| For more information about this article or gallery, please call the gallery phone number listed in the last line of the article, "For more info..." |
October Issue 2007
Medical University in Charleston, SC, Features Works by Gi Wan Song
The Courtenay Gallery, located in MUSC's Harper Student Center in Charleston, SC, is presenting the exhibit, Peaceful Chaos, featuring the art of Korean-American Gi Wan Song. The exhibit is on view through Nov. 17, 2007.
Gi Wan Song was born in 1933 in Seoul, Korea. In his early youth he lost his father and experienced the upheaval of his family life during the Korean War. The young Song saw the ravages of war firsthand; bodies piled in careless heaps of a hundred, soldiers brutally murdering women and children, starving orphans running for their lives. These early images of human viciousness impressed themselves deeply within the artist's psyche. Song was never to forget the human capability for violence and destruction.
While in Korea Song voiced his opinions against the Korean government's anti-humanism practices, calling for a reunification of the South and North. He married in 1962 and chose to emigrate to the States after the birth of his last child in 1971. Like other immigrants then and now, Song hoped to find peace and harmony in the golden streets of America, a new country that had never seen war and its devastating results during this century. He did not, however, forget his home country. Song's political stance against the Korean government earned him a notorious reputation amongst the influential leaders of his homeland, and he was for a time, banned from re-entering Korea.
Song personally found relative success over the years in the state of New Jersey, together with his wife providing a decent home and life for their family. His busy working life left little time for artistic expression. However in 1986, he was able to publish a Korean historico-political documentary (banned in Korea) of his experiences in America.
Song began to concentrate on his visual art fairly recently. He utilized his self-taught skills and enhanced his own talent through hours of practice. Song's work is heavily influenced by Picasso and Moore. His 1994 entry in Plainfield, New Jersey's annual Outdoor Festival of Art - Eve of Dreams, won Song his first public recognition. Eve of Dreams placed first in the Festival, thus beginning Song's successful relationship with New Jersey's community of artists and shows. He has since moved to Charleston, where he continues his artistic journey.
Common to almost all of Song's works is the emphasis on humanity. Whether this is implicit or boldly declared, the artist's work is, like the man, deeply political by nature. His hope in the new millenium is for a World Declaration of Peace - not just for human pleasure, but for human survival.
For further information check our SC Institutional
Gallery listings or call Gallery Director, Michael Desrosiers
at 843/792-8263.
Carolina Arts is published monthly by Shoestring Publishing
Company, a subsidiary of PSMG, Inc.
Copyright© 2007 by PSMG, Inc., which published Charleston
Arts from July 1987 - Dec. 1994 and South Carolina Arts
from Jan. 1995 - Dec. 1996. It also publishes Carolina Arts
Online, Copyright© 2007 by PSMG, Inc. All rights reserved
by PSMG, Inc. or by the authors of articles. Reproduction or use
without written permission is strictly prohibited. Carolina
Arts is available throughout North & South Carolina.