Fowler visitors can get rare look at Korean ceramics and ancient funerary figures
Funerary figures â like this acrobatic clown at right â were placed on coffins in hopes of helping the deceased move from this life to the next.
Inscribed across the interior of Yoon Kwang-choâs clay vase are Buddhist texts from the âHeart Sutra.â
FOWLER MUSEUM AT UCLA
The museum turns its attention to Korea in a pair of new exhibits. Korean Funerary Figures: Companions for the Journey to the Other World runs through Nov. 28 and Life in Ceramics: Five Contemporary Korean Artists is on display through Feb. 13, 2011, at the museum, Sunset Boulevard and Westwood Plaza, Westwood. Hours are noon-8 p.m. Thursdays, noon-5 p.m. Fridays through Sundays and Wednesdays. Admission is free. For more information, call 310-825-4361 or visit http://www.fowler.ucla.edu.
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The funerary figure at the far left depicts a nobleman riding a horse. It was created in the late 19th or early 20th century.
Bowled over
Is a bowl, however attractive, a piece of art if it can be used daily for your morning cereal? The same question could be asked of a teapot or a vase. And are wooden dolls, made not for artistic purposes but as objects to decorate a funeral bier, worthy of a museum exhibition?
Visitors to the Fowler Museum at UCLA can ponder these questions while touring a pair of exhibitions, Life in Ceramics: Five Contemporary Korean Artists and Korean Funerary Figures: Companions for the Journey to the Other World.
The display of funerary objects is a smaller traveling show. Life in Ceramics, featuring work by Yoon Kwang-cho, Kim Yikyung, Lee Young-Jae, Lee Kang Hyo and Lee In Chin, is larger and was curated by Burglind Jungmann, a professor of Korean art history at UCLA.
“Apart from Yoon Kwang-cho’s one-man show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, this is the only exhibition of Korean contemporary ceramics that has been curated in the U.S.,” Jungmann said. “That is rather astonishing, given the fact that Korean ceramics are unique. Moreover, all five artists are absolute stars. Their ceramics are in the collections of the most important museums worldwide, whether it’s the British Museum in London or the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and they have won the most prestigious awards. I think that we are very, very lucky that all five artists have agreed to share the stage at the Fowler Museum.”
Jungmann chose the artists after visiting with the former director of the National Museum of Korea. She was looking for a group of artists who not only connect Korean ceramic traditions but create contemporary works.
The artists’ work — tea sets, pottery, vases, garden stools and bowls — all share similar centuries-old ceramic-making processes that make them distinctively Korean.
“It’s liveliness,” Jungmann explained. “The three aspects of life that I tried to emphasize in the show are the fact that they can be used in daily life, the fact that every art product reflects the artist’s life or biography, and the creativity and spontaneity of the ceramic artists.
“The last aspect, which also adheres to traditional Korean ceramics, is probably the most important for two reasons. It makes every piece unique. These ceramics are clearly the opposite of industrial production, and of most things we are accustomed to use. And the process of the creation is still present in the finished object. You have the feeling that you can see how the artist made this piece. It bears traces of the movement of the potter’s wheel and the artist’s hands.”
But is it art?
Consider, for example, Lee Young-Jae’s installation of 111 bowls (a smaller version of the original, which had 1,111 bowls). The total is a deliberate play on the singularity of each bowl, though all 111 are quite similar.
And Yoon Kwang-cho’s “Mountain Dreams” is a red clay vase with Buddhist texts from the “Heart Sutra” inscribed across its exterior.
Both the bowls and the vase are functional objects, which some critics would argue keep them out of the art realm.
“The idea of art helps us to look at things differently, appreciate them, enjoy them, and not just use them,” Jungmann said. “The fact that the ceramics are both art and objects for use brings a very interesting tension to the show. It challenges our experience and how we look at things.”
Interestingly, Jungmann noted, the collector of the funerary sculptures emphasized the importance of a museum display for the little figures, which weren’t initially created as art objects. The collector wanted to see the figures “elevated into the sphere of art.”
The 74 wooden figures — known as kkoktu — come from the 20,000-piece collection of Ockrang Kim, chairman of the Ockrang Cultural Foundation. Most are about a century old and they represent a variety of animals and humans meant to express joy even in a time of mourning. They were meant to adorn coffins and accompany the deceased on the journey from this life to the next.
The significance of the kkoktu has diminished. But they now serve as a bridge to a once-important ritual in Korea that lasted several centuries.
The question of whether these funerary objects and ceramics pieces represent high art or merely skilled craftwork is certainly debatable. But, after seeing these exhibits, few visitors will argue about their beauty.
— E-mail freelance columnist Jeff Favre at jjfavre@gmail.com.