We walk within time
And our radiant bodies
With footsteps that do not fall
Are imprinted in fable….

Paul Valery

In the fall of 1953, Robert Rauschenberg summoned his neighbor and friend, musician John Cage. Rauschenberg glued twenty sheets of typewriter paper, laid it on an empty street and asked Cage to drive his Ford over it. Black house paint was poured in front of the car's rear wheels; black tire marks were left on a long piece of paper. Although this work is a kind of mono-print, it is said to have 'shifted' the meaning of ‘action painting’ that Jackson Pollock first opened the door to. In this work, they further removed the artist's ‘hand,’ deepened the performative quality that Pollock heralded, and even blurred the authorship. They also played with the elements that are hard to control, such as car and street, and the process itself became a visible result in the “straightest” way possible.

Looking at the recent paintings of architect Byoungsoo Cho, I was reminded of Rauschenberg and Cage's Automobile Print (1953). The continuous “rolling” of the brush (Cho worked by pressing and turning a large brush) marked in one long line is reminiscent of their horizontal line. However, the line drawn by Cho is different from one that the ‘machine’ left behind; Cho’s lines are continuous but not straight. His lines have a 'natural' rhythm, are undulating, evoking mountains, rivers and wind. Byoungsoo Cho, who is always busy working on large-scale architectural projects, moving around as agilely as he can be, created these marks by slowing his pace down and entrusting his body to a large brush.

Byoungsoo Cho, who has liked to draw since childhood, kept studying art while studying architecture in the United States. Since he thinks that painting is a process that brings out his inner self, he places more importance on the process than the result. As seen in his major works 'Ddangjip', ‘ㅁ-shaped jip', and 'Jipyeongjip', in his architecture, “earth” means more than just a site. For him, architecture is not just a building on the ground; it is an entity that connects with the ground and, at times, it is actually in the ground. His painting, naturally, is the unaffected trace of Cho’s attitude, who constructs a building where “earth” itself becomes a material and a structure.

When discussing Korean esthetics, the word the most often used is “자연스러움 being natural.” Its definition in the Korean dictionary is “nothing awkward since it is not purposefully done(adorned)”. ‘꾸미다(to adorn)’ means to deliberately manipulate something in order to make it look good. Or, when we say “일이나 음모를 ‘꾸미다(to make a plan or conspiracy)” we mean to deliberately plan things in advance, and when we say “이야기를 ‘꾸미다(make up a story),’” it means to tell something that is not true or real. ‘Being natural', when it comes to discussing Korean esthetics, means to be not intending and being truthful.

Cho expressed his view of architecture in his essay, Mahk, which was published in Architectural Reivew five years ago (this essay later developed into a book). Mahk is a prefix in Korean that means 'rough,' 'low quality,' or 'random' attached before nouns, or 'without hesitation' or 'indiscriminately' when attached to a verb. Cho discusses certain attitudes that permeate Korean culture through talking about Mahk. He said that “Mahk is an unapologetic rejection of refinement for the sake of refinement, of ostentation that gets in the way of practicality or honesty.”

In this essay, Byoungsoo Cho refers to the main characteristic of Korean esthetics as '자연스러움being natural' and translates it as 'spontaneity'. The word spontaneity is a suitable choice for his concept Mahk which implies ‘spontaneous’, the improvisational quality inherent in Korean culture. Concepts such as ‘무아無我(forgetting self)’ and ‘무위無爲 (not intending)’ are the Eastern methodologies of immersing oneself in an action itself, but Cho found his roots in the humble word, ‘Mahk’. Cho's focus on Mahk began when he visited Korea in 1984, while he was studying architecture in Montana State University, and saw a bowl called ‘Mahk Sabal.’ The aesthetic attitude and methodology he saw in the bowl became his underlying thoughts towards architecture.

Mahk Sabal has a unique historical background. This humble looking bowl was made in the mid-16th century in the Gyeongsang province of Joseon dynasty. It is assumed that the bowl was used for simple tableware in Joseon, but there is no record of its use found in the Korean literature. The document that mentions the use of this bowl is the book Tea and Beauty by Yanagi Muneyoshi(1889-1961), a Japanese critic. It was a rice bowl, Muneyoshi said in this book. Koreans made and used this bowl, but it was the Japanese who found beauty in it and treasured it.

At the end of the 15th century, Japanese tea people who were looking for a way to reform the existing culture of tea ceremony which’d been immersed in luxury and splendor, found the answer in a humble rice bowl of Joseon. Murata Juko(1423-1502) and Takeno Joo(1502-1555), who were the leaders of this reform, and Senno Rikyu(1522-1591), who completed the aesthetics of Wabi-Sabi, selected it as the best tea bowl for their renewed tea ceremony which should be serene and simple. They called the bowl Ido Dawan which became a symbol of the alliance and loyalty of the Japanese samurai class. Toyotomi Hideyoshi(1537-1598), who learned the tea ceremony from Senno Rikyu, treasured Ido Dawan. In order to obtain Dawan which meant power, the Japanese kidnapped Korean potters which eventually led to the Imjin War(1592-1598), the Pottery War. The complex history of Japan and Korea is melted in this single bowl. It is said that there are now about 200 Ido Dawan in Japan and one of them is a national treasure. They keep these dawans in several layers of boxes, and when they look at them, they kneel down as if bowing down. A rice bowl that used to contain the simple life of Koreans became the object of almost religious fetishism when transplanted in Japan.

Gyung Kyun Shin is a Korean artisan who is placed in this turbulent history with or without his will. His father, Jeong-hee Shin (1930-2007), is a potter who succeeded in recreating the Korean Sabal, the prototype of Ido Dawan, for the first time in 500 years. Shin learned pottery from his father from an early age, and inheriting the traditional techniques of making Dawan, but he makes not only tea bowls, but also tableware, Punju(large bowl), and jars. It was almost shocking to see a scene in a documentary where he totally lost himself in making a bowl kicking the wheel, as if he was in a trance, using his entire body. He said in an interview that he bruised his thighs on days when he kicked the wheel badly. He still uses the kicking wheel when everybody else uses electric wheel because of the “natural” rhythm that can only be obtained by using his own body to turn the wheel.

It was Dada in the early 20th century that introduced the element of ‘chance’ in Western art. Until then, art means a long period of training, the artist's talent, and meticulous preparatory process. The moment Marcel Duchamp ‘accidentally’ puts a bicycle wheel on a stool and calls it art, the element of ‘accident’ in art is announced. After that, artists began to actively incorporate the element of 'accident' in the selection of materials or the work process. Rauschenberg, who was called 'Neo Dada' along with Jasper Jones, had already been making collages with the materials he found 'accidentally' by the time he made Automobile Print. John Cage also adopted the methodology of chance, and in 1951, composed a piano piece called Music of Changes by asking I Ching, Book of Changes. For Cage, he said in an interview, that this meant “imitating nature in its manner of operation.”

In ceramic making in Asian culture, “chance” was one of the factors, like material, that always had to be considered. However, it was not just about adopting a chance factor, rather a gesture of accepting the force of nature. It is to let the irregular marks made by the kicking wheel, to allow the traces of the passing of fire in the kiln, to watch the fire break down the form, and to expect the unexpected colors that are created when the clay meets with fire. Predicting how nature will act, they prepare with a long and arduous work, but in the end, they let go of their intention and let nature do what it does. Gyung Kyun Shin, who started kicking a wheel at the age of 15, has built an earthen kiln eight times so far. He travelled all over the country in search of clay, and when he found the clay he liked, he built a kiln there. If the kiln was not built well enough, he would build it again. Although he was born in Gyeongsang-do, he once built a kiln in Goheung, Jeolla-do (the site of a Buncheong kiln), and worked there for 14 years living alone without his family. Shin says that ceramic making is the art of fire. He uses special firewood to quickly raise the temperature inside the kiln which is designed for the fire to pass through. His firewood is made of Korean pine trees cut into 10cm thick slices and air dried for 5 years. Next to his kilns(he has two operating kilns now, one in Kijang, the other Yanggoo), these thin fan firewoods are piled up like a mountain. About 4 times a year, he would fire the kiln. Before he fires it, he holds a ceremony, Gosa, (Gosa is a ritual that asks for good luck, bowing to the pig’s head) praying for everything turns out well.

I see a new genre in Shin's Cha Sabal (tea bowl). It is neither a painting nor a sculpture but it is pictorial and sculptural. His bowl often makes me wonder if this really is a tea bowl. The layers of subtle colors created by the chemical reactions of soil, glaze and fire is a kind that you’ve never seen before. Due to the uneven temperature in the kiln, the composition of the soil, and the moisture, even the bowls produced in the same firing have different colors. The sculptural forms are not intentionally shaped, but earned by letting honest vessels form(or de-form) in the flames. For each bowl, the energy of the axis that holds the body of the bowl varies, so do the lines that rise up and spread out along the axis.

Looking at his tea bowl, one might see the wind carrying the roundness of the full moon, smell the scent of acacia last night, and hear the quiet sound the earth is making. His tea bowl makes you stop right there to look at it, but one is expected to drink tea from this bowl everyday. Unlike the works of art that are to be appreciated from a distance, it is a special object that we use and appreciate with our hands, making traces of our own use (The traces left on the teacup after drinking tea are called Cha Shim). Mahk Sabal was a rice bowl used by common people in Joseon; Ido Dawan was the symbol of power of Japanese Samurai; Shin’s tea bowl is a genre for a special class. This class of people recognizes what to preserve in this rich and turbulent history, and the artisan whose life-long devotion to his work is unparalleled. These are people who embrace the flow of time with both hands and see the beauty that stops time.

Mimi Park