Digital Renditions of Kim Whanki Paintings Show at DAF

Kim Whanki 1913-1974, South Korea Follow +

Kim Whanki is best known for his dot paintings. His diptych 05-IV-71 #200 (Universe) (1971) became the most expensive painting by a Korean artist when it sold for HK $88 million (U.S. $11 million) at Christie’s Hong Kong in 2019.

Kim’s life and work were celebrated at Hong Kong‘s Digital Art Fair (DAF) from 19 to 23 October. LG OLED, screen partner and sponsor of DAF, commissioned three digital artists to reprise Kim’s works.

Je Baak, associate professor at Seoul National University College of Fine Arts and creative director of Verseday, worked with artist Jason Kim, Ahn Graphics CEO Mano Ahn, and BESIGN CEO Daehwan Kim to bring the works to life.

The digital works included a stroke by stroke version that takes approximately an hour to complete the final image, and a dancing, pixelated version of Kim’s final painting, 7-VII-74 (1974).

Kim (1913–1974) was one of the pioneers of Korean abstract painting. He left Japanese-occupied Korea when he was just 20 to study at Tokyo‘s Nihon University, where he was exposed to European modernists such as Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso.

Upon his return to Seoul, he founded the radical New Realists movement with Yoo Yongkuk and Lee Gyusang. He would later live in Paris and New York, mixing with artists including Nam June Paik, and drawing inspiration from artists such as Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman.

The digital works were first presented at Frieze Seoul alongside 12 of Kim’s paintings, including the blue dot painting 17-IV-71 #201 (1971), the red dot painting 14-III-72 #223 (1972), and works from the series ‘Where, in what form, shall we meet again’.

Mee-Jung Park, Director of the Whanki Foundation said in creating the digital works, they wanted to ‘give the viewer a memorable and interesting way to enjoy the artwork’ while retaining ‘Kim’s heart and soul’.

Kate Oh, vice president of the Brand Communication Division at LG Home Entertainment Company, said the digital works would ‘serve as an inspiration for future digital artists to stretch their imagination in ways of recreating and reinterpreting digital art.’ —[O]

Main image: Digital interpretations of Kim Whanki paintings showed at DAF in Hong Kong.