The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA, Director Youn
Bummo) is unveiling from 30 April to 22 August Hwang Jai Hyoung: Restoration of Human
Dignity at the MMCA Seoul.
Hwang (b.1952) is widely known as a “miner painter” as he has expressed his personal experience
working as a coal mine worker in Gangwon-do Province in the early 1980s with a realistic
perspective. Hwang Jai Hyoung: Restoration of Human Dignity is a solo exhibition that aims to shed
light on the artistic achievements Hwang has made from the 1980s to the present within the scope of
his identity as a “miner painter.”
Born in Bosung, Jeollanam-do Province in 1952, Hwang received a BFA in paintings from ChungAng University in 1982. Together with Park Heung-soon, Chun Jun-yeop, Lee Jong-gu and Lee
Myeong-bok who were students of Chung-Ang University at that time as well as Song Chang from
Chosun University and Cheon Gwang-ho from Yeungnam University, Hwang established a Minjung
Art organization named “Imsul-nyeon, 98992” (referred to as “Imsul-nyeon”). While Hwang’s
Hwangji 330 (1981), produced during the years of his membership of “Imsul-nyeon” received the
Honorable Mention at the 5th JoongAng Fine Arts Prize (1982), he soon settled in Gangwon-do
Province from the autumn of 1982 as a coal mine worker.
While working as a coal mine worker for three years at places like Taebaek, Samcheok, and
Jeongseon, Hwang Jai Hyoung produced works that strongly expressed the social participation nature
of Minjung Art of the 1980s. He attempted to change the perception of connecting humans and nature
in the landscape of a waning mine village in Gangwon-do Province, and began to deal with expanded
themes going beyond people to include contemporary issues, humanity, temporality and historicalness
by using hair and graphite since the 2010s.
The title of the exhibition, “Restoration of Human Dignity” was translated as ‘Hoecheon回天’ a word
which means “turning around the mind of a son of Heaven or emperor” or “restoring the declining
forces by transforming the situation or breaking a deadlock.”. This title reflects the artist’s
determination to prove the social utility of art or the possibility of transformation through his
paintings. Saying that “The dead end of the mine is where humans despair. It exists not only in
Taebaek but also in Seoul,” Hwang interpreted the life of a coal-mining town on a universal
dimension. Through the exhibition title, he delivers a message that dreams of the recovery of
humanity still exist in a life that is bound to lose it.
The exhibition consists of three sections - “A Miner and A Painter (1980s-),” “From Taebaek to East
Sea (1990s-),” and “The Face of Reality (2010s-).” The first section displays portraits while the
second section is mainly composed of paintings of landscape and the third section exhibits both figure
and landscape paintings. The periods of the sections specify only the beginning without noting the
end, taking into account the artist’s unique methodology, in which he recreates his early works with
a new medium and completes one work over the course of numerous years. Through the exhibition
space that focuses on the overlapping aspects of the past and present, one will be able to look at the
process in which Hwang’s view on “reality” is gradually transferred.
Section 1 “A Miner and A Painter” focuses on paintings Hwang drew from the 1980s to 2000s of
mine laborers and his acquaintances. Works that Hwang produced as a student of Chung-Ang
University including Symptom (1980) and Hwangji 330 (1981) as well as those produced based on
his three years of experience as a miner including Bath(Unwashable) (1983) and Lunch (1985) are
displayed. There are also works where Hwang used waste from coal-mining towns as objects and
those that use irregular plywood and wire mesh as a canvas after mid-1980s. The section also presents
works that Hwang created after the 1990s by reflecting back on his experience at coal-mining villages.
Section 2 “From Taebaek to East Sea” depicts a number of works that portray the landscape of a
waning coal-mining village in the 1990s with the eyes of a witness after the South Korean
government’s Coal Industry Rationalization Policy in 1989 following his quitting of mining in mid1980s. The second section that comprises of paintings of not only coal-mining villages but also the
Mother Nature of Gangwon-do Province, shows Hwang’s expanded perspective that resulted from
the distance between the artist’s physical body and the landscape he has painted. The section presents
Sunset at Tancheon(2008) that depicts the scene of a golden glow of sunset reflecting over Tancheon
in Sabuk, where the coal powder and dirt are mixed as well as the 5-meter-wide Baekdu Mountains
(1993-2004).
Section 3 “The Face of Reality” entails the period of the 2010s where Hwang drew trans-historical
landscapes and universal portraits outside of his rooted area and reinterpreted the subject of the 1980s
using hair as new material. Miners or landscape surrounding coal-mining villages are reappeared on
his works while Hwang also depicts contemporary social issues like the sinking of the Sewol ferry
and political power meddling case. The section displays A Place of Father (2011-2013) that depicts
a retired miner in a hyper-realistic method, Exposed Face (2017) a re-drawn picture of a previously
painted portrait of a miner using hair as well as Olkhon (2016) that uses graphite to express the
temporality of history.
Director Youn Bummo of MMCA elaborated “The paintings of realistic figures, vast Mother Nature
and trans-historical landscape produced by a ‘miner painter’ Hwang Jai Hyoung pulls at our
heartstrings,” and added that “the exhibition aims to trace the footprints of the artist who has
attempted to take a step closer to the reality based on realistic depiction for the past 4 decades, and
will serve as an opportunity to shed light on the true characteristics of Korea’s realism and its values
within the discipline of art history.”
