Kyungmi Shin, Fly to India for gold, Ransack the Ocean for Orient Pearl

68 Projects, Berlin | January 13 - February 24, 2024

The suite of 12 works that I created at the Berlin residency are inspired by the Asian porcelain collection of Augustus II the strong(12 May 1670 – 1 February 1733) in Dresden which numbered at 29,000 at the end of his life.  His fascination with and obsession over the porcelain objects from Asia was not a unique habit of his but rather a pandemic of sorts among the European royals in the 17th and 18th century and beyond.  I am fascinated by this obsession over the fantasy of the Cathay, Asia, China and India, and the influence of that obsession in the European aesthetics in Baroque, Rococo and beyond.  

In the painted prints I created at the Berlin residency studio, I juxtaposed photographs of porcelain objects from the Dresden collection with a variety of Chinoiserie landscape paintings.  These European designs of these fantasy landscapes have a heavy focus on flowers and decorative leaves and doll-like Asian figures frolicking at the base of the larger than life size plants. These designs were sent over to China and were painted on silk in China, mostly around the present day Gwangzuo to be brought back to Europe and used as wall decorations on palaces and mansions.  European painters were also commissioned to create chinoiserie wallpaper paintings, like an example you can see at the Charlottenburg Schloss in Berlin. 

Over these layers of chinoiserie images, I introduced mythological creatures from Korean shaman and folk narratives executed as painted lines.  Over an image of three bulbous forms of a Chinese porcelain vase, three-headed bird, which is meant to bring good fortune, is overlaid.  Over a porcelain boat, I paint an outline of a dragon which rules the sea.  Over a porcelain sculpture of a kneeling elephant, I am painting an image of "bulgasari" creature which translate to "the unknowable" with an elephantile trunk and a body of a lion.  These juxtapositions of traditional Korean narratives over the chinoiserie images create a complex dialogue about history, fantasy and the imagination inspired by the cultural exchanges and trades.

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