모욕을 당한 자이며 위대한
Jung Jungyeob
M’VOID is a program that plans and presents exhibitions of leading artists at home and abroad who question contemporary aesthetic values while strengthening their works with insights.
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정정엽, ‘모욕을 당한 자이며 위대한’
“너는 난(蘭)을 쳐라, 나는 파(蔥총)를 친다!”(이하 ‘난ㆍ파’)[1]
정정엽 작가를 한 문장으로 소개하라면, 그의 호기로운 상기 언급이 제격이다. 물론 그의 CV는 길고 묵직하다. 약술하면, 이화여대 졸업 후, 1985년 <두렁>에 가입하면서 미술 밖에서 미술에 질문을 던지며 사회적 참여를 실천하고, 여성미술연구회를 통해 여성의 보이지 않는 노동에 관심을 지속해 왔다. 수십회의 개인전과 단체전에 초대받고, 2018년 제4회 고암미술상과 2020년 양성평등문화인상, 2022년 이중섭미술상을 수상했다.
서구에서는 일반적으로 남성적인 사상을 기반으로 문화예술이 발전했다. 동양에서는 그나마 ‘음양陰陽’의 조화를 중시 여겼음에도 불구하고, 역시 마찬가지였다. 여기서 이원론을 다시 끄집어 내려는 것이 아니다. 이기적인 생물학적 유전자(GENE)는 어쩔 수 없더라도, 문화적 진화의 유전자인 밈(MEME)은 수정될 수 있기에, 편견의 눈꺼풀을 벗겨 내려는 것이다. 공교롭게도, 올 여름, 정정엽 작가의 혁명적인 ‘씨’(seed)가 파종 될 밭이 갤러리 밈(MEME)이다. ‘모욕을 당한 자이며 위대한’展(2023.6.21~8.18)에서는 확장된 관점, 타자의 시각을 요청한다. ‘난’(사군자, 산수화; 陽)을 치기 위한 ‘준법’이 있듯이, 작가는 ‘파’(채소; 陰)를 치기 위한 서양화적 준법을 발견했다. ‘난ㆍ파’, 이 한 문장은 그의 예술미학, 과정, 동양화 미술사뿐만 아니라 현대 서양 미술사까지 총체적으로 그 상황을 반영한다.
콩: 점, 생명의 씨앗
<마을벌레>, 낯설고 친숙한
심은록 (SimEunlog MetaLab.연구원, 미술비평가)
[1] 이 글에서 출처 없는 인용문은 정정엽 작가와 심은록의 인터뷰(2022.12.3)와 그의 “작업일지”(2023.4.25)에서 인용 됐다.
모욕을 당한 자이며 위대한, 작업노트
이번 전시는 나의 멋지고 묘한 벌레들과 구르는 콩 작업이다. 생 광목천에 사생하듯 그려진 100여 마리의 벌레들은 안성 미산리에서 만났고 낯설며 친숙하다. 처음에는 그야말로 뒤로 물러서게 만드는 ‘벌레’ 일 뿐이었다. 2011년 이후 한 발자국씩 가까이 들여다보니 어떤 벌레도 기기묘묘 대체불가 독특한 모양과 움직임을 가지고 있었다. 내가 발견하지 못한 생명들은 또 얼마나 많을 것인가. 어느 날 그 짧은 기간에 조금씩 안 보일 때 쯤, 줄어드는 나방의 숫자들을 헤아릴 때 쯤 기록하기 시작했다. 지상의 모든 형상이 거기에 있었다. 한 마리씩 낙하를 가늠하며 처음처럼 더듬어 가며 그려나간다. 너무 늦은 불안감의 몸짓이다.
콩 하나의 씨앗들. 점점이 흩어지고 구르는 다양한 빛깔의 콩들을 아주 멀리 내버려두었다. 마음의 산란함, 위기감과는 달리 절반의 우연을 유영한다. 오늘 한 알 한 알 그리는 행위가 멀리 가는 마음을 붙잡아 준다. 파도소리, 못다 한 말, 달의 흔적, 열린 벽, 잃어버린 마을, 덤불의 움직임, 섬, 축제. 씨앗 하나와 뭇 생명들이 주는 상상이다. 모든 살아있는 것들이 모욕을 당하고 있다 그럼에도 위대하다.
정정엽 Jung Jungyeob (b.1962)
1985 이화여자대학교 미술대학 서양화과 졸업
개인전
2023 모욕을 당한 자이며 위대한 (갤러리밈, 서울)
2022 34회 이중섭미술상 수상기념전 (아트조선 스페이스, 서울)
물어보는 노동 (전태일기념관, 서울)
여자는 길을 좋아한다 (동양장B1, 대전)
물구나무 팥 (봉산문화회관, 대구)
2021 걷는 달 (아트센터 화이트 블록, 헤이리 경기)
조용한 소란 (서울식물원, 서울)
2019 최초의 만찬–고암미술상수상기념전( 이응노의 집, 홍성)
어디에서나 발생하는 별 (조은숙 갤러리, 서울)
2018 나의 작업실 변천사 (이상원미술관, 춘천)
2017 콩 그리고 위대한 촛불 (트렁크 갤러리, 서울)
아무데서나 발생하는 별 (갤러리 노리, 제주)
49개의 거울 (스페이스몸 미술관, 청주)
2016 벌레 (갤러리 스케이프, 서울)
2014 길을 찾는 그림, 길들여지지 않는 삶 (길담서원, 서울)
2011 off bean (갤러리 스케이프, 서울)
2009 얼굴 풍경 (대안공간 아트포럼 리, 부천)
red bean (갤러리 스케이프, 서울)
2006 지워지다 (아르코미술관, 서울)
멸종 (비나리미술관, 봉화)
2002 정정엽 개인전 (서호갤러리, 서울/서호미술관, 경기)
2001 낯선 생명, 그 생명의 두께 (신세계 갤러리, 인천)
2000 봇물 (인사미술공간, 서울)
1998 정정엽 개인전 (금호미술관, 서울)
1995 생명을 아우르는 살림 (이십일세기화랑, 서울)
주요기획전
2022 누구의 이야기 (부산현대미술관)
2021 약속 (수원시립아이파크미술관, 아시아 문화예술의 전당 광주)
2020 그림 그리다 (경기도미술관, 안산), 야만의 꿈-핵몽4 (예술지구p, 부산)
2019 세상에 눈뜨다: 아시아 미술과 사회 1960s~1990s (도쿄국립근대미술관, 한국국립현대미 술관, 싱가포르국립미술관)
2012 아시아 여성 미술제 (후쿠오카 아시아 미술관, 후쿠오카, 일본)
2008 The Offering Table: Activist Women from Korea (밀스 컬리지 뮤지움,미국)
2002 광주비엔날레 프로젝트3 (광주)
작품소장
후쿠오카 아시아 미술관, 국립현대미술관, 서울시립미술관, 아르코 미술관, 광주시립미술관,
경기도 미술관, 수원시립아이파크미술관, 부산현대미술관 등
수상: 2022 34회 이중섭미술상, 2020 양성평등문화인상, 2018 제4회 고암미술상
Jung Jungyeob, “The One Who Is Disgraced and the Great One”
SimEunlog (Researcher at MetaLab / Art critic)
“You draw the orchid, I draw the green onion!” (Hereinafter referred to as “Orchidㆍgreen onion”)[1]
If we have to introduce the artist Jung Jungyeob
in one sentence, her pompous comment above would be perfect. Of course, her CV
is long and copious. In brief, after graduating from Ewha Womans University,
she joined the Dureong Group in 1985 and practiced social participation by raising
questions about art while staying outside the art world. And as a member of the
Women's Art Research Association, she has shown a continuing interest in
women's invisible labor. She has been invited to dozens of solo and group
exhibitions, and won the 4th Goam Art Award in 2018, the Gender Equality
Culture Award in 2020, and the Lee Jung Seob Art Award in 2022.
In the West, culture and art in general developed
based on masculine ideas. In the East, the harmony of 'yin and yang' was
emphasized, but in the end it was not much different. Here I am not trying to
bring in dualism again. I want to remove the veil of prejudice, because even if
the selfish biological gene (GENE) is unavoidable, the MEME, which is the gene
of cultural evolution, can be modified. Coincidentally, this summer, Gallery
MEME became the field for Jung Jungyeob's revolutionary 'seed' to be sown. The
exhibition “The One Who Is Disgraced and the Great One” (June 21-August 18,
2023) calls for an expanded perspective and standpoint of others. Just as there
is a ‘junbeop’ (皴法, a painting
technique used to express the texture and three-dimensional effect of the
surface of mountains and rocks) to draw ‘Orchid’ (one of the Four Gracious
Plants, Landscape Painting; yang 陽) in
traditional Oriental paintings, Jung Jungyeob discovered a Western-style ‘junbeop’ for drawing green onion (vegetable; yin 陰). The single phrase, “Orchidㆍgreen onion”
reflects not only her art and aesthetics, her process and Oriental art history but
also the history of modern Western art.
Beans: Dots, Seeds of Life
In spite of the treatment of various themes in
Jung Jungyeob's work, a consistent aesthetic core is systematically developed. Since
her early work, she has grounded herself in traditional art and updated it in
social, contemporary and ecological terms. Looking at the technique of her
early woodcuts—which may be regarded as a general technique of Minjung Art
prints—the lines surrounding the motif are the same as the finishing lines of Korean
folk painting (Minhwa). So sometimes you can get that feeling from the
reproduced form.
The bean series begins with her first solo
exhibition, “Housekeeping that Encompasses All Lives” (1995). Here, she makes a
“unwitty decision” to take out the beans from the sack in the painting. “Each grain is daily food and a
seed,” but “if I draw it as a lump, it doesn’t feel like a seed.” Like a pile
of beans in a sack, the era of grand discourses such as ‘eternity’ and
‘infinity’ has already gone. Just as the artist found the texture stroke
related to 'line' in vegetables, she also makes her own unique texture stroke,
which can be called 'bean-dot texture stroke (豆點皴) as
follows.
She puts a pigment on the canvas with a brush
and rubs it while wiping it off with oil to give it a three-dimensional effect.
She does not paint over and give highlights with white at the end, but rather creates
a blank space while wiping (erasing) with oil. It is not a light filled with
white, but a small yet roomy space where the blank space of the canvas is
exposed and a conversation with life can be entered. As she puts it, beans “can
express anything because they are also moving dots”. Hence each grain is surely
figurative, but when the mass of them spread on the canvas, it becomes an
abstract or semi-abstract work, realizing both the figurative and the abstract
at the same time. Sometimes waves come and go, delivering a sound like The Sound
of Waves. Beans go up to the sky and become the moon or countless stars (Trace
of the Moon, 30,000 Stars series, etc.). In The Lost Village,
green-toned beans that radiate mystery and nostalgia are gathered and unfolded.
Jung's work makes us aware of the fact that such mysterious, vague, and
sometimes bold colors exist in the 'beans' that unfold like an aurora in the
sky. Through her Festival and Cannon Salute series, we can see
how many different colors are possible. The five cardinal colors found in Korean
folk painting, which were removed from her early woodprints, eventually appear
here. However, unlike the traditional five cardinal colors or the conceptual
colors of the West, they originate from beans, such as yellow beans, black
beans, mung beans, peas, and red beans. So, the artist says that beans
"have all the colors of this land." Rather than conceptual and
philosophical colors, they become flesh and blood by being eaten by us, and as
such, they are colors directly related to our physical existence. Also, ‘bean’
is both a ‘dot’ and a ‘seed’ at the same time. The importance of a ‘seed’ lies
in the fact that it contains vitality.
The Village Insect: Unfamiliar and Familiar
Jung Jungyeob represented about 80 insects she encountered
in Misan-ri, Anseong as if sketching on raw cotton cloth. As she puts it, they
are “unfamiliar and familiar”. From 2011, she moves closer step by step to the
creepy and frightening bugs that “make you step back” at first. At the same
time, she recognizes that “every insect has its strange and irreplaceable
unique shape and movement,” and puts that mystery into the canvas. Her painting
reveals just how close she got to her bugs. She even sees “every form on earth”
in an insect. When viewed without prejudice, the canvas is filled with insects
that are not cursed insignificant creatures but mysterious, beautiful, and
dignified beings. Bright stars in the blue night sky twinkle behind the bugs. 'Musca
(The Fly)' near the South Pole is the only insect constellation among the 88
constellations designated by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in
1930. Viewers of the work can even make a constellation for each insect in it.
What made the artist use the ambivalent exhibition
title “The One Who Is Disgraced and the Great One”? Depending on the changing
demands of different periods, the artist's 'other' also changes, and her
perspective shifts from 'people' to 'female' (including the 'other', 'texture
stroke’ of yin), and now to the most urgent 'insect’ (the ‘other’ in climate
and ecosystem). All of them were born great, but they have been insulted and
disgraced. And although they recover their rights little by little due to
changes in the perspective of the times, they are not aware of their own
greatness and dignity. So, the artist represents it through a brush. The great
bearers of Life have been disgraced, but the artist hopes that their dignity
and transcendence will be manifested again. She reveals the nobility of all others
who have been insulted and disgraced and also reveals the nobility of Life and
shakes off our prejudices. If given a sufficient space, I would have compared her
with some artists of ‘insects’ and ‘beans’ who are currently active
internationally. Moreover, since we are now faced with a climatic or ecological
catastrophe, I thought it would be easy to find. But it was harder than I
thought. It was an opportunity to realize that our perspective is not as wide
as we thought. Jung Jungyeob's work is contributing to reminding us of
physicality in the era of WEB3.0 and changing our perspective on insects in an era
of climate disasters.
[1] Unsourced quotations in this article are from an interview of Jung Jungyeob with SimEunlog (December 3, 2022) and the artist’s “Work Journal” (April 25, 2023).
전시 제목에 대한 소개
*1945년 이집트에서 발견된 ‘나지함마디 문서’(2~3세기에쓰여진 것으로 여신의 신성에 대한 텍스트를 모은 것)에 기록된 내용 중 ‘I am the one who is disgraced and the great one’에서 가져옴.( ‘The Goddess’, 샤루크 후사인)
