Tai-Jung Um: Sculptures and Drawings (German and English Edition)
by By Um, Tai-jung and Tietenberg, Annette
Category: Art , Techniques , Drawing

Tai-Jung Um, born in 1938 in Moon-Kyung, is one of Korea's most renowned sculptors. In the sixties he discovered the artistic potential of iron and steel. Like Anthony Caro, Eduardo Chillida, and David Smith, Tai-Jung Un consciously seeks to embrace materials that are used in industrial production. Initially, he utilized these materials to demonstrate how closed units aspired to move outward, breaking and bursting open, but as of the seventies he started to concentrate on the repetition of elementary shapes and forms. In a series of works that oscillate between floor reliefs and sculptures spanning space, he experiments with the possibilities of the rectangle and explores the relationship of colour and spatial bodies. And in the eighties he arrived at the material that was to become his "own", namely copper. Copper's colour tonalities, gleam, and essential properties henceforth fascinated him. He devised a special welding technique in order to be able to join cooper sheet with brass elements, and swiftly emerged as a master of surface design. The year 2000 marked the beginning of a new era for Tai-Jung Um, too. He abandoned the semantics of materials such as copper, brass, and bronze, and turned his attention to aluminum instead. Like Donald Judd, he appreciates the neutrality of aluminum's smooth reflective surface, and likewise limits himself to the repertoire of basic geometrical shapes.