Bak-Go-Ji-Geum: Southward-bound “Buncheong” presents the work of Cho Jang-hyun, a ceramic artist who interprets the cultural traditions of Korean ceramics. The exhibition was initiated through conversations between Indonesian artist, curator and educator Asmudjo J. Irianto and Korean curator Sunyoung Oh. I am an academic and curator based in the UK and my supplementary role has been to reflect on, test and probe the perspectives of the artist and curators. Such cultural exchanges seek to reveal similarities and differences in how we approach things, our values and priorities. They instigate an open, non-hierarchical field, where we are all invited to share our thinking and to grasp the opportunity to gain understanding and knowledge through our individual curiosities. The shared ambition of the curators is that Cho Jang-hyun’s ceramic art may serve as a catalyst for new thinking and possibilities, starting with ITB students.
Asmudjo J. Irianto explained to me that, “Unlike countries in East Asia, such as China, Korea, and Japan, which have a strong traditional ceramic identity that is also a source of inspiration for their modern ceramic artists, in Indonesia, it is quite challenging to establish the identity of traditional ceramics … The ceramic tradition in these three countries has evolved over centuries, in terms of form and technique of manufacture, and has survived to this day. Therefore, traditional ceramics of Korea are a source of inspiration that can be explored continuously by its modern ceramic artists. Those modern ceramic artists are able to express their personal character in their ceramics art, while still retaining the traditional identity … I hope by exhibiting Cho’s work at Bandung Institute of Technology, ceramic students and ceramic artists, especially in Bandung, can learn and see that there is always the possibility of trying to take inspiration from tradition. If it happens, then it will not only benefit Indonesia’s ceramics artists and ceramics scene but also elevate the position of the traditional ceramics.”
When I asked what she hoped the exhibition could achieve Sunyoung Oh replied:
“I hope that through this project … students can dream of their future. I hope they can think about what they should not lose – and what they should throw away in pursuing their dreams. And I hope they can embrace diversity … and apply it to have advanced thinking. I want to think about what ‘originality’ is and what people can do through art. In attempting to do this, pottery is the chosen medium and the exhibition introduces the work of Cho Jang-hyun, a traditional but contemporary artist. Some may think it’s a retrograde step to consider the medium of pottery in the context of originality. But … before we face the era of Artificial Intelligence (AI), it’s a process of preparing for what humans must think and do. I believe it is possible to describe this project as an anthropological exploration through art.”
There are important themes raised by the curators here such as: taking inspiration from tradition; thinking hard about what we should and should not consider losing; and learning from the past to prepare for future challenges. In the modern world of manufactured uniformity, the poetic nuances of materials are only achieved through skilled hand-making which can return us to our humanity and sense of individuality. As computers and smartphones increasingly dominate our interface with the world, something we risk losing is the creative competence to do things without machines, and thereby our sense of independent agency.
The following transcript of my interview with Cho Jang-hyun is an inquiry into his ideas and processes, which seeks to gain a better understanding of how a contemporary artist can work with tradition while developing their own values and expanding their creative ideas.
Tessa Peters: In Western Europe and the USA craft ceramics are a relatively recent category of art practice with roots in the 19th century Arts & Crafts movement that developed as a reaction to widespread industrialization. I understand that you have experience of both Korean and American attitudes to ceramic art, the first with a strong tradition, the second without such developed roots. Your practice offers contemporary interpretations of Goryeo celadon and Buncheong wares and I wonder to what extent you see your work as the development of a strictly Korean tradition and to what extent you feel your approach has been informed by your knowledge of American arts practice?
Cho Jang-hyun: The form, glaze, and decoration of my work all come from tradition, but I think there are different aspects to the overall result. The effect of this is to challenge the boundaries of methods of expression, depending on the period, type and region of traditional ceramics. This approach to the works comes from the viewpoint of experimental art.
Tessa Peters: You have referred in a conversation with curator Sunyoung Oh to your “standards.” Can you say more about these?
Cho Jang-hyun: The essential elements of traditional pottery vary widely. I don’t think it’s easy to understand traditional pottery just by showing it on the surface and studying their formal characteristics. The direct material collection, including the limitations imposed in the process and repetitive labor in the production process, enable a deeper understanding of the work. I think this process is a significant time to put more spirit into the artist’s artwork. I believe this understanding of traditional training and thinking is a “standard.” However, my work does not seek only the formal completeness of tradition, but rather the possibility of change based on the traditional culture. For instance, I accept traces, textures of rough surfaces, and serendipitous transformations as part of my work. But it is something that was not allowed in traditional pottery.
Tessa Peters: Is it important to you to use local clay and glaze materials associated with traditional Buncheong ware, for example, the use of iron-rich clay decorated with white slip? Or are you mainly interested in traditional aspects of technique and form?
Cho Jang-hyun: I am more interested in exploring the various possibilities that exist in the process of traditional pottery than in reproducing traditional techniques. And I am aware of the problem of limitations when using materials sold on the market. So, I test the collected materials by myself before using them. And I believe it is essential to the process to discover the features that come from using materials that I have researched and manufactured and thereby expand the scope of my work.
Tessa Peters: From the photographs I have seen of your works that will be included in the exhibition in Bandung, I understand that some of the traditional techniques you employ include Sanggam (inlaid decoration), Gwiyal (brushed slip decoration) and Cheolhwa (underglaze painting). Are there any other traditional forms of decoration you use?
Cho Jang-hyun: Yes, in addition, I use various kinds of decoration methods such as underglaze iron with white slip, engraving, and engraving in relief. I also use a mixture of techniques and overlapping forms of decoration.
Tessa Peters: I understand that you have worked at Jatiwangi art Factory (JaF), with clay from the local area. What were the challenges you faced in using local materials in your attempts to create Buncheong wares in West Java?
Cho Jang-hyun: The priority was to check the fire resistance of the clay, but it was necessary to collect and process materials and to build the kiln at the same-time, because there was no test kiln capable of high-temperature firing. However, due to lack of time and a lack of understanding of the geographical environment, adequate material collection and experimentation was not possible.
Tessa Peters: Now that you have had time to reflect on your experiences at JaF, are there any adaptions in terms of materials or techniques you might want to try?
Cho Jang-hyun: As I say, I wasn’t able to consider all the various conditions of the local materials due to lack of time. However, some of the soil found in Jatiwangi, I considered being applicable as a glaze material.
Tessa Peters: Do you think that it’s possible to find creative inspiration from the challenge of bringing your sensibility and standards to experimentation with the ceramic materials of another geological locality?
Cho Jang-hyun: I believe it is possible. I think work can be created with new materials and a good knowledge of them alone allows me to try a variety of different things, which in turn leads to various forms of work. The main thing to consider is the question of how much the material has been understood through experimentation.
Tessa Peters: To what extent does your decoration refer to Korean ceramic tradition and to what extent is it an interpretation of your own personal life and experiences?
Cho Jang-hyun: My work consists of some traditional elements. Traditional underglaze iron with white slips, for example, is a technique used to achieve distinctive darkness and brightness. However, my comparable work does not clearly distinguish between darkness and light, and I change the order of the decorating techniques in ways that are not used in traditional Korean ceramics decoration. The rough traces that naturally occur within the clay are also used as part of the composition of the work. Since childhood, I have repeatedly studied works of high technical perfection for the purpose of reviving traditional Korean ceramic art forms. In comparison, there are traces in my work that seem to reject perfection.
Tessa Peters: Do you have any sources of inspiration among recent makers and masters of the revival of Goryeo celadon and Buncheong ware in Korea? If so, please could you say which artists you admire and a little about what you have learned from their examples? And how this may have shaped your approach?
Cho Jang-hyun: It is Cho Ki-jung who revived Goryeo celadon. He is my father and I admire his work. What I learned from him was not just to rely on existing theories, but to find ceramic sites, to study porcelain pieces, to find materials in a locality, to experiment, and to confirm through the results. Since the 19th century, there has been a national project to revive Goryeo celadon, but there was a perception gap between scholars and potters. In 1978, Cho was successful in reviving Goryeo celadon, and I think his accomplishment was due to his dedication and approach. The lesson he gave his students was to preserve and love tradition but to find their own direction through experimentation. And I still follow his words.
Tessa Peters: There would seem to be a large difference between 1) the part of the contemporary art world where any material and form can be used to create art (and where the artist may have only a basic understanding of a material and technique), and 2) where the mastery of material and technique is recognized as leading to advanced creative expression. In the case of 1) concept tends to take precedence over material, form, and technique. In the case of 2) one may appreciate there can be a strong value in following a path of artistic creativity that embraces material limitations and where skill and knowledge can lead to the achievement of something that could never otherwise come into being. (By working, for example, with the limitations of a particular clay body and with the skilled practice of particular methods of making – such as wheel-thrown forms – that may be able to focus and give birth to new creative potential). Can I please ask you to comment on this idea from your perspective as a maker of ceramic art?
Cho Jang-hyun: It seems to be an unresolved issue for a long time. When I was giving an artist’s talk for my solo exhibition in Xi’an, China, several scholars in China asked me a similar question. And I also thought a lot about this. From their discussion, I could understand that Chinese scholars were dividing pottery by traditional and modern in a dichotomous way. However, the criterion for distinguishing between tradition and contemporary ceramic was unclear. Their dichotomous logic was that if artists follow traditional techniques in producing their works, then they call it traditional ceramic and that production without the conventional methods would be called modern ceramic.
In contemporary art, stoneware and porcelain can be used as a medium for concept delivery, ignoring what is considered critical to the material study and practice of pottery. In this case, it will exist as a contemporary artwork. In contrast, pottery is tableware used in everyday life. And I think pottery can be either craft or contemporary ceramic artwork, depending on what concept they present in their work and the intended purpose of the ceramic work. If the ceramics are functional wares, ceramic art is, therefore, a craft art. Pottery may contain both fundamental elements and additional aesthetic elements, but if the essential elements are lost in the production work, it is unreasonable to categorize the work as ceramic art. Therefore, I think it is not correct to include both in the same category. But I also believe there is no big problem with the extensive artistic activities of potters.
I chose to ask Cho the first and final questions as I am aware of a widespread tension that exists between traditional approaches and contemporary conceptual ceramic practices. And yet I found his response similar to that of so many artists in the UK who have trained in the discipline of ceramics. They equally do not find it hard to accept the breadth of ceramic ambition as I believe, they experience difficulties in identifying their own choice of direction and fully recognize the vast breadth of the creative potential afforded by the complexity of ceramics practice and its approaches – not least due to its extensive range of clay, slip and glaze materials, its chemistry and techniques, its plasticity, its formal and conceptual possibilities and so forth. They are also aware of the apparent dichotomy between traditional and contemporary practice but also see that very many creative paths are available. Part of the journey of a ceramic artist is to recognize where one’s strengths and weaknesses lie. This is maybe both part of the attraction and the great challenge of ceramic art?
My other questions to Cho aimed to probe aspects of his personal approach to making – the accumulation of knowledge this requires, his points of focus, his values, his sources of inspiration and his relationship to tradition. From his answers, I gain the impression of an artist with highly developed sensibilities to the nuances of his area of practice, and his need to gain a deep understanding of his materials and their potential in order to find his own direction, his distinctive ‘artistic voice.’
Something I find useful when considering all these ideas and issues is the concept of techne, as explained by Henry Staten, an American Professor of Humanities. In his recent book Techne Theory: A new language for art (2019), he points out that the term techne was used by the Ancient Greeks for any skilled and practical knowledge, and was applied in a broad range of activities such as fishing, mathematics, the making of pots and paintings. The fundamental concept of techne, it seems to me, bears a strong resemblance to Cho’s assertion that an “understanding of traditional training and thinking” provides him with a “standard” and that this, along with tacit knowledge of the features of his materials, allows him “to expand the scope of [his] work.”
Staten notes that the Romans translated the word techne as ars – a word whose modern equivalent is the art and that the word ars/art held the same meaning in Europe until the late 18th century. At this point, with the advent of the artistic and literary movement of Romanticism in Europe, ‘the theory of artistic genius’ took hold and, as a result, different orders of value came to be assigned to the products of the artist (as visionary genius) and the artisan (as a merely skilled laborer). Staten argues – and many Western art historians would share this view – that the process of mystification that arose from the Romantic movement’s assertion of the theory of genius, can subsequently be seen to provide a foundation for conceptual art in the 20th century, where an artist could select an object from the world and name it art. Once conceptual art became accepted, the skilled use of materials and techniques by artists was no longer deemed to be an essential requirement. These ideas, once established, have since gained more global acceptance. But I think Asmudjo J. Irianto is correct in his belief that some countries, namely China, Korea, and Japan escaped the full impact of such Euro-centric thinking.
Such thinking now needs to be challenged. Staten suggests that the troublesome division between art and artisan might be regarded as simply the individual-psychological perspective of European Romanticism, versus the far longer established social-historical perspective of “the know-how human societies discover over time.” He describes the notion of ‘techne’ as “the accretion or sedimentation of myriad acts of trial and error and micro-discovery that come together over generations … centuries, millennia.” As such it is an idea with a deep and strong human imprint and cultural legacy, despite the alternative Romantic/post-romantic view that, according to Staten, emerged only around 250 years ago. He contends that,
“No doubt we should be impressed by another human being’s know-how that exceeds our own, but the more the nature of know-how is hidden behind a veil of mystification the more likely it is to stymie the spectator’s sense of his own agency and the more serviceable it comes to the power interest to which art is so easily wed.”
This thought may shed some light on the dichotomy that Cho alludes to, made by those who think it is possible to distinguish between the practices of ceramic artists who build on tradition and those who work in contemporary idioms. But, as I have already noted, he is not alone in feeling bewildered by this distinction.
Staten also suggests that artists and non-artists tend to think about art in rather different ways. Whereas critics and audiences are essentially passive consumers, who view art as a finished product, the artist is more likely to experience the artwork as part of an ongoing aim to deepen their knowledge of art-making. He suggests that it’s not coincidental that the word ‘art’ is used to refer “… not to artworks but to the skill and know-how by means of which artworks – and everything else – are made or organized. On this understanding of the word, museums do not contain ‘art’; they contain works of art, things made by art.” This is to suggest that we might want to think about art as being more about the process of making, than the final product.
The fact is that ceramic artists, such as Cho, can be seen to work with human purpose, and as Staten puts it, to “poke and prod enigmatic materiality until they find the points at which it most readily gives way to these purposes.” Ultimately the question that Staten asks through his exploration of ‘Techne theory’ is, whether by rejecting the mystification of the European Romantic notion of art, can we return to the position where, world-wide, all cultures can readily acknowledge the importance of people with accumulated skills and a deep understanding of their art form?
As a postscript, I’d like to add the thought that it is not only the field of art that needs to urgently rethink its priorities and hierarchies. For example, faced with a generation of student surgeons whose manual dexterity seemed less than adequate – quite possibly because of their primary interface with computers, rather than making things as a learning activity – a professor of surgical education in the UK is now introducing his students and colleagues to ceramics workshops and lace-making as a way of developing and improving the necessary manual skills.
Tessa Peters is a senior lecturer in the School of Arts at the University of Westminster, and an associate lecturer at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts, London. Her research interests include the study of participatory art projects and global positions on the potential effects of art and design practice. She is also an independent curator and writer.