Korean Crossing: a recent multi-themed exhibition at nine venues around Hawaii presented a broad range of contemporary art from Korea

Art in America, Sept, 2004 by Eleanor Heartney

A sense of history and loss also lay behind Lee Chunghie's fabric works, several of which invoke traditional Korean wrapping cloths (pojagi) that, typically, are sewn together by housewives from scraps of available fabric. Functional but often stunningly beautiful, pojagi cloths are now embraced as a highly sophisticated indigenous art form, just as quilts have been in America. (In conjunction with the centennial festivities, an exhibition of traditional pojagi from the Embroidery Museum in Seoul was concurrently on view at the Honolulu Academy of Arts.) Western contemporary art audiences have been exposed to the pojagi in the work of Kimsooja, for whom it serves as a metaphor for nomadism (items are wrapped so they can be carried on trips). Lee's work tends to be more specific, less metaphorical. Here, she presented silk slippers, an apron and a robe sewn together, pojagi-style, from scraps of fabric. The most historically explicit work, Chogakpo (No-name) Women, features the silkscreened image of an old photo negative showing a group of seamstresses. A transparent fabric overlay gives the anonymous figures a ghostlike appearance.

Other fiber artists in the show took a completely different tack. Chang Yeon Soon's indigo-dyed hemp constructions were nearly abstract, consisting of mesh cubes, three-dimensional zigzags and even a sagging picture-frame shape that bore an intriguing kinship to Eva Hesse's 1966 Hang Up. Oh Soon Hee wove together industrial materials such as copper wire, electronic filament, wire brushes and other electronic parts to create brightly colored sculptures that suggest sea anemones, hedgehogs and other creatures.

The theme of nature ran through much of the show, from Ha Won's cast-paper reliefs of tree branches, bark and leaves, to Kim Soo Jeong's porcelain vessels featuring a traditional celadon glaze and forms inspired by lotus plants and leaf fronds, to Jung Young Kuwan's metal side table with willowy, jellyfishlike legs. Other artists took their cues from elements of traditional Korean life. Cho Chung Hyun's stoneware chimneys were based on the ubiquitous kimchee containers that are found in every Korean home. The ceramic work of Lee Jeong Do reinterpreted such items as pen rests, incense burners, brush hangers and ink stones. Kim Yik Yung drew on the simplified forms of Korean ceremonial porcelains of the Chosun period (1392-1910) for black-and-white ceramic sculptures whose simplified shapes also invoked the minimalist esthetic of the modernist movement that arose in the aftermath of the Korean War.

In addition, several works made reference to Christian currents in modern Korean society, an issue that came up in other shows as well. Chung Young Hwan's handmade-paper reliefs are embedded with crowns of thorns, a motif that also appears in Song Burn Soo's tapestries, which feature illusionistic images of spikes and thorns dramatically trailing elongated shadows.

Set aside in its own gallery was a related solo exhibition by metalworker Komelia Hongja Okim. A Korean native who now lives in the U.S., Okim creates beautifully crafted figural works and metal vessels that frequently include flowing strands of wire "hair" rather incongruously sprouting from teapot lids and goblet stems.