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| Monk-artist Jung Kwang, better known as “The Mad Monk” / Courtesy of Seoul Arts Center |
By Park Han-sol
The Jeju Island-born Buddhist monk Jung Kwang (1935-2002), whose birth name was Go Chang-ryul, was identified with several different, sometimes contradicting nicknames: “The Mad Monk,” “The Mop Monk” (or his own favorite “The Buddhist Mop”) and “The Picasso of Korea.”
As this series of monikers indicates, the late monk-artist was an idiosyncratic figure during his time, painting and writing pieces that were deemed vulgar and contrary to the precepts of the ascetic Zen Buddhism. As a daring rule breaker, his controversial behaviors and outspokenness eventually saw him expelled from the monastery in 1979, 19 years after his entrance.
The Jeju provincial government announced that 432 of Jung Kwang’s art pieces, which include his free-spirited and “obscene” paintings, have returned to the island, Thursday, as part of a donation made by Gana Art Chairman Lee Ho-jae.
With the donated pieces, the island plans to establish an art museum dedicated to the monk-artist in the Artists’ Village at Hangyeong, a township on the western tip of the island.
His works have been showcased globally at the Asia Society Museum in New York, the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco and Tokyo Art Expo, with some stored in collections of the British Museum and the Rockefeller Foundation.
‘Mad Monk’ Jung Kwang’s art returns to Jeju Island
Source: Buhay Kapa PH
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