Moon Shin: Towards the Universe

The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA) and Changwon Special City co-present Moon Shin: Towards the Universe, a retrospective exhibition commemorating the 100th anniversary of sculptor Moon Shin’s birth, from September 1, 2022 to January 29, 2023, at MMCA Deoksugung.

The large-scale retrospective offers a comprehensive view of his life and works spanning sculpture, painting, craft and architecture. Moon Shin (1922–1995) studied painting in Japan during the Japanese colonial era and returned to Korea to actively produce works as a painter before moving to France, where he gained recognition as a sculptor. This makes him a rare case in the history of Korean abstract sculpture, which burgeoned in the mid-1950s,  and even in the history of Korean modern art. The show seeks to convey freedom, solitude, passion, and tension as defined by the artist, who spent his entire life as a stranger as well as an outsider, and what each means in the contemporary era.

Born between a Japanese mother and a Korean father, who was an immigrant worker at a coal-mining village in Kyushu, Japan, Moon spent his childhood in his father’s hometown Masan (currently Changwon) until he moved to Japan at age 16 to study painting at Nihon Art School. He took off to France in 1961, when he was almost 40 and earning recognition as a painter, to permanently return to Korea in 1980 as a renowned sculptor. During his stay in Paris, he was invited to major salons of the time, including Salon de Mai, Salon Grands et Jeunes d’Aujourd’hui, and Salon des Réalité Nouvelle. After returning to Korea and settling in Masan, he cut all worldly ties and immersed himself in creative work before opening Moonshin Art Museum, a self-designed and constructed museum, in 1994, the year before his death.

Instead of a misfortune to endure, Moon considered his long life as an outsider in Korea, Japan, and France an impetus for creation in its truest sense. Not only did he transcend geographical, ethnic, and national boundaries as an outsider, but he also freely transgressed the border between life and art, expanding his artistic terrain from painting to sculpture to craft to interior design and even architecture. Furthermore, he traversed the dichotomous boundaries of East and West, tradition and modernity, figuration and abstraction, organic and geometric, subtraction and addition, format and content, and materiality and spirituality to find an exquisite balance between conflicting ideas. In this sense, symmetry as one of the most prominent characteristics of his sculptures holds significance beyond formal and structural balance. Inspired by nature and the cosmic universe, his authentically abstract sculptures are marked by symmetrical balance, frontality, verticality, and caftmanship. This exhibition largely divides his oeuvre not by chronology but into paintings, sculptures, and architectural work (public art), centering on the sculpture section, which overviews the different variations of form the artist worked with and examines his creative process. Drawing, as a genre of work that allowed his uniquely borderless definition and practice of art to manifest in an intuitive manner, serves as an important medium in connecting the four sections of the exhibition: 

The title of the exhibition Towards the Universe is the title Moon gave his diverse forms of sculpture. To the artist, who claimed that “Humans live in reality but dream of an invisible future (universe),” the universe was the “source of life,” an “uncharted territory,” and “home,” that is, something open in all directions. In this sense, the title embodies his pursuit of the source of life and creative energy as well as his challenge-loving attitude, which kept him looking outward rather than sinking inward.  

Part 1, “Into a Panorama,” is a section devoted to paintings, the beginning point of Moon’s artistic journey. The transition from figurative paintings that reflect the attitude of “living in the moment” to abstract paintings that explore the essence of life and form is panoramically splayed out together with the story of his dramatic life. The half a century’s worth of paintings demonstrate an exquisite level of completion, not to mention a formative aesthetic distinct from the sculptures the artist is known for.

Part 2, “Life of Forms: Rhythm of Life,” centers on wood sculptures, which Moon began to actively produce in the late 1960s upon his relocation to France. Sculptures by Moon, who placed utmost importance on form, can be divided into two large categories in terms of form: geometric sculptures in which spheres or hemispheres are constructively arranged in an infinitely diffusive or repetitive pattern and organic sculptures reminiscent of insects such as ants and butterflies, birds, and plants. In either case, Moon’s sculptures embody the “rhythm of life,” that is, the creative evolution of life or throbbing vitality. The many wood sculptures and drawings in this section propose not to look for symbolism or meaning but to simply savor the abstract forms of creativity and fantasy.

Part 3, “Thinking Hand: Craftmanship,” focuses on bronze sculptures. Moon tended to produce multiple sculptures of the same form in different sizes and media, and regardless of the material, he would always polish his sculptures to achieve a smooth surface. He skillfully wielded various materials and sculptural techniques, and the sculptures in this section attest to his strong physical strength, perseverance, and tireless labor. This section also features his drawings next to bronze works such as La Fourmi (1985) and Towards the Universe 3 (1989).

Part 4, “Urban Life and Sculptures,” explores Moon’s oeuvre from a broader perspective—in light of the city and urban environment. This section introduces his outdoor or so-called “environmental” sculptures as well as experimental public sculptures produced in France, including Habitable Sculpture and Sculpture Model for a Park. As these two works currently only remain in the form of photographs and drawings, they were reproduced in the form of VR and a 3D-printed model respectively based on the remaining documentation to be presented to the public for the first time. In this regard, the Moonshin Art Museum in Changwon is not only a museum self-designed and constructed by the artist but also a “Habitable sculpture” and a fruit of his 50-year career. Along with a video, this section features drawings produced in the process of the museum’s construction.