“Knowledge and understanding of the past, our awareness of how things came to be the way they are, by making innovation possible, give meaning to the art of our own time, they connect the individual work of art to the public sphere.”1)
The passage above expressed by Peter Timms seems appropriate to refers to Cho’s idea of creating. Ceramic artist like Cho is a rare figure—if you don’t want to say it doesn’t exist—in the context of ceramic art in Indonesia. At a glance, Cho’s work is easily identified as traditional based ceramic artwork. However, not merely carrying the traditional heritage, Cho also questions the possibility of traditional heritage in modernity, or rather the relation between traditional art and contemporary art. Cho creates between those two polar tensions, to find his identity as stated by him during an interview with Sunyoung Oh. “… But based on tradition, my ‘standards’ serve as a compass that gives me unlimited freedom while preventing me from losing my way.” The standard that Cho referring is method and technique in traditional Korean ceramics. Traditional Korean ceramic is one of the heritage of the past that is recognized for having high quality with its distinctive characteristics. According to history, even Japanese traditional ceramics are heavily influenced by Korean ceramics.
It can be expected in the context of contemporary art, it is not easy to accept works of Cho as a part inside it. The dichotomy between art and craft that has rooted deep in modern Western art acts as a barrier. Likewise, aspects of the trend in contemporary art—that fond of appropriating modern visual culture—made Cho’s works look unfashionable with contemporary art. This is the reality of contemporary art that we face. In the opposite sense, contemporary art is considered necessary for modern society because of its potential as a representation that becomes a critical reflection on many common social issues. Works of Cho are also a representation, which is the construction of meaning that is created by the artist and interpreted by its reader. In this relation, Cho is faced with several obstacles. First, modern art excluded traditional art and its derivatives. Second, modern art also puts ceramic as a non-art medium. Third, autonomous modern art with the creed of art for art’s sake certainly forbids the aspect of practical use. These three things can be seen in Cho’s work. Although contemporary art reemphasized aspects of representation, pluralism, and multiculturalism, the field of contemporary art is a legacy of modern art. In another word the modern art paradigm often being carried away in deciding its inclusion rooms. But, the field of contemporary art can always widen the possibility of its reach within it. In another word, Cho’s works have a chance to become a contemporary work, that its meaning and value can be justified. Cho’s works instead become a test for contemporary art, whether it’s plural and stay true to the multicultural reality. In my opinion, Cho’s work is a work of contemporary art. This is mainly based on Cho’s attitude which able to respect and at the same time be critical towards traditional heritages. Cho represented this matter in his work and consciously display it as an artistic statement in the context of contemporary art.
There is always a possibility in contemporary art for an artist who uses a medium that was previously underrated in the world of modern art. One example is Greyson Perry, a ceramic artist that earned recognition from the field of contemporary art. He once awarded with Turner Prize, a prestigious award in the contemporary art world. Like most of the mainstream contemporary artworks, his works are narrative and rich with social, political, and gender bias representation. Cho’s work surely is not narrative with representation content. Fortunately, contemporary art is also proven to be able to include pottery based ceramic artist or function-based ceramic works. For example, the work of Gwyn Hanssen Pigott, an Australian ceramic artist that is included in the12th Biennale of Sydney in 2000. Works of Piggot are function-based like ceramic cup, bowl, and vase. Regarding Piggot’s works, Peter Timms explained it as follows, “That Piggot’s small vessels, teapot, and lidded boxes are refined, contemplative and ‘silent’ has now become an article of faith…Gwyn Hanssen Pigott’s ceramics examine our relationship not only to cultural history but also to nature. They reflect her life long study of Korean and Chinese Song Dynasty porcelains, … She does not appropriate traditions but extends them. In doing so, she says something entirely fresh about the individual’s place in the culture, the culture’s place in the natural order and the complex dialogue between the past and the present.2)
What has been uttered by Peter Timms about the works of Piggot is contextual with the content of representation on Cho’s works. Multiculturalism within the contemporary arts paved the way for critics towards identity politics which so far shadowed the development and spread of Western culture that often in synonym with modernization. Values— that considered—universal that accompanying modern art paradigm is none other than a practice of Western art that can’t be separated from the history of Western art since the Renaissance time. Global contemporary art shows many possibilities of identity representation to emerge. Outside the West, there are a variety of customs and traditional life that survived and fused with modernity. Korea is a country that has a strong tradition. As a nation with ethnicity that is relatively homogenous and has a long history, Korea produces a unique material culture, and one of the strongest and important things is the tradition of ceramic making.
Traditional Korean ceramic has a long history and has gone through technical sophistication for hundreds of years, through the ups and downs of some ceramic identities which have now become world heritage. Some of them, such as Celadon, have emerged since the end of the Silla Dynasty (668-935), followed by the Goryeo Dynasty (918-1392), the time that was considered to produce ceramics with the highest quality (finest work of ceramics in Korean history). Continued by Joseon Dynasty (1392-1897) that produced white porcelain which was considered successful in reaching its peak quality. Furthermore, it also produces a simpler (simplified) stoneware items with thinner, more transparent and showed the color of the ceramic body. Unlike the smooth celadon, Buncheong looks more natural, unpretentious and grounded. In its development, Buncheong gradually shrunk and unable to compete against Joseon porcelain with more aristocratic characteristics.
The popularity of Korean ceramic that continued until the present times blurred the difficult situation that it was once gone through. The traditional Korean ceramic technique once come to a halt, partly because of Japanese invasion and occupation. At the end of the 16th century, Japanese invaders forced many potters to relocate to Japan. Even, in the late 19th century, Korean traditional ceramic can be said heading to its extinction as explained by Edward B. Adams. “As the nineteenth century drew to a close the Korean pottery tradition died completely.”3)
Adams further explained that it was only at the beginning of the 20th century that potters slowly began to re-try producing ceramics again. During the Japanese occupation (1910-1945) actually, the momentum of traditional ceramics production began to return. In 1924 Noritaka Asakawa, a Japanese scholar and observer of Korean culture, at the behest of the Japanese government, opened the first Korean folk museum. Around the mid-30’s— after ceramics production resumed in traditional kiln—Asakawa was given the task of researching Korean ceramics production at the time. Unbeknownst to him, the research report was used by the Japanese military government to eliminate the production of Korean ceramics, “Unfortunately, the actual purpose of this report was to evaluate the pottery production in Korea for immediate elimination. Similar to many other creative aspects of art and craft development pursued in Korea, the Japanese military government wished to stamp out any indigenous thought or creativity, to make the Korean people Japanese in mind and character…Japan began subsidizing Japanese pottery production in Kyushu for delivery to Korea. Local price was undercut and the Koreans were encouraged to buy the cheaper Japanese pottery wares.”4)
This led to the production of Korean ceramic to shrink greatly at the time. Kilns that keep producing only able to produce vessels for storing kimchi. After the end of the Japanese occupation and the Korean War, there is an effort to reinvent the traditional ceramic technique. According to Edward B. Adams, in the past potters in Korea are considered the lowest stratum of Korean traditional society—although able to produce high-quality ceramics— but since the modern era, ceramic artists obtained an important position and gained a positive response from the society.5) Several decades after the Korean war, the ceramic artist tried to recover and refine old techniques, while developing its identity. One of those artists is Cho Ki-Jung, Cho’s father who received an award as a national living treasure from the Korean Government, who considered successfully revived Goryeo celadon. After his return from the United States to study art, Cho Jang-Hyun’s started to explore traditional based ceramic art at the ceramic studio which is the legacy of his father. Mastering traditional ceramic techniques—that have reached the classic stage—is not an easy thing. Traditional techniques required sacrifice and dedication from the artist. This is what Cho always did until he mastered and became virtuous with his ceramic technique.
Experience and association within the world of contemporary art did not make Cho carried into display pattern of contemporary art—which sometimes fashionable. Cho based the method of traditional ceramic as possibility revealing language in the context of contemporary art, with all of its risk and consequence. In the same manner, as Gwyn Hanssen’s works, Cho’s work possessed an aesthetic power in formal terms—without being formalism itself. Those works also represent the “issue” of tradition, contained in it how Cho struggling with traditional identity. The representation of traditional identity on Cho’s works also invites viewers to rethink the meaning of traditional identity, whether it is personal, communal, or national. To what extent did the traditional legacy become a component that manages to makes peace and relates mutually with the modern paradigm, to be able to produce distinct modernity. Korea has proved that they are a modern nation that still retained traditional identity within its modernity. Their devotion and appreciation towards their cultural heritages and traditional art have brought the Korean nation to become a sophisticated and technologically advanced nation.
Cho’s works teach us how the identity of Korean ceramics able to went worldwide, this is resulting from the hard work of its ceramic artists that successfully revived the technique and identity of traditional Korean ceramics that once disappeared. They are also able to revitalize it into modern life context and lastly, just like Cho, able to put it inside their personal identity. That is the reason behind Cho’s Beyond Standart, meaning fulfilling the traditional standards but also goes beyond it. Indonesia has many traditional art heritages, too many of them. Likewise, Indonesia is rich with ceramics tradition, although it has not yet reached the glazed ceramic stage. Unfortunately, there is no attention and appreciation from the society. Slowly and surely, dozens of ceramic villages just vanished. Hopefully one day there will be ceramic artists who are interested in the traditional ceramic heritage and able to utilize it in their works.
―
1) Peter Timms, What’s Wrong With Contemporary Art?, University of New South Wales Press Ltd, Sydney, 2004, p. 123.
2) Ibid.
3) Edward B. Adams, Korea’s Pottery Heritage Vol. 1, Samhwa Printing Co., Ltd, Seoul, 1994, p. 35.
4) Ibid., p. 36.
5) Ibid., p. 37.