Preface: Shaping the Future in Sculpture

A World of Illusion Mediated by Light: Jeong Jeongju
Kim Sungho / Art critic, visiting & General Director of the 2026 Geumgang Nature Art Biennale

The Poetics of Movement, Shaped by Unadorned Human Touch: Ahn Soojin
Park Choonho / Chief Curator, The Kim Chong Yung Museum

Forms That Sustain the Burden of Existence: Bae Hyungkyung
Gim Jonggil / Art critic

Sculpting the Sweet Happiness: Noh Jun
Jung Hayoon / Art critic

The New Relationship Between Sculpture and Space: Park Choongheum
Jung Youngmok / Art critic

EQUINOX: The Moment of Equilibrium: Park Wonjoo
Kim Jungrak / Art critic

A Subversion of Vision that Embraces Anxiety: Im Suniy
Lim Seonghoon / Aesthetician & Art critic

A New Paradigm Beyond the Realm of Art: Kim Eull
Ryu Byounghak / Art critic

A Sculptural Poem without Precedent, where Matter and Spirit Intersect: Na Jeomsoo
Kho Chunghwan / Art critic

Black Sculptures of Construction and Deconstruction: Sim Seungwook
Lee Sunyoung / Art critic

Tranquil, and Distinctly Korean in Spirit: Kim Jooho
Kim Jinha / Art critic & Director of Namu Art Gallery

Sculpture That Reaches the Real: Shin Jonghun
Chae Gilwon / Art critic

A Roundtable on the Future of K-Sculpture

저자 : 고충환
미술평론가
Kho Chunghwan / Art critic
Kho Chunghwan graduated from the Department of Painting at Yeungnam University and received his master’s degree in Aesthetics from the Graduate School of Hongik University. In 1996, he launched his career as an art critic after winning the Chosun Ilbo New Year's Literary Awards with his piece Beyond the Phenomenology of Kitsch: Reading Kitsch in the Art of a New Generation. His work has since been recognized with the Sunggok Art Award (2001) and an Encouragement Prize in the Academic category of the Monthly Art Award, (2006). As a curator, he has organized Representation of Representation at the Sunggok Art Museum, The Contested Points of Criticism at the POSCO Art Museum, The Shell of Skin of Sculpture at the Moran Museum of Art, and Drawing Sculpture: A Castle in the Air at the Seoul Olympic Museum of Art (SOMA). He is the author of the book A Fearsome Depth and a Beautiful Surface (2006), and co-author of Korean Art Through the Lens of Criticism (2001).

저자 : 김성호
평론가, 성신여대 초빙교수, 2026금강자연미술비엔날레 총감독
Kim Sungho / Art critic, visiting professor at Sungshin Women’s University, General Director of the 2026 Geumgang Nature Art Biennale.
Kim Sungho holds a B.A. in Western Painting and an M.A. in Culture and Arts from Chung-Ang University, completed the DEA in Philosophy from Paris X University, and received his Ph.D. in Aesthetics and Art Studies from Paris I University. He has served as Adjunct Professor in the Department of Western Painting at Chung-Ang University, Director of the Yeoju Art Museum, and Postdoctoral Researcher at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST). His curatorial leadership includes serving as Artistic Director and General Director of the 2020 Changwon Sculpture Biennale, the 2021 Gangwon International Triennale, and the 7th Anyang Public Art Project in 2023. He is the author of six books, including Artificial Intelligence and the Ontology of Images (2024), and twenty co-authored volumes, such as Curating Art (2022). In addition, eighteen of his research papers have appeared in indexed academic journals.

저자 : 김정락
미술평론가
Kim Jungrak / Art critic
Kim Jungrak graduated from the College of Fine Arts at Seoul National University and earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Freiburg in Germany. His professional roles include Chief Curator at the Kim Chong Yung Museum of Art and lecturer at institutions such as KAIST, Seoul National University, and Korea University. He has further served as Professor at Korea National Open University and as an Outside Director of Crown Confectionery Co., Ltd.

저자 : 김종길
미술평론가
Gim Jonggil / Art critic
Gim Jonggil received his B.A. in Environmental Sculpture from the University of Seoul and an M.A. in Cultural Arts Management from Kyung Hee University, and pursued doctoral studies in Art Theory at Kookmin University. His research engages deeply with the social practice and spirituality of art, focusing on Minjung art, Shamanic Realism, and Buddhist art. By advancing site-oriented criticism, he contributes to the expansion of contemporary Korean art discourse, serving as a bridge between theory and practice.

저자 : 김진하
미술평론가
Kim Jinha / Art critic
Kim Jinha graduated from the Department of Western Painting at the College of Fine Arts, Hongik University. Beginning in 1984 has pursued a multifaceted career as painter, printmaker, university lecturer, art critic, exhibition organizer, and publishing designer. He has presented two solo exhibitions and taken part in dozens of group shows as an artist, and published numerous critical studies of artists. As a curator, he has organized and overseen around 250 international and domestic exhibitions of varying scale. He has also served as Director of Art Consulting Seoul, Planning Director of the Korea Print Photography Promotion Association, and a civilian committee member of the Innovation Task Force at Arts Council Korea. At present, he leads Namu Art Gallery as its Director. His publications include Korean Modern and Contemporary Woodblock Prints in Publishing Art: Wooden Mirror and The Person Who Becomes Like a Tree: Woodblock Artist Kim Sangku. As editor, he has compiled works including The Return of Gildong: Shin Dong-woo and Gwanghwamun Art Action: One Hundred Days of Documentation.

저자 : 류병학
미술평론가, 큐레이터
Ryu Byounghak / Art critic, curator
He graduated from the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart in Germany and is active as an art critic and guest curator at Gallery R. In 1990 he received the IG Metall Prize in Germany, and in 2008 he was awarded the President Roh Moo-hyun Prize.

저자 : 박춘호
김종영미술관 학예실장
Park Choonho / Chief Curator of the Kim Chong Yung Museum
Park Choonho graduated from the Department of Sculpture at Seoul National University and its graduate school, then moved to the United States in 1987, completing his M.F.A. at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn in 1992. Returning to Korea in 1994, he became a first-generation resident artist at the National Goyang Studio in 2005. He later pursued doctoral studies in the Interdisciplinary Program of Visual Culture at Korea University, earning his Ph.D. in Literature in August 2012 with the dissertation Epistemological Genealogy of Discourses in Modern Korean Art History: Focusing on Transformation in Visual Regimes and the Concept of Field

저자 : 이선영
미술평론가
Lee Sunyoung / Art critic
Lee Sunyoung made her debut in 1994 through the Chosun Ilbo New Year’s Literary Contest in the art criticism category. She has served as an editor-in-chief of the web journal Art and Discourse and as editor-in-chief of Korean Journal of Art Criticism. Her accolades include the 1st Jeonggwan Kim Bokjin Theory Prize (2006), the Korean Art Critics Association Award in Theory (2009), and the AICA Young Critics Prize (2014). She currently contributes regular columns to Seoul Art Guide (www.daljin.com).

저자 : 임성훈
미학자, 미술평론가
Lim Seonghoon / Aesthetician, art critic
Lim Seonghoon graduated from the Department of Aesthetics at Seoul National University and earned both his M.A. and Ph.D. from the Faculty of Cultural History and Theory at the Humboldt University of Berlin. He has served as a member of the Seoul Metropolitan Artworks Review Committee and as President of the Society of Contemporary Art Science. At present, he serves as Assistant Professor in the College of Creative Convergence at Sungshin Women’s University, holds the position of Vice President of the Europe Culture Arts Association, and works as Director of International Exchange for The Korean Society of Aesthetics and Science of Art.

저자 : 정영목
미술평론가
Jung Youngmok / Art critic
Jung Youngmok served as Professor in the Department of Western Painting at Sookmyung Women’s University College of Fine Arts and at Seoul National University College of Fine Arts. At present, he is Professor Emeritus at Seoul National University and serves on the boards of the Chang Ucchin Foundation and the Yoo Youngkuk Art Foundation. He has held positions including inaugural president of the Korean Society of Art Theories, president of the Association of Western Art History, and director of the Seoul Mountain Climbing & Culture Center.

저자 : 정하윤
미술평론가, 현대미술사 미술사학자
Jung Hayoon / Art critic, historian of contemporary art
Jung Hayoon holds a B.A in Painting and M. A. in Art History at Ewha Womans University. She earned her Ph.D. in Chinese Contemporary Art History at the University of California, San Diego. She currently teaches art history at the National Museum of Korea, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, and Ewha Womans University, while continuing her writing activities. Among her authored works are Ephemeral Painting, Eternal Sensibility - Impressionism, The Museum in Bloom, The Woman’s Museum, Curtain Call: Korean Contemporary Art, and To Those Beginning a Mother’s Time.

저자 : 채길원
미술평론가
Chae Gilwon / Art critic
Chae Gilwon graduated from the Department of Sculpture at Seoul National University and completed an M. A. program in Art Studies at Hochschule fur Bildende Kunste Braunschweig in Germany. He has presented solo exhibitions such as Presentation and participated in group shows including SPIT JOHN. As curator, he has organized exhibitions for artists including Kim Mihyun, Park Doyoun, Shin Jonghun, Lee Sangyoon, and Kang Hoyeon. He currently serves as curator at the Kim Chong Yung Museum.

The Future of K-Sculpture, Through the Lens of Sculpture

Where is Korean sculpture today, and where should it go from here? This question lies at the heart of K-SCULPTURE IV: The Future of K-Sculpture Expanding Globally 3. Twelve sculptors who embody the current landscape of Korean sculpture engage in dialogue with twelve leading art critics, together tracing the formative ideas woven into their works, the questions of our time that they confront, and the possibilities that await.

The sculptors featured in this volume-Jeong Jeongju, Ahn Soojin, Bae Hyungkyung, Noh Jun, Park Choongheum, Park Wonjoo, Lim Sunyi, Kim Eull, Na Jeomsoo, Sim Seungwook, Kim Jooho, and Shin Jonghun-have each developed a distinctive sculptural universe through their own materials, forms, themes, and methodologies. Light and space, body and being, matter and spirit, memory and anxiety, deconstruction and construction, Korean sensibility and contemporary experience-their works reveal the remarkable breadth of sculpture today, expanding its language into a multiplicity of voices and possibilities.

What distinguishes this book is that it goes beyond simply presenting the works. Each critic delves deeply into the artist’s world, exploring what sculpture seeks to express and how it engages with its audience. Artist interviews are woven throughout the book, offering readers direct access to the ideas, experiences, and creative processes behind each work-insights that the works themselves cannot fully reveal. The accompanying video interviews and audiobook further enrich the experience, inviting readers to encounter sculpture in a more immersive and multidimensional manner,

The K-SCULPTURE series has never been limited to raising awareness of the value of Korean sculpture at home; it has continually sought to develop a sculptural language capable of speaking to the world. Its fourth publication, K-SCULPTURE IV: The Future of K-Sculpture Expanding Globally 3, carries that vision forward. By bringing together artists with distinct identities and sculptural languages, the book offers a panoramic view of Korean sculpture today while considering, from within that broader perspective, the possibilities that K-Sculpture holds on the global art stage.

Sculpture is the art of shaping the sensibility of an era into matter. K-SCULPTURE IV: The Future of K-Sculpture Expanding Globally 3 records the present moment of Korean sculpture, drawing out the discourse within it to prepare for what lies ahead. May this book, forged jointly by twelve sculptors and twelve critics, serve as a fresh point of departure - for understanding where Korean sculpture stands today, and for envisioning where K-Sculpture might yet go.