Tchah-Sup Kim

Tchah-Sup Kim (, 10 June 1940 – 28 August 2022) was a Korean painter and printmaker.

In 1990, Kim and his partner and artist Myong Hi Kim (1949–) bought an abandoned school building near Chuncheon, Gangwon Province in South Korea, as their studio space. Since then, the couple has worked between Korea and the US.

Early life Kim was born in Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan, while his father worked on, most likely managed, the construction of an airfield for the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force near Nagoya. In the winter of 1944, Kim and his family fled Japan to Korea, traveling to his father's hometown, Angang near Gyeongju City in North Gyeongsang Province. By August 1945, Korea gained its independence from Japan. In 1950, the Korean War began, which led the family to flee from and return to Angang. In 1961 and 1962, Kim was awarded at the annually-held, government-hosted National Art Exhibition.

Career

In Korea By the commission of artist Cho Yong-ik, Kim participated in the 5th Biennale de Paris in 1967. The triangle and sun motif, which Kim continued to pursue throughout his practice, begins to appear in his work. Members were mostly alumni of the Seoul National University's College of Fine Arts, such as Hee Ja Park (1946-), Bukang Yu (1943–), Jagyong Lee (1943–), Myunghi Cha (1947–), and Dongchul Ha (1942–2006). Kulim Kim (1936–) was another prominent member. The members each pursued their own innovative painting styles, including pop art, op art, and kinetic art, presenting them at the Sinmun Hoegwan Gallery. Kim showed a large painting titled Self-Portrait (1968), depicting five headless and limbless torsos, each connected to a different culture. Its mission statement was published on its self-published, eponymously titled journal AG as: "The AG has been established to contribute to the progress of Korean art and culture by exploring and creating a new plastic order in the visionless Korean art worlds on the basis of strong consciousness towards avant-garde art." Members included artists such as Hoon Kwak, Seung-Won Suh (1942–), Myoungyoung Choi (1941–), and Chong Hyun Ha (1935–). The 100 people were artists, critics, and various other art-related cultural workers who were not given any prior notice. And scholars, such as Yeon Shim Chung, noted Relics of Mass Media to be the two artists' "critical response to Korean artists' neglect of electronic media and technology, the dematerialization of art and information technology as a medium."

In 1970, Kim participated in the International Biennial Exhibition of Prints in Tokyo. His submitted work, Composition B (1970), incorporates not only Kim's triangle motif but also fields of pebbles and stones, which continued to appear in his later etching works.

In 1971, Kim participated in the São Paulo Art Biennial with a sculptural installation work titled Situation-A (1971). Made near the Ehwa Girls’ High School, where Kim taught art, the work was composed of what seemed to be plain wooden planks set at an angle, upon which were smaller wooden rectangular and conical objects. The installation as a whole resembled Korean traditional pillories, thus alluding to the struggle between religion and pure mathematics or sciences.

In 1973, for Ehwa Girls’ High School's auditorium, Kim painted a mural depicting Yu Gwansun. The Korean independence activist organizer and symbolic figure tied to the March First Independence Movement was a student at Ehwa Girls’ High School. This was Kim's last work before relocating to New York, USA.

In the US

In 1974, Kim received a fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation, which allowed him to relocate to New York City and study at Pratt Institute.

Collections Kim's works can be found in the following collections:

The Museum of Modern Art, New York (https://www.moma.org/artists/3096) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/486660) Brooklyn Museum, New York (https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/artists/5930/objects) The Harvard Art Museums, Boston (https://hvrd.art/o/175975) The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea