[Gallery Walk] Water Droplets Step Out of the Painting, Lines Step Outside the Square

Daelim Cultural Foundation's First Collection Exhibition for Its 30th Anniversary...More Than 70 Works by Korean and International Artists
From Kim Tschang-Yeul's Previously Unseen Sculpture "Binida" to Lichtenstein's "Incomplete Painting"
Beyond Familiar Artists' Names, How Materials and Forms Reshape the Viewing Experience

Water droplets rest on stone. On the stone's top, above its rough sides, sit transparent forms of various sizes. On the wall behind it, droplets gather between Chinese characters in a painting. The droplets in front are glass; those behind are painted. Between these two droplets made by the same artist, the eye first recognizes their likeness, then discovers how they differ.

Kim Tschang-yeul’s sculpture “Binida” (1996), unveiled for the first time in this collection exhibition, renders the shape of water droplets in three dimensions using stone and glass. The painting “Return SH97029” (1995) hangs behind it. Daelim Museum

They are Kim Tschang-Yeul's sculpture "Binida" (1996) and painting "Recurrent SH97029" (1995). The works are positioned at the start of "DCF Collection: Daelim Cultural Foundation Collection Exhibition," held at Daelim Museum in Jongno-gu, Seoul. "Binida" is being shown publicly for the first time. The fact that an artist remembered by the familiar moniker "the painter of water droplets" also worked with stone and glass immediately catches the eye. But the exhibition's decision to place the two works side by side raises a deeper question: When we paint a water droplet and when we create an object that resembles one, what do we see in each case?

The exhibition marks the 30th anniversary of the Daelim Cultural Foundation and is the foundation's first collection exhibition. It opened on October 30 and presents more than 70 works by Korean and international artists, including Picasso, Joan Miró, Roy Lichtenstein, Lee Ufan, Park Seo-Bo, and Nam June Paik. The foundation was established in 1996. The following year, the museum opened in Daejeon as Hanlim Art Museum; in 2002, it moved to Seoul and became Daelim Museum. The collection reflects the institution's history of expanding its focus from photography to design and fine art. On the first floor, the archive traces that history through exhibition catalogs and records.

Kim Tschang-Yeul's water droplets, too, have a history that cannot be confined to a single material or form. In the mid-1970s, he began painting droplets on newspaper, exploring the relationship between text and water droplets. Later, he wrote Chinese characters directly on canvas and painted droplets over them. The Thousand Character Classic was a familiar text that he had learned from his grandfather as a child. The title of his "Hoegwi" series conveys a return to the cultural sphere that shaped him. The characters on the canvas are more than a simple background pattern. Water droplets that seem as if they would feel wet to the touch rest on words drawn from the artist's memories.

In "Binida," that relationship changes. Glass actually lets light pass through and reflects its surroundings. While the highlights and shadows of the painted droplets are fixed on the canvas, the light reflected by the glass changes depending on where the viewer stands and the surrounding conditions. The stone's rough, opaque surface further accentuates the glass's smoothness and transparency. The same form of a water droplet tests the eye's perception in painting, while in sculpture it reveals the relationship between an object and the space around it. This is a distinction that can be easy to miss if we stop at simply recognizing the subject as a "water droplet."

Roy Lichtenstein's "Imperfect Painting" (1988), displayed in the center of the second-floor gallery at the Daelim Cultural Foundation Collection Exhibition. The gray triangle on the left protrudes beyond the rectangular canvas. The work was made using woodblock printing and silkscreen. Daelim Museum

On the second floor, the boundaries of a painting are unsettled in a different way. This is Roy Lichtenstein's "Incomplete Painting" (1988). Bold lines run between yellow, green, and gray fields, while diagonal stripes and Ben-Day dots divide the image. Following the lines reveals that the gray triangle on the left protrudes beyond the rectangular canvas. This small extension prompts viewers to look again at the work's outer contour. The work was made using woodblock printing and silkscreen.

In his "Complete/Incomplete" series, Lichtenstein devised the compositions himself on graph paper rather than using mass-produced images. He set a rule of connecting lines to form shapes and return to the starting point; in the "Incomplete" works, he made the lines extend beyond the rectangle. He incorporated into the work's form the impression that a line had missed the edge of the canvas. Given the artist's name, which may bring to mind comic-book figures and speech bubbles, what matters here is the path taken by the lines and where the canvas ends. The "incompleteness" in the title is not a judgment about the work, but a formal condition set by the artist.

Kim Tschang-Yeul's sculpture and Lichtenstein's print can be read together in this way. In one, a form in a painting has become an object; in the other, an image traced by lines has crossed the boundary of its rectangular frame. If the works had been displayed according to period and genre, they would have been far apart. Rather than foregrounding a chronological account, the exhibition creates opportunities to compare form and material. The connections visitors discover begin with small differences between the works, not with a list of great artists.

Similar comparisons are possible on the third floor. Near a work by Kim Tschang-Yeul featuring Chinese characters and water droplets hangs a painting by Lee Kang-so, marked by broad, loosely spaced brushstrokes. Beside a painting that carefully controls the contours and glints of water droplets, the traces of brushstrokes and layered paint stand out. Both images are still, but the movements of the hands we imagine behind them are different. Works by Lee Ufan, Ha Chong-hyun, Park Seo-Bo, and others, exploring dots and lines, repetition and empty space, are also on view on this floor. Ultimately, it is the way each artist handles materials that leads us to distinguish among works grouped together under the term "abstract."

The third-floor gallery of the Daelim Cultural Foundation Collection Exhibition, with Kim Changyeol’s “Recurrence” series (left) displayed alongside Lee Kangso’s painting. Visitors can compare the finely rendered water droplets with the painting’s strikingly free brushstrokes. Daelim Museum

The fourth floor, featuring works by Nam June Paik, images by Keiichi Tanaami, and photographs by Doug DuBois and Paolo Raeli, broadens the viewer's perspective. Whereas the paintings invite viewers to consider the relationship between paint and canvas, here technology, popular culture, and ways of documenting private life become part of the works. The exhibition also offers a chance to look back at how a museum that began with photography expanded its interest to multiple media.

The museum says it has set aside elaborate concepts for this exhibition to focus on "the works themselves." That statement is most convincing not when titles or backgrounds are stripped away, but when specific details usually obscured by familiar names come into view. Placing "Binida" in front makes the water-droplet painting behind it look different, and following Lichtenstein's lines makes us newly aware of the familiar rectangular frame. Rehanging a collection also means taking another look at works we thought we already knew.

The two droplets in the opening scene still resemble each other. But when we shift our gaze from the painted droplet to the glass on the stone, their differences become as clear as their likeness. Light painted on one side encounters actual light on the other. This collection exhibition begins by placing the two face to face. It runs through May 30, 2027. Admission is free.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.