‘Monochrome Master’ Park Seo-bo Releases Autobiography
Posthumous Manuscript Published Simultaneously,
, ‘“I will be ninety the day after tomorrow. But change is necessary. I can’t just sit back and fall.”’,
, Park Seo-bo (1931-2023), a master of Korean contemporary art known as the “Father of Monochrome Painting,” advocated his personal “theory of change” as he approached ninety. In his autobiography, “Words of Park Seo-bo” (Skira Publishers), which will be published simultaneously worldwide on the 26th, he emphasizes, “Without change, one falls. But even with change, one might fall,” and criticizes, “Most artists try to change ‘for free’ with just ideas. That’s only changing the shell.”
, “Words of Park Seo-bo,” the first Korean book by Italian publisher Skira, is based on a manuscript written by Park during his lifetime and edited by his son, Park Seung-ho, chairman of the Park Seo-bo Foundation. In this book, which covers his life and artistic growth up to the early 1980s, Park confesses that he is wrongly called a ‘genius,’ stating, “It took exactly 5 years to transition from pencil work to zigzag work.”
, Park was a prominent artist in resistance to the government-led “National Exhibition of Fine Arts (Kukjeon).” Despite the government’s efforts to integrate Kukjeon as a comprehensive art event, he participated only once in 1974, which he reflects on in his autobiography as “one of the few mistakes of my life.” Afterward, he neither exhibited in Kukjeon nor mentioned it in his career.
, Park, who played a key role in popularizing and internationalizing Korean contemporary art, is especially famous for his abstract series ‘Ecriture’ begun in the 1970s. This involves drawing and erasing lines with a pencil or wooden spatula on wet hanji (Korean paper) before it dries, abstracting physical actions and expanding the possibilities of painting.
, The autobiography comes as a set with a graphic novel. The graphic novel visually narrates Park’s life from his childhood until shortly before his passing in 2023. During a meeting at the Park Seo-bo Foundation in Yeonhui-dong, Seoul, on the 24th, Chairman Park Seung-ho stated, “We wanted to present not a grand hero, but a human being Park Seo-bo, who is not different from any father.” He added, “Readers will discover the other, overlooked aspects of him.”