Park Seo-bo

In spite of his father's opposition, Park enrolled at the College of Fine Arts at Hongik University to study Korean Painting under the tutelage of Yi Eungro. However, his freshman year was interrupted by the outbreak of the Korean War. He narrowly survived the war, dealing with the abrupt passing of his father, drafts both by North Korean and South Korean forces, and a long winter spent evacuating from his hometown Anseong to Masan on foot.

Due to the war, Hongik temporarily moved to Busan, thus making it possible for Park to return to school in 1952. In order to support himself, Park sold portraits to US soldiers on the street and in restaurants, but did not make enough to feed and house himself. He often slept in empty classrooms, and had to rely on others to buy him meals. He scavenged materials from garbage bins and stole soy sauce packets from Chinese restaurants to paint with.[2]

As a second-year student, he changed his major to Western Painting because none of his professors from the department of Korean Painting remained. He studied under Kim Whanki before graduating in 1955. However, Park never attended the graduation ceremony. In order to avoid the military draft, he changed his name to Park Seo-bo. He was on the run until he won his case against the military on 16 May 1961.[1]^: 355

Park joined the institute in Anguk-dong, Seoul. Artists like Bang Geuntaek, Kim Tschang-Yeul, and Ha In-doo frequented the institute, collectively becoming known as the "Anguk school."

Park joined the Contemporary Artists Association in 1957, which included artists like Kim Tschang-yeul, Jang Seong-sun, Ha In-doo, and Kim Seo-bong. Art historian Kim Youngna identifies the group as the second generation of the Korean avant-garde, preceded by artists like Kim Whanki and Mun Haksu whose work was largely informed by artistic trends in Japan. In contrast, the younger generation of artists looked towards the European and American art worlds.[3]^: 149 Many of them were also part of the first generation of artists to graduate from art schools established after Liberation.[3]^: 181

In spite of the limited information on Art Informel in Europe and Abstract Expressionism in the US that was available in Korea, the artists in the Contemporary Artists Association spearheaded the Korean Art Informel movement. Park rejected the linkage between the Korean Art Informel movement and its overseas counterpart,[4]^: 85 but Kim Youngna argues that formal similarities warrant the connection that art historians and critics have made between the two.[3]^: 181

Park's Painting No. 1 (1957) shown at the Third Contemporary Exhibition in 1958 is now considered the first piece of Korean Informel art.[5]^: 25

Park Seo-bo with his colleagues at the 3rd Contemporary Exhibition of Contemporary Artists Association in Seoul, South Korea in 1958.

The Association became one of the leading forces challenging the institutional control that the Ministry of Culture and Public Information-organized National Art Exhibition (Daehan minguk misul chollamhoe—known as Kukjeon for short) had over the Korean art world. Park won prizes at the 1954 and 1955 iterations of the Kukjeon. However, Park claimed that by 1956 he had identified elements of "corrupt anti-modernity" and "feudalism" at the Kukjeon.[6] As a result, he and artists Kim Chung-seon, Mun Wu-sik, and Kim Young-hwan hung a poster with a manifesto condemning the Kukjeon at the entrance of their exhibition held in a gallery at the Dongbang Munhwa Building in May 1956. Park asserts that this marked the beginning of the collective stand avant-garde artist took against the national exhibition.[7]

Park also turned away from the Kujeon by choosing to participate in the Association's exhibitions—titled the Contemporary Exhibition (Hyeondae-jeon)—upon joining the group.

Park submitted seven paintings to the Third Contemporary Exhibition held at Hwashin Gallery from May 15-23, 1958. Serially titled as Painting No. 1, etc., the first of the seven is now the only surviving work from the exhibition.[3]^: 206 Kim Youngna identifies the series painted in 1957 as a marker of a major shift in Park's style away from representation.[3]^: 206

Photographs of Park painting a large canvas for the fourth exhibition held in the museum in Deoksugung from November 28 to December 8, 1958 appeared in newspapers like the Hanguk Ilbo, and The Korean Republic. Afterwards however, some members of the association critiqued Park, and voted to expel him from the group.[3]^: 211

For the 6th iteration, Park suggested that the association push the government to support Korean artists who want to exhibit abroad, and raise funds for a Korean Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.[1]^: 359 Park continued to advocate for the expansion of the Korean art world beyond its national borders when he was able to travel abroad himself.

Park began writing for the Dong-A Ilbo in August 1960, introducing Korean readers to major avant-garde artists in Europe and America like Jackson Pollock, Jean Dubuffet, Roberto Crippa, Hans Hartung, and Georges Mathieu.

Park traveled to Paris in January 1961 as the Korean representative of the UNESCO International Young Painters Exhibition, and stayed for a year.

While he was there, he critically examined the Parisian art world, and reported on exhibitions. Park described for Korean readers the dominance of Informel in Paris at the time:

At the moment, the Parisian art scene is saturated with the ''Art Informel'' that was initiated by Michel Tapié. This change is viewed by some artists as the signalling of a re-emergence of figuration, and others even say that the reversion to the figurative art is a due course set in the history of art. I think that they are ridiculing its value. It was a lazy way of acknowledging its value. Yes, it is true that ''Art Informel'' has pervaded the art scenery. Supposing that you look at it as a crisis, then this "crisis" stems from the contradiction within the abstractive art, and not from the reappearance of the figurative art. And another indirect reason for the current symptom in the art scene is that many people indiscriminately picked up abstraction.[8]

Park Seo-bo stands in front of his painting Péché Originel No. 8 (Original Sin No. 8) at the "Jeunes Peintres du Monde à Paris."

Park became particularly interested in the work of Spanish artists like Antoni Tàpies and Manolo Millares.[3]^: 217Their influence is present in the piece Péché Originel No. 8 (Original Sin No. 8) that he produced for the joint exhibition "Jeunes Peintres du Monde à Paris."

Eager to showcase the abilities of Korean artists to Parisian audiences, Park persuaded president of the Association of Korean Students in France Shin Youngchul, Lee Il, and Korean Embassy consul Roh Youngchan to meet with the organizers of the Paris Biennale and urge them to allow Korean artists to participate. They were successful in their efforts, and made it possible for Korea to participate in its first international exhibition.[1]^: 360

As a result, Park went to Paris again in 1963 as part of the group representing Korea at the 3rd Paris Biennale. He was also one of the Korean representatives for the 8th São Paulo Biennial two years later.

A number of Dansaekhwa artists were active in the late 1950s – mid-1960s Art Informel movement in Korea, and Park Seo-bo traced the tendency to use a limited color palette in Dansaekhwa back to the movement.[9]^: 118

"Park Seo-Bo: Écriture" (Muramatus Gallery, Tokyo; Myeongdong Gallery, Seoul, 1973) was one of the shows that critic Oh Kwang-su identified as being part of a trend moving away from experimental sculpture and installation to painting characterized by an "absence of image."[10]^: 22 This shift towards the style that would later be identified as Dansaekhwa culminated in the 1975 group show "Five Korean Artists, Five Kinds of White," which curators and art historians often credit as the first major exhibition of Dansaekhwa.[11]^: 21 Park was one of five artists whose work was shown.

Upon returning to Seoul, Park began teaching at his alma mater in 1962. Park was promoted to assistant professor in 1964, but resigned in 1967. Living in seclusion, Park developed his "Écriture" series that year after seeing his three-year-old son Seung-ho repeatedly writing and erasing the word "Korea" on a gridded sheet.[1]^{: 363–364} During this time he also began studying classical East Asian philosophy.

Park later returned to teach at Hongik, becoming dean of the Graduate School of Industrial Arts between 1985 and 1986, and dean of the College of Fine Arts from 1986 to 1990. He received an honorary doctorate from Hongik in 2000.

Artists and architects like Kim Swoogeun joined the association that Park founded in January 1968.

Park's position as first the vice chairman (1970-77) and then chairman (1977–1980) of the International Division of the Korean Fine Arts Association (KFAA) allowed him to organize large-scale exhibitions of experimental art that kickstarted the careers of emerging experimental artists and provided the crucial visibility needed for avant-garde artists to enter the international art arena.[12]^: 20 Artist Lee Ufan claims that Dansaekhwa would have been impossible without Park's mediation between institutions and artists to allocate resources from the former to the latter.[13]^: 21

Park Seo-bo and participants of the first École de Seoul exhibition in 1975.

Park continued promoting and supporting contemporary Korean artists throughout the 1980s, working as commissioner for the 11th Paris Biennale in 1980, collaborating with critic Lee Kyungsung to curate an exhibition titled "The Art of Contemporary Paper: Korea and Japan" in 1983, and urging the director of the Venice Biennale to build a Korean pavilion again in 1988 when he was invited to participate in a special exhibition for the 43rd iteration.

Park began building a studio for himself in Anseong, Gyeonggi-do in 1980 which he named "Hanseodang" after Hanseoam (Confucian scholar Yi Hwang's hermitage). In 1990, thieves stole hundreds of works from his studio, but many of the works were eventually recovered. However, six years later an accidental fire destroyed around 300 artworks, prompting Park to move his studio to Seogyo-dong, Seoul. He then commissioned an architect to create a studio and home for him in Seongsan-dong, Seoul.

Park had two major retrospectives at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA), the first in 1991 titled "Park Seo-Bo's Painting: Its Forty Years," and the second titled "Park Seo-Bo: The Untiring Endeavorer" in 2019.

Park founded the Seo-bo Art and Cultural Foundation in 1994, and was president until his first son took over in 2014.

Two museums specifically meant to house Park's work are currently under construction. One is in Jongno-gu, Seoul, and the other is a private museum on Jeju island.

Upon returning to Korea from Paris in 1961, Park began creating his "Primordialis (wonhyeongjil)" series utilizing a darker palette. Park used palette knives and combs to carve into layers of black and brown pigment, and sometimes added linen to the canvases.

Park stated that this series emerged from his experiences during the Korean War, and introduction to Jean Fautrier's "Otages" series (1942-45) through the Japanese magazine Bijutsu Techo. Fautrier's paintings reminded Park of his memories of the Korean War.[14]

The "Hereditarius (yujeonjil)" series emerged out of his interest in outer space, and desire to experiment with spray-paint and bright colors, often utilizing the Korean color palette obangsaek (white, black, blue, yellow, and red). Some works in the series features faceless dressed figures reminiscent of George Segal's work, which Park cites as an influence.[15]^: 65

Park presented part of this series at the "Contemporary Korean Painting" exhibition at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. It was during this trip to Japan that Park met Quak Insik, Lee Ufan, and Itami Jun.

Park presented another work, Hereditarius I at the "5th International Youth Artist Exhibition—Asian-Japan." .[1]^: 365

Park tried his hand at installation art, displaying work from his "Hereditarius" series at the 1970 Expo in Osaka. Empty Space/Genetic Factor and Space (1970) featured a row of pieces of clothing molded around a missing human figure, and a coffin with a body buried under sand. However, the work was censored for supposedly being anti-government.

By 1970, Park stopped working entirely on both the "Primordialis" and "Hereditarius" series.

Park Seo-bo working on an Écriture piece at his Hapjeong-dong studio, 1977.

Park's "Écriture" series features canvases layered with gesso and lines drawn from the top left corner to bottom right corner. According to Park, the repetitive gesture allowed him to become one with nature, and leave physical remnants of this union on a surface.[3]^: 192 Park experimented with the method for over half a decade, deliberately choosing not to show the works until 1973.[16]

Park originally named the series Myobeop (method), but retitled it Écriture (meaning "writing" in French) a few years later after critic Bang Keun Taek suggested the term to him.[17]^: 86

While he utilized pencil and paint for early works in his series, he later incorporated other tools and materials, including hanji.

Park began using hanji (Korean paper) in the series in the 1980s. Similar to his earlier "Écriture" pieces, Park drew lines using pencil, but added layers of hanji underneath the paint first. He began using other implements like wooden sticks, iron, and his hands, to create the lines.

Park attended a panel with Robert Rauschenberg, David Hockney, and Ida Shoichi at the 1983 International Paper Conference, where he talked about his work with hanji.

By the 1990s, Park shifted to a black and white palette for his "Écriture" series. He drafted sketches using litho crayon, pencil, and correction fluid pen on paper, and then replicated them using hanji paper soaked in water, pencils, and sharp tools.

Park imbued his works with bursts of color, including bright reds, yellows, greens, blues, and even pastel pinks. Park states that these colors are drawn from the pure beauty of nature, and that he began using them in the hopes they would have a calming effect on viewers.[18]^: 58

Like artist Kwon Young-woo, Park asserted the necessity of creating work without a predetermined technique or concept in mind, underlining the importance of action and deemphasizing artistic intention.[19] Thus, while he likened his paper works to diaries, they are not expressions of himself. Rather, his role as an artist was to allow the material to speak for itself.[20]^: 11

In response to a question on how the fact that Park let his assistants make the work connects to Park's ideas on artistic intention, Park drew an analogy between artistic creation and flowing water:

It’s like getting water from different sources. Whether it descends from the mountain and gathers in clay jars or cisterns, water always flows naturally and is able to take the shape and form of whatever contains it. Similarly I want to make something appear as clearly and naturally as water. I want to control my energy as a means of generating ideas and I wish, through my own experience, to make my work without any specific intention.[21]

Park often employed varying shades of white in his work, eschewing pure white hues and strong colors that impose the artist's will on nature:

The essence of my art lies in its view of nature. It is based on the perception that regards human as part of nature and upholds man's unification with nature. I always think that we should not put force on nature. This has led me to refuse strong colours but employ white colour and pencils instead. Pure white seemed to have a strong character, so I moderated it to white. To pursue a relationship between the wet white paint and pencil, I repeat this act until they do not dominate the other with their own character.[22]^: 93

Park cited Joseon era potters as his methodological predecessors,[23] and his favorite type of art as the moon jar.[14] He has also analogized his process with literati painting.[24]^: 61

Park believed that the philosophical underpinnings of his work distinguishes it, along with other Dansaekhwa artworks, from Western art.[18]^: 57