Special Exhibition
김환기와 브라질_새로운 우리의 노래로…
Whanki in Brazil, Where a New Song Begins
In the summer of 2025, a painting owned by Yvette Moreno—who began as Kim Whanki’s “special student” during his New York period and later became a close friend of Mrs. Whanki, Kim HyangAn— returned from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Whanki Museum presents this exhibition to celebrate the new acquisition to the Whanki Museum collection.
The 7th São Paulo Biennale in 1963 marked a turning point for Kim Whanki, as it led him to move to New York, a center of the contemporary art world, and inspiring him to explore new style of expression. Among the works he produced in New York, fourteen were exhibited in HORS CONCOURS at the 8th São Paulo Biennale in 1965. In 1975, the year following Whanki’s passing, Kim HyangAn curated a large-scale retrospective featuring fifty of his works—mainly Whanki’s dot paintings—at the 13th São Paulo Biennale. HyangAn noted that Yvette Moreno arranged companions for HyangAn’s first visit to Brazil.
This exhibition offered a special look into Whanki’s connection with the São Paulo Biennale through works such as ‘Moon Night of Island’, one of paintings that earned him an honorary award in painting, and ‘Mountain and Moon’, which was shown in his retrospective in 1975. It also include archival materials from the São Paulo Biennale, and documents by both Kim Whanki and Kim HyangAn. It bring a chance to reflect on their memories in Brazil and the profound significance of the São Paulo Biennale in Whanki’s artistic journey.
I hope that there could be appear in my paintings our native songs, songs of our landscapes with moon and stars of each season and often with sun. These twelve paintings which mostly done in New York since last year are myself’s songs of the echos of mountains and morning stars of each season and some times in early morning of very cold winter and a kind of musical sounds of spring.
I would like to compose in my canvas our race’s poetry.
I have not learned by our ancestor’s paintings but my text books were our ceramics made by our skillful ancestors, it’s shapes, colors, lines and the sketches painted on them; and our folk arts made by unknown artists, wooden furnitures, stone sculptures, metal works, etc – ; and of course mainly our real natures of our country.
Kim Whanki
May 11, 1965 at New York
ⓒ 2025 WHANKI MUSEUM Curatorial Department
ⓒ Whanki Foundation‧Whanki Museum