paintings of everyday themes, especially magpies, trees and families.

The painter, alongside Park Soo-keun, Kim Whanki, Lee Jung-seob and Yoo Young-kuk, is considered to have pioneered a new chapter in the history of Korean modern art by imbuing Western oil painting techniques with Eastern spirituality motifs.

Chang’s works were distinctly straightforward and simple. He was particularly fond of magpies, to the extent that around 60 percent of his 730 oil paintings featured the bird. Still, it didn’t matter how frequently thechay made an appearance; no two paintings were ever the same.

"Untitled" (1988) by Chang Ucchin [SHIN MIN-HEE]

“It proves how ceaselessly he worked to always transform his works,” curator Bae Won-jung at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) said earlier this month. The MMCA’s Deoksu Palace branch in Jung District, central Seoul, is holding a retrospective, titled “The Most Honest Confession,” that attempts to explore the unrecognized, underlying complexity of Chang’s artistic world.

Chang was known to have spent most of his hours crouched on the floor, drawing. He ultimately produced over 1,000 works, encompassing oil paintings, meok (traditional East Asian black ink) paintings, prints, illustrations and ceramic drawings.

The MMCA exhibit, which has been co-organized with the Chang Ucchin Museum of Art Yangju in Gyeonggi, has specially chosen some 270 major works to display. Among these, six pieces were lent by RM of BTS, though the MMCA refused to comment which pieces they were. The show is divided into four sections, arranged in chronological order.

Chang’s first painting about a family, “Family” (1955), and his last painting before his death, “Magpie and Village” (1990), have been unveiled to the public for the first time as well.

"Magpie" (1958) by Chang Ucchin [MMCA]

"Bird and Tree" (1961) by Chang Ucchin [MMCA]

It’s an obvious fact that Chang’s works are representative of Korean modern art due to how the images he chose to draw had the same sort of simplicity as 20th-century Korean country life. Magpies, for instance, have traditionally been a symbol of good luck in Korean culture.

But when delving deeper into his work, Chang was also an experimentalist in terms of painting style and composition.

The same recurring image, whether it be a magpie or a tree, transformed over the years, like how his earlier magpie paintings from 1958 were leaner and then got increasingly fatter over the years. It could be a representation of Chang himself getting older, Bae suggested, which is why magpies are interpreted to be one of Chang’s personas.

"Tree" (1987) by Chang Ucchin [SHIN MIN-HEE]

He reimagined trees not only as regular woody plants with leaves and branches, but as abstract figures in other shapes and sizes, as shown in “Untitled” (1988) and “Tree” (1987). In the former, the tree is depicted as the Earth, drawn with a line of houses and the sun situated above it, and in the latter as a dream bubble, juxtaposing a dreamlike scenario in a night backdrop.

Chang also tried out numerous structures for his paintings, like the inverted triangle, the circle and the cross, which aided in providing different, more dynamic impressions even in similar scenarios.

Some relatively lesser-known aspects of Chang’s works are shown throughout the third section, which reflects Chang’s Buddhist worldview and philosophical musings. It includes paintings of his wife, Lee Soon-kyung, who is referred to by her Buddhist name “Zinzinmyo,” meaning “absolutely stunning beauty” — an ode of Chang’s respect for her.

"Zinzinmyo: My Wife's Buddhist Name" (1970) by Chang Ucchin [MMCA]

Despite his continuous and elaborate effort to produce his artwork, Chang called himself “a simple man,” in that “nothing represents me more accurately than my drawings.”

“It isn’t just that Chang was already forthright with the colors and lines, but that he has always been consistent in what he wanted to portray in his paintings,” Bae said. “His personal life and his artistic world have always been correspondent with each other. Yet no two pieces were ever the same, and he was always his truest self in all his 1,000 works.”

“The Most Honest Confession” continues until Feb. 12 next year. The MMCA Deoksu Palace branch is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day except Mondays. Hours extend to 9 p.m. on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Tickets are 2,000 won ($1.50).