People
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.People encapsulates all four themes of this exhibition—lines, people, places, and things. Trained in ink painting and calligraphy, Suh Se Ok here used repetitive strokes to create a complex image that looks like an abstracted mountainous landscape. Yet the pointed units are the character for “human” (人, in). The choice of the word “people” for the title, and not “person” or “man,” compels us to consider both the part and the whole, the individual and the collective.
Suh focused on material, medium, and the legacy of ink painting, and was part of an influential artist association of ink painters called Munghimhoe 묵림회, Ink Forest Group) that grappled with issues of style and materiality in relation to modernism and cultural identity.
Suh focused on material, medium, and the legacy of ink painting, and was part of an influential artist association of ink painters called Munghimhoe 묵림회, Ink Forest Group) that grappled with issues of style and materiality in relation to modernism and cultural identity.
Artwork Details
- 서세옥 사람들 대한민국
- 徐世鈺 大韓民國
- Title: People
- Artist: Suh Se Ok (Korean, 1929–2020)
- Date: 1988
- Culture: Korea
- Medium: Ink on danji (mulberry paper)
- Dimensions: Painting: 73 5/8 × 73 5/8 in. (187 × 187 cm)
Framed: 80 1/8 × 80 1/8 × 2 3/8 in. (203.5 × 203.5 × 6 cm) - Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: Courtesy of the Artist and MMCA; Gift of the Artist, 2014
- Curatorial Department: Asian Art