[Walkthrough studio]
Lee Ihn Bum: Oh, hello.
Yun Suk Nam: Oh, nice to meet you.
Lee Ihn Bum: It's been a long time.
Yun Suk Nam: Right, Thank you for coming this far. Here is where I work. Here is where I design works and draw, and there is where I work.
Lee Ihn Bum: Oh, really? I see.
Yun Suk Nam: You can come this way.
Lee Ihn Bum: Okay.
Yun Suk Nam: There is where I work. I acturally sculpt and polish wood here. Those are tools used when I sculpt wood, and this is the table I work at. Works are completed here.
Lee Ihn Beom: Works are done here?
Yun Suk Nam: There is another room, would you like to go and see?
Lee Ihn Bum: Sure.
Yun Suk Nam: You can come here after passing the previous room you just saw. Here is where the art works are staying. There is nowhere I can put 1,025 dogs, so I just brought them here.
Lee Ihn Beom: Wow, I just like them a lot.
Yun Suk Nam: It's a big number huh?
Lee Ihn Bum: Yes, it's an amazing scene...
Yun Suk Nam: When you see them, if you see their faces, they don't look so cheerful but don't look that sad either. But, if you see them from behind, they look like tombstones. It feels like they are already embracing their death in their heart. The 1,025 abandoned dogs are surely important but, actually the main concept of this work is, the old lady who is taking care of them. For now, some of them are damaged during exhibitions and there are some parts should be fixed, so I will touch touch them up and exhibit again.
Lee Ihn Bum: It's Wednesday, September 17th, 2014. I am here with Yun Suk Nam, a representative feminist artist in Korea, in her studio, located in Hwaseong-si, Gyeonggi-do, Korea. I am working as a professor in Sangmyung University, as curator and also an art critic.
Yun Suk Nam: Wow, thank you for coming and inviting me for this interview.
Lee Ihn Bum: Shall we start with asking you to comment about being introduced as a representative feminist artist in Korea?
Yun Suk Nam: Um, I normally get that kind of questions a lot. "Do you like to be called a feminist artist?" I have got this question so many times. I really hope that I can be called that until I die.
Lee Ihn bum: That's very clear.
Yun Suk Nam: Yes.
Lee Ihn Bum: Before starting questions about your art, I would like to ask you to briefly tell us where and when your were born, how your family was, and what your growing up environment was like?
Yun Suk Nam: Um, I was born in Manchuria, China, on January 8th of the lunar calendar. Since it was during Japanese colonial period of Korea, my father moved to Manchuria to live as a school teacher, and I was born near Yeonpyung, Manchuria. My father is called Yoon Baek Nam, who is Korea's first movie director, and he wrote many novels, popular novels later. I grew up in that environment.
Lee Ihn Bum: How many siblings did you have?
Yun Suk Nam: We are six and I am the second daughter, but actually I was the third daughter. I lost one of my older sisters, so I am the second daughter now and have three younger brothers and one little sister.
Lee Ihn Bum: Then, when did you come back from Manchuria?
Yun Suk Nam: I don't remember exactly but I know, we came back in Spring of the year of Korea was liberated from Japan, so I was maybe six or seven.
Lee Ihn Bum: You might have experienced many environmental changes while moving your residence from here to there.
Yun Suk Nam: Residence, um, I do not have clear memory about it because I was too young. However, I still remember people were shouting 'hurrah' for the liberation from Japan. I don't remember much about life in China but I have many pictures of it.
Lee Ihn Bum: Oh, you have picture of your childhood.
Yun Suk Nam: Yes, I do.
Lee Ihn Bum: I see.
Lee Ihn bum: After graduating school from school, did you have any experience or environment that influenced you to be an artist later?
Yun Suk Nam: As you know, I couldn't enter a college, because of family reasons. My father passed away in his early age, so my family was not rich enough to send me to a college, but I wanted to be an artist, because I knew there was a job called artist through my father. I couldn't enter a college because of that situation, but decided not to live on like that when I was 40, and started painting after discussion with my husband.
Lee Ihn Bum: When you were 40...
Yun Suk Nam: Yes.
Lee Ihn Bum: When you were entering the age of Burhok (40).
Yun Suk Nam: That's right. It is called as a age of burhok(40) in Korea, but I heard age doen't matter in foreign countries, and also, I did not care about my age, when I started. I didn't think of it at all.
Lee Ihn Bum: Did you have any experience of seeing a good art work or a picture book when you were young?
Yun Suk Nam: Oh, of course.
Lee Ihn Bum: I think you must have had some experience like that.
Yun Suk Nam: Yes, I did. When I was very young, my father used to draw pictures next to me. I drew pictures with pencil and painted them with brushes. There were many interesting scenes in my father's pictures and they were somehow like cartoons. I have that kind of memories, and a special experience in the third year of elementary school made me to want to live as an artist.
However, my father passed away when I was a high school student, so, as you know, being an artist in that home environment is just a dream. So I gave up. I was in an art club in middle school, and some of my pictures were picked and exhibited in France but there is no record of it.
Lee Ihn Bum: In your early life...
Yun Suk Nam: Yes, I had desire and longing for art since I was young.
Lee Ihn Bum: After coming back from Manchuria, did you live in Seoul?
Yun Suk Nam: Sure, I have lived in Seoul since then.
Lee Ihn Bum: Where in Seoul?
Yun Suk Nam: It's called Jeonnon-dong.
Lee Ihn Bum: Ah, Jeonnon-dong.
Yun Suk Nam: Yes, I lived there until I was in third grade in elementary school, and move to Gangnam. I entered Gangnam elementary school, and the Korean war began a little later.
Lee Ihn Bum: I see. Since there are lots of things to discuss, we will move to the next question. Could you please tell us about the situation, when you were about to jump into the art world?
Yun Suk Nam: Okay, anyway, I had a strong desire for being an artist, so I was struggling between the two ways of living that way and following my dream.
Lee Ihn Bum: There was almost 20 years gap between graduating from high school and deciding to re-start art.
Yun Suk Nam: Tha's right.
Lee Ihn Bum: Then, could you please briefly tell us about the 20 years of your life?
Yun Suk Nam: Sure, I got a job right after graduating high school. I got a job in a large company in Korea, and worked there until I was 28 years old. I had many younger siblings. Even though I was not completely supporting my family, but I was in charge of half of it. My older sister was a jounarlist and my mother did not have any job, so how we were going to support our family was the biggest issue.
Lee Ihn Bum: Oh, you started working after graduating.
Yun Suk Nam: Yes, I did.
Lee Ihn Bum: What company did you work for?
Yun Suk Nam: I could get a job in Korea Electric Power Coporation because my uncle was working there as an adviser. I did not meet my husband there but anyway got married at aged 28. You face a reality after getting married, right? We could buy a small house later, a small aprtment. After that, I decided to follow my dream and discussed with my husband. Fortunately, my husband agreed with me and said since it was my life, it would be better to follow the dream if I could. So I started it without hesitation.
Lee Ihn Bum: I saw a record said you studied English literature in Sungkyunkwan University,
Yun Suk Nam: Yes, I studied there for one year while working at company.
Lee Ihn Bum: Oh, I see.
Yun Suk Nam: I took night classes.
Lee Ihn Bum: I get it. So, anyway, even though it was not a full time job, you decided to start art without hesitation in the year that you became 40.
Yun Suk Nam: Yes, and, it is hard to say that it was a main reason I decided to start art but, one day, when my friend who graduated Hongik University visited me, I told her I couldn't live on like that and was eager to do art, and she was supportive. She said that there was artist Lee Jong Mu's studio, so she would introduce him to me. Fortunately, I had some money got from my husband, so bought all of painting tools. I learned painting in his studio for about two months.
Lee Ihn Bum: So, it was not when you were 40.
Yun Suk Nam: Yes, it was the year when I became 40.
Lee Ihn Bum: Oh, that was the year when you became 40.
Yun Suk Nam: Yes, it was April 25th, 1979. I can remember the date because it was a big decision on that day.
Lee Ihn Bum: So, you did not enter an art school but you were lucky to have a chance to learn from a great artist, Lee Jong Mu.
Yun Suk Nam: Yes, I was. Actually, I used to visit art galleries when I was in high school, alone, because my friends were not interested in art. I remember that is was when I was a year one student in high school. There was a department store called Cheonil Department Store. It was between Jongro 4-ga and Cheonggyecheon 4-ga, and there was Choenil Gallery in the building. I went there to see artist Lee In Seong's retrospective exhibition.
I was surprised, and at the same time, sorry to say that but, I thought his paintings were similar to Gauguin's. I saw lots of painting books. My teacher liked me and used to show me all of his/her art books. So I could learn of old European artists' lives and show their paintings through the books. I liked Gauguin a lot and of course, loved Van Gogh as well.
Lee Ihn Bum: What middle school and high school did you study at?
Yun Suk Nam: I graduated from Seoul National University middle school and high school. They were co-educational.
Lee Ihn Bum: You graduated from very good school.
Yun Suk Nam: Well, I don't know.
Lee Ihn Bum: I saw a record that you learned calligraphy from a poet, Park Du Jin.
Yun Suk Nam: Ah, when I was 35, I had severe stress, and a friend told me that Park Jin Hyun taught calligraphy, so I entered the academy with six other women and practiced it very hard for 4 years.
Lee Ihn Bum: So, you started it from age 36.
Yun Suk Nam: You can say that, but who is Park Jin Hyun, I don't even have to explain, right? I learned how to use brushes and could understand the depth of color that comes from black ink. Anyway, I had to do lots of homework and practice. However, I was not satisfied with it, at that time. So, I suddenly moved to painting, but I still use the brushes. Um, I use bushes only when I paint.
Lee Ihn Bum: I think it would be meaningful to talk about your first one person exhibition held in 1982. Please tell us if you have some episodes related to the exhibition or the art works exhibited there, and what were your thoughts on the exhibition.
Yun Suk Nam: I used to draw nudes with Kim Young Ja and Kim Jin Sook, who graduated Hongik University, at my home. We did it about a year. So we had our first exhibition, but actually, I cannot say that it was one of my representative exhibitions, because I was at a level of practicing. The next exhibition was held at Arko Art Centre in 1982. I rented the art center for a week and held a private exhibiton. I held the exhibition with a title of Mother.
Lee Ihn Bum: So, it was your actual debut exhibition.
Yun Suk Nam: It was a huge debut, and it was very meaningful for me.
Lee Ihn Bum: How were evaluations for it at that time?
Yun Suk Nam: I was flattered, because so many artists visited there, even though it was a one week exhibition. I don't know how they heard about my exhibition, but even artist Jang Uk Jin came. He was alive at that time. He came to my exhibition and left me great advice.
He told me that even though my painting were not in new style, it was very impressive that a young woman held an exhibition of representational and portrait pictures with the title of Mother, while 90% of paintings were abstract paintings. Some of them visited twice, and I was so honored and felt like I became a great artist. I was stupid.
Lee Ihn Bum: Oh, you did.
Yun Suk Nam: Yes.
Lee Ihn Bum: Didn't you become a great artist?
Yun Suk Nam: No, I felt lots of things after that. I realized that I was a babe in the woods.
Lee Ihn Bum: You became a professional in 1982.
Yun Suk Nam: I think I made my debut through the exhibiton, and the senior artists who I met in the exhibiton suggested I join a group and have a exhibition together. I was so honored to join them.
Lee Ihn Bum: Right.
Yun Suk Nam: I was so surprised. So, Jeong Moon Gyu was my second benefactor of my art life.
Lee Ihn Bum: Jeong Moon Gyu.
Yun Suk Nam: Yes, artist Jeong Moon Gyu.
Lee Ihn Bum: I see.
Yun Suk Nam: I participated from the first exhibition he led and several more. I was so hornored.
Lee Ihn Bum: After that, You have been actively working as an artist for more than 30 years now. It was started from painting, but the your main works moved to Objet and installation art, right?
Yun Suk Nam: After finishing my private exhibition in 1982, I went to New York to study. I didn't acutally entered a school but I focused on working in Art Students League which was opened to every one and a school called the Pratt Institute Graphic Center. It was where workshops used to be held. When I became a member of Korean Fine Arts Association by holding my first private exhibition, I could get visa as an artist. So I just focused on my works, without thinking about home at all.
Lee Ihn Bum: So, did you feel that you were entering into a professional world?
Yun Suk Nam: I don't speak good English but it was a complete 'turning point'. I realized that I was a babe in the woods in Korea. I could look back my life as an artist. So, I didn't work on my art works but visited here and there to see others. While visiting movie theaters and art galleries I learned a lot more than when I was just focusing on working. I could broaden my vision.
Lee Ihn Bum: So you felt the atmosphere of arts in New York in the beginning and the middle of 1980s.
Yun Suk Nam: I could experience Pop Art which couldn't even be imagined in Korea. It was golden time of it, even though it is not now.
Lee Ihn Bum: Please tell us one unforgettable exhibition.
Yun Suk Nam: Among contemporary arts, I remember Lichtenstein's comic strips, it's Lichtenstein, right? Where was it? A famous street, I forgot. Ah, SOHO, I had such a great time at SOHO. I even bought a calendar from there. And then, there is a historical musem. I think it was on 80th or 60th Street. I went there over and over. The American History Museum gave me a huge impression and that has made me to question myself about fine arts and find answers. Even though they were not perfect answers...
Lee Ihn Bum: Your first private exhibition held at Arko Art Center in 1982 gave you an actual opportunity to make your bebut as an artist, right? You started with drawing and painting but your focus moved to Objet and installation later. We can also find that topics of your works changed from Mother to Pink Room and abandoned dogs. Please tell us briefly, when do you think your turning point was, and how many twists and turns you have experienced?
Yun Suk Nam: I think it was 1990, I mean early 90's. I was kind of experiencing a crisis of " Can I really paint in the future?". So, I stayed one year in New York again, and I met Louise Bourgeois there. She was holding an exhibiton at Brooklyn Museum and it was her private exhibition. It was first time for me to see her works in front of my eyes. There was a huge sculpture called 'Maman'. As I know, it's her first work.
It was surrounded by a wooden fence, like a complete jail, and there was a small gate connected to the spider's house. It was a Western style gate. I felt like I was entering a prison, because there were lots of nails on the gate. I entered there without knowing what it was, and there was a big spider, a huge spider. I looked at it carefully. The sipder was made of wastes materials like pipes and manhole covers. Those were connected to each to make a huge spider. What is spiders like? They give birth to eggs on their back and then are eaten up by the spiderlings when they hatch from the eggs.
Lee Ihn Bum: The reason why you were attracted by the sculpture of Bourgeois was related to your personal experience, right?
Yun Suk Nam: It's closely related to my experience. Since I stared painting, I was agonizing what I should paint. The subject I could think of was my mother who I loved so much and I had the greatest respect for. My mother became a widow with her six children when she was thirty-nine. The youngest one was aged two.
As you know, life of literary men is poor. She had to raise, feed, and teach six kids with nothing. She used to be just a housewife before but started to work outside like selling stuff in the streets and weeding fields. When she worked in a field she used to get some of the outer leaves of vegetables, and sold them after parboiling them. She also built a house herself.
She received condolence money from my father's funeral. She was going to rent a house with the money, but she could get only a small house with two rooms in Youngcheon. Even though she was only thirty-nine, she thought that she couldn't live in somebody else's house with six children.
She heard about a project of Park Jung Hee's government that they settle Geumho-dong with poor people in Cheonggyecheon. So, she bought a lot of 18 pyeong (about square 70 yards) or 20 pyeong (about square 80 yards), and she made soil bricks and built a house with two rooms, one wooden porch running along the outside of the rooms, and a kitchen. She built the house herself with her nephew.
Lee Ihn Bum: She built the house.
Yun Suk Nam: So we moved into the new house. I still cannot forget the view I saw that night. I was going to bed and I looked up the ceiling as I lay down. I saw twinkling stars up in the sky through a gap on the ceiling. I looked it carefully and found my mom made it on purpose for us.
Ah, It is still unforgettable. My mom was that kind of person. Also, no matter how many difficulties she had, she never said to us 'Oh, dear, what should we do, how can we live on?" And when I was going to drop out the school, she told me that I had to finish high school, and made a deal with my teacher about tuition fee even though I was not doing very well at school.
One more episode I really want to tell you is, my mother used to come home late at night after working, and she woke us up and said 'let's play a game'. Then, we played game with cards, and my mother gave us some snack called Sembe, through the game. Now I think, my mother was trying to make us forget about the difficulties we were suffering, through the game. She never said that we were in trouble, but always was cheerful and optimisitc.
Lee Ihn Bum: The energy spread through all of your art works is from your experience with your mother, right?
Yun Suk Nam: Yes, it is. I still talk about by mother, and I am telling my mother's story through my art works.
Lee Ihn Bum: That's so impressive and interesting. I think we can spend all time we've got talking about your mother.
Yun Suk Nam: Oh, you think so. I, um, It doesn't make me cry today. I had to stop interviews sometimes because tears came out too much while talking about my mother.
Lee Ihn Bum: Okay, let's move on to the next question. If you had a turing point in early 90s, when do you think it was?
Yun Suk Nam: Um, actually I had lots of thoughts after finishing my first private exhibition 'Mother', but I still had lots of stories about my mother. There were countless number of stories about her. I had desire to come close to the audience with more dramatic oil paintings, something in line with environmental factors. I saw installation arts for the first time when I was in New York. The one with a piano....
Lee Ihn Bum: When you went to New York in 1992?
Yun Suk Nam: Right, even though I had nothing related with installation art, I recognized that there was a genre called installation art, and had an idea that I will pop out from walls. I wanted to pop out from walls, from stuffy walls. So, when I had an exhibition, 'The Eyes of Mother' I brought waste materials and...
Lee Ihn Bum: At your second exhibition, another private one.
Yun Suk Nam: At my second private exhibition as well, I titled it as 'The Eyes of Mother' and showed my mother's history, like when she was 19, in the 30's, when she were suffering, and her senescence. I worked on expressing all my mother's history.
Lee Ihn Bum: You showed all the subjects about your mother at one exhibition.
Yun Suk Nam: Yes, I showed everything there and done.
Lee Ihn Bum: So exhibitions with your mother's story ended in 1993, and you moved on to Pink Room.
Yun Suk Nam: Yes, yes. Everything about my mother I wanted tell was finished there like a shaman finishes a ritual. I was satisfied. I could finish telling my mother's story and move on to tell my story. I felt living as a middle class woman was so empty. I thought I could get out of the emptiness and wanted to find a way to live as a woman named Yun Suk Nam. I had confidence and I was not shy. Actually, telling about yourself is embarrassing and risky.
Lee Ihn Bum: So, when you became 35, you thought you could tell stories about yourself?
Yun Suk Nam: Yes, maybe I could tell my stories. So, I asked myself questions like, 'who am I?' 'What does being a housewife mean?', and 'Where am I standing?' 'Where am I standing in my family and society?' When I asked myself where I was, the answer was, nowhere. I didn't have my own room, I had no private area. Apart from my studio, the only place I can feel comfortable was my kitchen. Even though I was not rich, I was well off. However, if you see from outside, living as middle class looks great, but actually the inner side of it is empty.
I wanted to express that, the contradiction. That's why I started work on the Pink Room. The pink used there is not soft pink, it is fluorescent pink. Fluorescence feels like floating, and unstable. So I used the color and put a fancy western style chair there. To express unstableness I attached toenails on it.
Lee Ihn Bum: So, after then, your art works can be divided in two periods.
Yun Suk Nam: Yes. My mother's story and the other. Of course the basic subject of all my work is women and finding the answer to the question, what Korean women are like, but how they are shown is different.
Lee Ihn Bum: I think when you started actively work in the art field was after coming back from New York. You joined The Korean People's Artists Association in 1985, and showed many activities as a member of Association for research on female fine arts. Could you please tell us more about your thoughts on the acitivies as a member of the group and also tell us some episodes if you had.
Yun Suk Nam: About people arts, I am not sure if it was in 1985 or 86,
Lee Ihn Bum: It was in 83 or 84
Yun Suk Nam: Ah, okay, it started from then. I had an exhibition called 'From a half to one' with Kim In Soon and Kim Jin Sook. It was 1986 or 85, people art started about that time and I visited an exhibition titled 'Reality and Statement' in Dongsanbang Gallery, before I started painting. I was shocked and felt there was the answer I was looking for. I was impressed about the fact that realistic stories could be expressed as detailed paintings. It had had just abstract thoughts before that, but the paintings I saw were so realistic and it gave me a deep impression.
I still remember Lim Ok Sang's painting 'Fire' that I saw on his first exhibition at Dongsanbang Gallery. After visiting there I started fine painting. However, when I was about to start painting, I guess it was before I had my private exhiition, they led, um... I am not sure they led it or not, but anyway the genre, people art, started booming. I was so glad that people art was booming so joined them right away. I am not sure how much the people art exhibitions influenced Korean art but, they gave me a great shock. I think they gave me direction where my art life should be heading.
Lee Ihn Bum: Oh, they did.
Yun Suk Nam: The things what I was working on, what I have been doing, was the same as they were. It was like they showed me that I was going the right way. So, I took part in the group even though I was not that enthusiastic. Also, a subcommittee for women started there, but I was not that satisfied with it because I thought we are second here as well.
Lee Ihn Bum: Ah, you felt like that.
Yun Suk Nam: I did, but.
Lee Ihn Bum: In what aspect? The fact that a committee for women was separated from the main one?
Yun Suk Nam: Not separate from it. I didn't feel that it was different from the main one, like A and B, but felt that they were A and sub-A. That's what I felt. I was greedy, but what could I do, I just I actively participated in that committee with a great artist Kim In Sun and other junior artists. I also actively worked on making posters.
Lee Ihn Bum: I see.
Yun Suk Nam: It was disbanded after 10 years.
Lee Ihn Bum: I seems you took the lead in many associations like Korean Fine Arts Association, Association for Research on Women Fine Arts, and also joined the Another Culture.
Yun Suk Nam: I can't say I took the lead, I don't like to be in the center of something, so I can't say I was not a leader, but I did work actively. I mean, after we finish the exhibiton 'From a Half to One', there was a meeting with artists at a gallery 'Grim Madang Min'. Many of 'Another culture' members participated there, including Jo Hye Jeong.
At the meeting, I felt that artists must study proven theories thoroughly. So I went to meet the group 'DDOMUN' (another culture) and found that there was a word 'Feminism' for the first time. I didn't even know there was a such a word 'Feminims' before that.
Lee Ihn Bum: But you were already practicing it.
Yun Suk Nam: Yes I was, but it was like proving what I was doing in a more specific way.
Lee Ihn bum: Ah, backed up by theories.
Yun Suk Nam: Yes. and I studied a lot after I met DDOMUN (another culture).
Lee Ihn Bum: Um... after that, your second private exhibiton was held at Geumho Art Gallery in 1993, wasn't it? It was held with the title 'The Eyes of Mother' and I think it marked a watershed in your artistic career. Could you please tell us what made you hold an exhibition with the title and what works were exhibited there?
Yun Suk Nam: Using the title 'Mother's eyes' was not my idea. I was having social activities as a female artist to contribute to the society. The social activity I am saying is joing a team called Research Institute on Cultural Reality with members like Eom Hyuk and Kim Su Gi. I was so honored. Since it was a group that publishes books, I learned a lot there. I think I finally could establish my thoughts and attitude of my life. What should I say, I felt those were beginning to gel in my mind. I learned a lot through activities in that group.
Lee Ihn Bum: You normally use wood a lot for your works?
Yun Suk Nam: Yes I do.
Lee Ihn Bum: But they are close to two dimensional rather than three dimensional
Yun Suk Nam: Yes, they are two dimensional. I have reasons. I told you I went to America in 1990's again. When I was there I just went here and there to see other art works, I was not painting my own. I was contemplating if I had to keep painting or pop out from the wall. One day I visited The Bronx Musum of the Arts. You know, in America. So, there was an exhibition of South American artists. It was very special and important to me. When I saw it, I forgot the artist's name but, I even bought his/her book. I lend it to someone and lost it but anyway. He/she was a young artist.
The title was Parade. When I entered the gallery I felt the giant six figures, higher than 6 meters, were walking towards me. They were Jesus, Che Guevara, and Archbishop Oscar Romero, the Theory of Liberation, and three others were something general, may be the one who liberated Colombia, anyway total six figures were walking to me. I thought they were three dimensional structures at first time.
But I saw them carefully and found that they were two dimensional. I looked them more carefully, they were made of pieces of waste wood. They were made by putting the pieces together. Especially Che Guevara's had glittering eyes. I was so impressed by them. They were shocking to me.
It was the starting point. I thought " Now I can pop out from the wall. I should collect waste materials and try to use them for my work" and that became the "The Eyes of Mother". Eom Hyuk from the Association for Cultural Reality, told me that since I had an exhibition with the title 'Mother', what about mother's sight, The Eyes of Mother. I thought it was a great title.
Lee Ihn Bum: I guess the exhibition 'Mother's eye' became a very important turning point for you in many ways.
Yun Suk Nam: Yes it did. I can say it was a very important turning point, because I came out from the plane surface.
Lee Ihn Bum: In artistic aspect, it stood out from the plane surface, from a wall...
Yun Suk Nam: I felt I finished stories of mothers in Korea through telling about my mother.
Lee Ihn Bum: As you said before, It was like finising a ritual. After the successful exhibition, you joined the exhibition called
Yun Suk Nam: I think the 'The Eyes of Mother' exhibition made me like that. Even though I held the exhibition only for a week, curators looked at it carefully,
Lee Ihn Bum: Ah, it was only for one week?
Yun Suk Nam: Yes, It was held only for a week at Geumho Art Gallery in Insa-dong, but, I guess curators, including young curator Lee Young Cheol, although he is not young now, anyway, they liked it. I was surprised. I couldn't believe that it was true so I didn't tell anyone until the next exhibition. Anyway that's how it happened but it stagnated a bit later.
Lee Ihn Bum:After the second private exhibition, It seems there has been many changes in your art world, such as the Pink Room series created since then and works at The Seeding of Lights. So, as we come to the end of 1990, your adventurous spirit and experience as an artist were pumped out, and became diverse and energetic. Please tell us more about how they developed in the late 1990's.
Yun Suk Nam: So, I finished telling my mother's story and started to tell of myself. My question was what a room, space of women, means in this country? Does it even exist? So, I created Pink Room and got an award, the Lee Jun Sup fine art prize. If you get the award you should hold an exhibition.
Lee Ihn Bum: It was for the first time that a female artist got the award.
Yun Suk Nam: Yes. I got the news through a phone call. I was so surprised. Actually, I didn't even know there was an award called Lee Jung Sup fine art prize, because I didn't know much about that was happening in the world. I heard that I had to hold an exhibition one year after receiving the prize. So I started to think, who I am and what Korean women are, where we are in this society.
Lee Ihn Bum: Being apart from your mother, as an existence.
Yun Suk nam: Do we really exist in this society? It's still far. That's what I was thinking, and I still think so.
Lee Ihn Bum: Your existence at home was...
Yun Suk Nam: Mine was...
Lee Ihn Bum: When you decided to be an artist, you were supported by your family. You were in good environment at home but....
Yun Suk Nam: My personal environment was good.
Lee Ihn Bum: Yes, but in the society it was...
Yun Suk Nam: Ah, Although my personal environment was actually very free as much as I cannot even insist feminism, I was also feeling something was missing. So I started to have questions about lives of Korean women from Joseon Dynasy to now, like, where we Korean women are in this society and how we have been living. Have we really been living and being respected?
I could finally start to talk about a big topic other than mother. Receiving the prize was a good chance for me. So the exhibition 999, The Seeding of Lights was held. The reason why it was not 1,000 but 999 was because 1,000 is a perfect number. I meant, to be 1,000, we, women, should put more effort. However, I didn't mean that we will fight and take their position with weapons, I didn't mean that we will take men's position as women, but I wanted to peacefully co-exist. Men must respect women and help us to develop our abilities, so their burden can be lightened. That's what I was thinking.
So, 999 is missing one from 1,000, right? People think missing one is not a big gap, we can just skip it. But, no. It's a huge gap. That's what I wanted to say, but I don't think it was well expressed.
Lee Ihn Bum: So, did you sell a lot?
Yun Suk Nam: Um... no. I couldn't sell a lot. I think...
Lee Ihn Bum: Did you sell them for cheap price?
Yun Suk Nam: I did. I wanted to send them to women's rooms one by one and decorate their rooms and shine. I wanted give women hope through my works but it seemed that people were not used to buying paintings.
Lee Ihn Bum: That's why you used the title 'The Seeding of Lights".
Yun Suk Nam: That's why I used the phrase 'The Seeding of Lights", but it was not completed because of that.
Lee Ihn Bum: You considered not only about the exhibition but also about sending them out, about a social problem as well.
Yun Suk Nam: Yes, it will be completed when the 999 works will go to 999 people. I don't think it will before I die.
Lee Ihn Bum: Um, you said several times about the room that you made a pink room to answer the question that what a space given to women means...
Yun Suk Nam: I meant there was no room given to women.
Lee Ihn Bum: No room... Could you please tell us about the process of creating Pink Room and what you thought about it in formal aspect?
Yun Suk Nam: Okay. I like mother-of-pearl a lot. I don't have a cabinet inlaid with mother-of-pearl but I like it very much. The woman in my work is wearing a beautiful dress made of mother-of-pearl. She is solemn and self-assertive but sitting on a pink sofa. The organism coming out of the sofa is implying your desire, as a woman, the desire that you want to live an honest life as a human being.
Pink was, as I said before, it was fluorescent pink. It's beautiful but floating, unstable color. I also sprinkled beads around the sofa. I meant that it was an uneasy space that even women cannot keep standing. So I wanted say that women do not have their own room where they can feel comfortable. That's why I used beads. The toenails I talked about means that the sharp toenails are precarious but I want to sit on it. So I installed strong toenails which are made of irion.
Lee Ihn Bum: I saw the work Pink Room several times and thought that, as you mentioned little bit before, it might be a self-portrait of upper-middle class women who are full of vanity rather than showing a commen issue that women have.
Yun Suk Nam: That's right., but...
Lee Ihn Bum: Not about working class women.
Yun Suk Nam: It's not about the working class...
Lee Ihn Bum: They are not, right?
Yun Suk Nam: No, not at all. I mean, I do not know much about the working class. I used to work on it but I felt I was lying. I thought 'Ah... it's, I am lying'. Telling myself is being honest, but it's not.
Lee Ihn Bum: So the pink sofa can be seen as your self-portrait.
Yun Suk Nam: Yes. That's right. It's my self-portrait. I was saying that I stil have desires inspite of the status.
Lee Ihn Bum: Um, you had exhibitions several time at Kamakura Art Gallery in Japan. Did you have a special reason?
Yun Suk Nam: Sure. When there was a special exhibition at National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea to celebrate opening a Korean special art hall for Tiger Tail exibition in Venice. Were you there? Anyway, some of my works used at 'Eyes of Mother' were displayed there. I didn't know but, it seemed that Mitsuko from Kamakura Gallery was there.
I got a message from her that she wanted talk to me. So I contacted her and she said that they wanted to sign an exclusive contract with me. I was so happy. The Kamakura Gallery used to be in Ginja, it started from there but it is in Kamakura now. I held two exhibitions there. Did I have three? Ah, I think it was three times. One every two years.
Lee Ihn Bum: Kamakura gallery played an important role in development of modernism arts. Many of Mono-ha's works were displayed there.
Yun suk Nam: Right. Artist Ha Jong Hyun belonged there and anyway it was an important gallery, but I was ignorant about it that time.
Lee Ihn Bum: Many of your works are in Japanese museums, and now, your works are also in many other countries in the world. Where was the first country that your exhibition was held?
Yun Suk Nam: I think after the exhibition in Kamakura Gallery, many of my works were sold out. Ah, some of them were sent to Prefectural Art Museums including Mie Prefectural Art Museum. I didn't ask how many museums exactly but anyway, and Pink Room was sent to Brisbane when there was a triennale.
Lee Ihn Sum: Oh, it was?
Yun Suk Nam: Yes is was. and, it was also sent to Taipei Biennale...
Lee Ihn Bum: Was it sent to Australia as well?
Yun Suk Nam: Yes. Brisbane in Australia. a Pink room is there, and another Pink Room is in Taipei Museum, city museum. They bought it for a biennale. That's it. Not a lot.
Lee Ihn Bum: You are greedy. Ah... after the Seeding of Lights and Pink Room series, there was an exhibition, 'To be Lengthened' at Ilmin Museum of Art in 2003, right? Was it your first private exhibition invited from a museum level?
Yun Suk Nam: Before that I was invited from Chosun Ilbo Museum.
Lee Ihn Bum: Ah, there was Chosun Ilbo Gallery, but it was not a formal art gallery.
Yun Suk Nam: Right, but Ilmin Museum of Art was...
Lee Ihn bum: It is a formal art museum.
Yun Suk Nam: Yes. right. I was invited to there.
Lee Ihn Bum: Wasn't it a large-scale exhibition?
Yun Suk Nam: Um... I thought it was large for me. The meaning of 'To be Lengthened' is that... I am a shy person who cannot stand in front of many people. So I couldn't attend opening ceremonies too often. I was thinking how I could get over the fear, and one day I read about Lee Mae Chang, a female poet 450 years ago. She was a gisaeng (Korean geisha) and a poet at the same time. Lee Mae Chang.
While studying about female artists, I read about Lee Mae Chang and Heo Nan Seol Heon. 'There were great poets in the past. How come I didn't know about them?' So I studied more about them before holding my exhibition. I went back to 450 years ago and met Lee Mae Chang. The exhibition held with the idea that I was meeting her was the one called, Lee Mae Chang, To be Lengthend.
So, 'To be Lengthened' is telling and expressing desire and longing for something. Some of it was expressed as a hand was cut off from an arm and left there, and the arm is left here. Anyway, I think my arms are very important. I even think that I paint pictures with my fingertips not my brain, and my eyes are attached to my fingertips. Even I think this way my fingers go that way. So, my hands and arms are very important for me.
Lee Ihn Bum: So, 'to be lengthened' means your arms are lengthened.
Yun Suk Nam: My arms are lengthened my whole body is lengthened to reach you. The desire. The changes of body. As they were lengthened, some of them changed to flowers, lotus blossom or something. I created that kind of works a lot.
Lee Ihn Bum: Do you have some stories about the exhibition 'To be Lengthened' at Ilmin Museum of Art?
Yun Suk Nam: Yes. One thing very important was. I read a new article during the exhibition at Ilmin Museum of Art. It was a small piece of news article which was about an old lady, Lee Ae Shin who was taking care of 1,025 abandoned dogs. I was so impressed, surprised and happy at the same time. Ah, it must be the image of women that I am thinking. My next work is this. I chose it as a subject of my next work as soon as I saw her on the newspaper.
Lee Ihn Bum: Oh, you did.
Yun Suk Nam: So I visited the old lady, Lee Ae Shin in Paju, and became a member of the group. The work completed 5 years later was the one, 1,025 Dogs, With or Without Person. If I didn't have the exhibition at Ilmin Museum of Art, maybe I wouldn't have read the article outside of the exhibition but anyway, I read the article during the exhibition. I think it was Dong-a Ilbo (news agency).
Lee Ihn Bum: It looks like there is no connection between 'To be lengthened' and 'With or Without Person' , but in content...
Yun Suk Nam: They are deeply connected to each other. When people saw the dogs, they said 'What are they? Why did Yun Suk Nam made them?' but, acturally the main subject I wanted show is the lady...
Lee Ihn Bum: Did you spend 5 years on the work only?
Yun Suk Nam: I spent whole 5 years on it but sometimes I participated in some events but my ...
Lee Ihn Bum: Your attention have been focused on the work only.
Yun Suk Nam: Of course. I didn't like to be distracted. I am still focusing on it but I have never thought I was tired. I hope I can live until I finish it. I might not be able to finish it before I die.
Lee Ihn Bum: As I was looking at the exhibition 'With or Without Person' I kind of felt that it was like you were carrying out a religious ritual.
Yun Suk Nam: I am not religious but maybe believe in Shamanism? I think Shamanism is also a religion, but I am closer to Buddism.
Lee Ihn Bum: Also, of course, you expressed hope and desire through iconic materials in 'To be Lengthened', but I think the work of abandoned dogs can be read as a process of emptying out yourself.
Yun Suk Nam: Oh, really? I had not thought about it. I just wanted to re-create the old lady. I see human being's most humiliating aspect. I mean dogs are lovable, of course some of them are wild but how can they abandon their own dogs for the reasons that they don't like them anymore...
Lee Ihn Bum: Right, it became a social problem...
Yun Suk Nam: Right, but I don't even think about it being a social problem. How can they abandon...
Lee Ihn Bum: The ones they used to love...
Yun Suk Nam: Even though they didn't love the dogs, how can they abandon them? It's like abandoning people. I think that is the most humiliating and dirtiest attitude. I hated human beings while I was working on it. I became disillusioned with people.
Lee Ihn Bum: While you were creating them one by one you might have met the most humiliating feature of human beings.
Yun Suk Nam: Yes. Humiliation. I kept saying that I hate people even though I am a person. How dare they do that? If you visit them in Paju, you will be very surprised. Hundreds of them will spring out at you. How hungry and longing for people they are. They just throw themselves at people. How can they abandon those dogs? Every time I see abandoned dogs on the street some times, I look for food for them.
Lee Ihn Bum: I understand what you thought while making the 1,025 dogs one by one, and the reason why you started to work on it. So, could you please tell us if there were anything you considered in the process of shaping their figures or putting your idea into practice.
Yun Suk Nam: There are two aspects of practicing it. One was outside of the art work and the other is practicing through the art work. One is participating the movement of KARA (a group who taking care of abandoned dogs) and visiting the old lady, Lee Ae Shin. I am still a member of the group and send donation money regularly. I am a trustee of the group now and director Lim Sun Rye is the representative of the group. My works are... It's actually nonsense. It's even hard to move them.
Lee Ihn Bum: Do you think your work is nonsense?
Yun Suk Nam: Even though it's nonsense. I wanted to make them. I wanted see the figures of the 1,025 abandoned dogs before my eyes. When it is completed one by one, I don't feel that they are made of wood. I don't feel like they are wood sculptures. When I paint the white of their eyes, I feel... 'that's okay'.
Because I am at the age of a grand mother, I feel like one of them is asking me not to make her legs too long or something, I feel sorry for them a lot. As a human bening I feel guilty for them, and I want to make it up for them through this work. However, some of them were cracked and broken because they are made of wood.
Lee Ihn Bum: During the exhibition you might have got some comments on your works from the audience. Do you think your message was well delivered to them?
Yun Suk Nam: I don't think so. When visitors watched the dogs, they just said 'What are they?' I think I did something wrong. There was something missing because it seems that the audience thinks that they are just a bunch of dogs. However, one visitor who was touched called me and said he/she was so sad. There are some people who felt what I intended but most of the people see them just as a art work. My feeling toward the dogs was not delivered to the audience well.
There must be something wrong. What did I do wrong? I think about it a lot. Being a popular artist through my works is one of my hope and desire, but I really want to deliver the message that they shouldn't abandon dogs as much as I even thought about displaying them in front of the City hall. But I think I failed it. People just see them as an art work,
Lee Ihn Bum: That's one issue, and you have worked as a feminist artist with saying that you want to be called as a feminist artist. What do you think about it?
Yun Suk Nam: There are many definitions of feminism, but I think it is kind of maternal instinct. Maternal instinct has been considered as sacrificing herself, but it not just sacrificing. Sacrificing themselves for their children is giving them all love that they have. Can any religions do that? I don't think so. I think women's maternal instinct that gives birth to their childrend and take care of them is even greater than religion.
Lee Ihn Bum: I guess there are no religions who do not talk about maternal instinct but...
Yun Suk Nam: Right. I don't know much about religions actually, so I cannot carelessly talk about them, but it is true that maternal instinct appears through mothers. However, it hasn't appeared on the surface and just considered that mothers should be like that, 'That's what my mother like', 'Mothers are supposed to go through harship'. I wanted to bring them out to the surface and show them. That's the 1,025 dogs but it didn't work. Maybe it's my fault.
Lee Ihn Bum: You started from stories of your mother and got out of it once, but again, you came back to the issue of of mother in different level, the issue of maternal instinct, more general one.
Yun Suk Nam: That's right. That's how it works. So, as an artist, the most important quetion I ask myself is 'Aren't I lying?' 'Is it a real feature of mine?' Then, the answer to the question is not 'No, I am not' actually. When I have desires of growing as a greater artist or doing something new for nothing or when I find myself want to add something on my career, I tell myself I shouldn't do that, but I am also a human being. I sometimes run for fame.
Lee Ihn Bum: After the exhibition '1,025 With or Without Person' at Arko Art Center in 2008, the room series was continued. Now they are not just pink room but, blue, green, and white. Please tell us about them.
Yun Suk Nam: Okay. Now, um, I am not sure if I am an artist or not, but I have many thoughts. After the dogs series, I had hard time because of disillusionment with human beings. You may wonder why, but I thought I was also hypocritical because I was also one of human beings that I felt disillusionment with. Once I started to think I am living a hypocritical life, I became to look back on my life.
Once my childhood images built up as an environment, I wanted express myself at my age of 20's, 40's, and 80's, and even after death. However, I don't remember much about my 20's. Maybe I had a desire to forget about it. I don't remember the hard time I experienced in my 20's a lot. What I really want to tell was Pink Room, Pink Room was the first one I started, right? I thought what is death then? I don't know what death mean to other people, but I think death is a light to me.
Emptiness. Going back to the space of nothing. Of course my bone and body will remain and rot. Physical things will remain, but my spirit, my soul will disapper into emptiness, I think it will disappear into a light. Then how it will look like before disappearing? That's white room.
Then, what is blue room? The reason why I chose blue room was that I wanted tell the story of Baridegi. You know well about Baridegi, don't you? She goes across a river, saves people, brings water, and saves father with the water and rejects her father's suggestion that he will give her a half of his country, and chooses to die.
The one that remains between life and death, and guides dead people to heaven, is Baridegi. I mean, according to a story that's who Baridegi is. Although there are many different stories, I chose this one. I think this Baridegi is a shaman. She might be the first shaman in Korea. That's what I think and I wanted tell the story through my art work. That's why I chose blue room. She goes across a blue river and brings water. Pink Room is my story, and next one is nature that is being destroyed by human being, including me. I am also destorying it, because I cut trees to build this house.
I wanted to tell how people, including me, are damaging nature. I wanted to express the feeling like 'I feel so good' that we can have in the middle of a forest where no one's there. That's what Green Room, the image of my 40's and 60's. White Room is an expression of my 80's. Pink Room is my 40's, and Blue Room is an integrated one. Those are Room series. I don't know what I will do in the future.
Lee Ihn Bum: You had totally different ideas about the other rooms, comparing to when you were creating the pink room
Yun Suk Nam: It stretched to totally diffent directions. However, even though space is abstract, if we think the Earth is a room, we can say it is extentended from personal rooms. Right?
Lee Ihn Bum: I heard that you will have an invited exhibition at Seoul Museum of Art....
Yun Suk Nam: Yes. half of retrospective ones and half of new works will be exhibited.
Lee Ihn Bum: Can you tell us about the new ones that you have in mind?
Yun Suk Nam: Okay. Since I am a woman. I can do only about women. I haven't taken men as a subject.
Lee Ihn Bum: Because you cannot be a man?
Yun Suk Nam: I don't know. I can't.
Lee Ihn Bum: According to what you have said so far, you consider talking about things that you didn't experience is lying...
Yun Suk Nam: Right. I cannot tell anything turning off my life. So...
Lee Ihn Bum: That means your works have sincerity.
Yun Suk Nam: They might have sincerity but lack of imagination. Broadening imagination might be required to be a great artist, but I am the kind of one who explores one thing deeply. I am thinking that the next work will be meeting five women in Korean history. There are five and the first one is Heo Nan Seol Heon. The second one is Lee Mae Chang and the next one is Kim Man Deuk, who was a great dealer in Jeju Island. The fourth one is Hwang Jini as an artist. There is the last one, but I am still thinking if I can make it or not.
Lee Ihn Bum: You did not take regular art education but I think your desire or longing is basic energy in your artistic life. So, it seems that more of folkloristic source, rather than artistic forms from historical context of art, was used in your art works.
Also, I think you are very sensitive about if your artwork is in line with your real life. Um... I guess there are conflicts between so called 'specialty' in art history and 'sincerity' that you have, and in terms of that, the features of your art world are well shown in your works. Do you have any comment about my opinion?
Yun Suk Nam: Right. If you say so, um... I had many different thoughts so far, but it seems you are right. However, I am still wondering if it is a right way to go as an artist.
Lee Ihn Bum: You have lived as an artist so far, but are you still asking yourself if you are an artist?
Yun Suk Nam: I will have that question until I die. No matter how many people appreciate my work, what can I say. I think there is something that an artist really want to do.
Lee Ihn Bum: The thing you haven't accomplished yet.
Yun Suk Nam: Yes, but I don't know what it is yet. It's not like the highest level of beauty or noble beauty or something, but something that I can say 'That's it', even though it's bit far away from reality. I don't think I have been there and I don't even know what it would be.
Lee Ihn Bum: That makes me look forward to seeing your exhibition at Seoul Museum of Art, next year. I hope that your new artistic development will gain momentum through the exhibition.
Yun Suk Nam: I will be so happy then.
Lee Ihn Bum: I was in a hurry to ask you questions in a short time, but I enjoyed listening to your stories a lot. Thank you.
Yun Suk Nam: Thank you. I also think it was a good chance. I was so happy to talking to you and very hornored to be a part of this good project. Thank you for inviting me.
Interviewer: Prof. Lee Ihnbum
Director of photography, audio and lighting: Francois Saikally
Video editor: Francois Saikally
Transcription & Translation: Stacey Kim
Director: Dr. Bob Jansen
Technical & assembly: Dr. Bob Jansen