B.Z. | Becoming a Star Through Feigned Innocence
German daily newspaper B.Z. (Berlin) interviewed Korean painter Kim Hyun Jung on its culture page (p. 28) on June 16, 2016, on the occasion of her solo exhibition 'Story of Feigned Innocence,' held at the Korean Cultural Center in Germany at Leipziger Platz, Berlin. The article covered her large-scale self-portrait series 'Naesung,' which combines traditional Korean painting technique with Western-style collage and imagery of consumer culture, along with her exhibition history at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and her appearance in hanbok for the interview. Photos were taken by Frank Senftleben.
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Becoming a Star Through Feigned Innocence
Kim Hyun Jung is Korea's most successful female painter. New York's Metropolitan Museum showed her paintings. Now she is exhibiting in Berlin
By JULIANE PRIMUS
Behind the glass of the Korean Cultural Center, Kim Hyun Jung (28) flirts with her own innocence. With delicate brushstrokes she feels her way across the paper, painting the trees at Leipziger Platz. Seemingly wishing for nothing, in harmony with the world.
Hard to believe: within her own four walls in Seoul, Kim Hyun Jung can turn into a shopping monster! "I love shopping. In Korea, online shopping is practically part of the culture," the young Korean tells BZ.
Kim Hyun Jung (meaning: everything around her is illuminated) combines, in her self-portraits up to five meters tall, traditional Asian painting, Western collage, and consumer goods: coffee-to-go cups, laptops, and shoes, shoes, shoes. "Everything I paint, I either own or would like to own," says Kim Hyun Jung.
With this mixture of art and commerce, she is the shooting star of Korean art, making it all the way to the Metropolitan Museum in New York in January. On Facebook she has a million fans. Now she is showing a selection of her works at the Korean Cultural Center on Leipziger Platz. The exhibition is titled "Story of Feigned Innocence."
The title is a reference to the Korean word Naesung, an expression for a Korean particularity. "In my country, politeness is very important," Kim Hyun Jung says. "For example, if you feel hungry while in company, you wouldn't say so — you'd eat something later at home."
In her paintings, she reveals what happens when she listens to her stomach instead. The motif "I Am Also a Woman" shows her shoveling rice into herself. "I don't want to deliberately provoke — I simply paint the small world I live in."
However, she doesn't squeeze herself into the hanbok, the traditional Korean garment, every day. "Of course I also wear jeans sometimes," she says. Before the interview, she spent three hours having her hair and makeup done and getting dressed. Beneath the many silk skirts, the 1.60-meter-tall woman had her high heels well hidden.
It's different in her paintings. There, Kim Hyun Jung's legs show through the hanbok skirt. With this she wants to show that it's worth looking behind the facade. And she also hopes that someday, someone will look behind her own facade. "When I meet the man I want to marry, my paintings will change too."
[Photo captions]
"Feigned Innocence" is what the painter calls her portrait series, as with this image featuring a bicycle
As a burger courier: Kim already painted "Feigned Innocence: You Move Me" in 2013
Heavily laden with bags, a shoe lost: the painter titled her 2016 shopping scene "Oops!"
For three hours, painter Kim Hyun Jung (28) did her makeup, styled her hair, and dressed in traditional Korean style for the BZ interview
PHOTOS: FRANK SENFTLEBEN, © KIM HYUN JUNG ALL RIGHTS RESERVED