01. Documentary
02. Art Critics

The Truly Original Sculpture of Donghun SUNG
International exchange in contemporary art increased dramatically in the 1990s. Sculpture in Asia benefitted greatly and has steadily advanced since. Within this global movement, Korean sculptor Sung Donghun has manifested his own individuality through his artworks. In the catalogue titled Nomadism of Brain, published in conjunction with his solo exhibition in 2009, Sung revealed his thoughts on nomadism. He believes that nomadism means thinking without being bound by any kind of form and perception, and he has actively engaged in sculpture in diverse societies with mixed cultures. Thus, nomadism for Sung not only serves as a foundation for his ideas but is a specific means for his work. A good example is Into Brain, a typical sculpture that reflects Sung’s consciousness. A skull of cement and stainless steel splits open to reveal what seems to be a network of neural circuitry inside that expresses how humans receive diverse stimuli from outside and process them. Sung’s sculptures are quite singular in that he concentrates enormously on their insides. Many of his works are made to open and close, and he put symbolic things inside. The opening and closing of his sculptures makes their form and the meaning inside the form all the richer. The appearance of his sculpture from a distance is completely different from that when one is close.
Sung became famous in the Korean art world in the 1990s with his Don Quixote series. He broke away from the Don Quixote series in 1999, effectively breaking his mold and engaging in diverse forms of sculpture. It was actually already in the 1990s that Sung began to produce different types of works that express his thoughts about politics, society, and history, and the burdens and responsibilities of an artist toward society. However, he had done the Don Quixote series so extensively that Sung was widely misperceived as having done only that and nothing else. Even so, Sung’s Don Quixote series is extremely varied in both form and materials used. Korean art critics have already long analyzed and accurately assessed Sung’s Don Quixote series, so I will concentrate on how the Don Quixote series in his early years has influenced his later works from an artistic perspective. The overall formativeness and dignity of these works impart a feeling of power to viewers and seem to fill Sung’s sculptures with dynamic energy. Even his works about sex manifest energy, vitality, and the basic instinct that humans have as living things.

《金英雄.破神話》—評朱銘美術館成東勳鋼雕展 Golden Hero in Shattered Myth- Steel Sculpture of Sung Dong-Hun
CHEN, Kuang-Yi
國立台灣藝術大學美術系、所專任副教授
National Taiwan University of Arts, Associate Professor
The “Gold Hero in Shattered Myth” staged by Juming Museum in May 2011 created an occasion for the dialogs of two Asian sculptors Liu Po-Chun, a well-known Taiwanese sculptor, and Sung Dong-Hun, invited artist-in-residence. Sung was born in 1967 in Busan, Korea. In 1990 he won two first prizes of sculpture with his “Don Quixote Series” and became noticed by Korean art society. Sung is prolific and his artworks are highly credited. Since 2001 he began to reside in art villages all over Americas, Asia and Europe. He also hosts International Desert Art Project. Sung loves to know different cultures and passionately integrates different cultural elements into his art. In this exhibition he presented his steel sculpture since 2007 and his highly praised “Don Quixote Series”, and the projects he accomplished in collaboration with the Tung Ho Steel Corporation during his residency in Juming Museum. Among these works, the “Sound Tree- Happy Tree of Jinshan” was the largest in scale.
Steel sponsored by Tung Ho was the major material for Sung’s creation during his residency. The birth of steel industry at the dawn of the nineteenth century played a crucial role in the industrial revolution, and steel became the foundation of all industries. The production and consumption of steel were often used to judge a country’s economic status.
Pretty soon steel was brought into art by avant-garde artists, which made steel in art paralleled to glass as the new material for modern architecture. In the beginning of the twentieth century, steel began to be used in sculpture. Today, after more than one hundred years, how does Korean artist Sung Dong-Hon respond to the complicated history and unique characteristics of steel sculpture? How does he reflect and relate the cultures of Taiwan and Korea with this medium?