Critical Writing Index

Hyunki Park: Neo-Metaphysical Video and Conceptual Art

by Robert C. Morgan

PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, Sept. 2007, v. 29, no. 3, pp. 30-33

After Nam June Paik, writes author Robert C. Morgan, the most important advances in Korean video art occurred with the works of Hyunki Park. In Park's works, Buddhist themes as well as Western philosophy are explored and his style is reminiscent of minimalism and conceptual art. Park can be credited with expanding the experimental nature of video art in the 1960s and 1970s, especially in relation to "sculptural and non-material form". Morgan compares Park's Water series (1979) to Robert Smithson's mirror work and Jan Dibbets' Perspective Correction, which seem to possess some shared characteristics, at least on the surface, but which seem to reflect very different intentions. While Smithson's and Dibbets' works are concerned with dualities, Park's work is concerned with unity. Park's work is more metaphysical than his Western counterparts' and Park seems to wish "for the illusion of things to reveal themselves in the Buddhist way".

ITEM 2007.171 – available for viewing in the Research Centre

Videos, Artworks and Artists Cited

WaterHyunki Park

MandalaHyunki Park