CONSTANCY & CHANGE IN KOREAN TRADITIONAL CRAFT_2019 The simple yet not shabby, the splendid yet not luxury

Artists indebted to tradition fall into three categories: artists who reproduce tradition intactly with a pure mind, artists who reinterpret tradition in the current context, and artists who are completely contemporary. An exhibition held during the Milan Design Week 2019, “The Monologue of Sumuk,”condenses the agony of Korean traditional craftsmen who went all out to endure beyond their limits, keep their minds intact, and move swiftly in their touches, so much that the exhibition almost makes you feel like you are participating in a ritual. “The Monologue of Sumuk” unfolds the colors of Korea that cannot simply be limited to white clothes and obangsaek. Works are expressed in colors of sumuk, portraying the many colors that exist from meok3 to meok, demonstrating how these colors touch your minds, and by all means, convincing you of how colorful these colors can be. Generally speaking, the issue of modernizing traditional customs is not something limited to Korean artists only. But the artists engaged in this exhibition have long been engrossed in the subject, have undergone trials and errors, and have now yielded meaningful results. The exhibition is also designed to convey a unified and summed sentiment of Korea, bringing historical pieces together rather than emphasizing the excellence of individual artists. This is where you can meet the two faces of life that cannot exist without the other. For this reason, works have been placed on a chaekgado4 depicted in the exhibition hall, displaying individual works to look like a single installation. Furthermore, the exhibition aims to present works that embody past customs and practices, but in practical designs that are not a more stuffing of the past. The idea is that works can follow ancient methods but should include expressions of the present day. In essence, exhibited works portray the nowness and modernity Korean crafts have yet to discover, while detailing how art in its sate of perfection and post perfection will look.