Painting as an Active-Passive Collaboration: An Aesthetic Discourse on Sunny Kim’s Paintings, Practices, and Ways
by KANG Sumi (Art Critic, Professor at Dongduk Women’s University)
1. Pleasure
People’s attitude towards art tends to be more conservative than progressive. This is especially true when it comes to painting, with its long history and ingrained values. For the majority of people, any painting by Leonardo da Vinci is automatically a masterpiece, by default. On the other hand, most experimental paintings by contemporary artists are presumed to be immature and incomplete. Likewise, with regards to artistic theories and concepts, people tend to latch onto widely circulated ideas and narratives, eschewing more eccentric interpretations. Thus, every artist who has gained an exalted place in art history is labeled a “genius.” Then, as implied by the definition of the word “genius,” we embrace the myth that the great artists (almost all of whom are white, European, males) created their masterpieces through some combination of superior talent and the divine intervention of the muse. No matter how much time passes, or human reason advances, or culture flourishes, people still want to believe in these myths. It reminds one of Picasso’s comment that he focused on “finding” rather than “research relating to modern painting,” which was long remembered1, and we love to believe that Van Gogh had to suffer in order to create his incredible works. We love to suggest that the liberating energy of Basquiat’s graffiti is the result of his unique artistic spirit as a minority artist who was inspired by the street. But in perpetuating these myths, we never stop to consider that such concepts—genius, talent, the muse, and the secret creation of divine inspiration—are merely aesthetic claims from a certain perspective, primarily compiled under the influence of nineteenth-century German Romanticism.
Many people would be surprised to learn of a more radical theory about the muse, first put forth by Aristotle in Politics and reintroduced by Pascal Quignard in La Haine de la Musique (The Hatred of Music), his argument for an aesthetic critique of music. According to Quignard, Aristotle suggested that, while singing or playing an instrument, the mouth and hands of the muse “are occupied exactly like those of a prostitute who, with her lips and fingers, inflates her client’s physis in order to make it stand below his belly until he ejaculates.”2 Thus, Quignard suggests that the creation of an artwork is not necessarily the free and independent act of an artist, but is rather bound to something, somewhere. According to Quignard, this binding is the state of “being captivated by sorrow.” Moreover, as memories are accumulated, this captivation by sorrow sinks and collects at the bottom of the artist’s soul—and in the artist’s works—like dregs at the bottom of a vat of wine. But while Aristotle’s sensual analogy may shatter some of the illusions that people harbor about the mythical status of the artist, most will find Quignard’s theory somewhat stifling. After all, of all the words or images that he could have chosen, Quignard asserted that artistic creation and the aesthetic pleasure of a viewer were simply “dregs” ensnared by sadness.
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