Translated Vase, Yeesookyung

Artwork Overview

, artist
born 1963
Translated Vase, 2009
Where object was made: Seoul, South Korea
Material/technique: ceramic shards; twenty-four-carat gold leaf; twenty-four-carat gold powder; epoxy
Dimensions:
Object Height/Width/Depth (Height x Width x Depth): 170 x 80 x 85 cm
Object Height/Width/Depth (Height x Width x Depth): 66 15/16 x 31 1/2 x 33 7/16 in
Credit line: Museum purchase: Helen Foresman Spencer Art Acquisition Fund
Accession number: 2012.0033
On display: Loo Gallery

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Watch an interview with the artist (Korean with English subtitles, 8 min.)
Watch an interview with the artist (English, 2 min.)

Audio

Audio Tour – Bulldog Podcast
Audio Tour – Bulldog Podcast
The exquisitely formed piece of art known as Translated Vase was created in 2009 by South Korean artist Yee Sookyung. The artist uses ceramic shards, epoxy, 24K gold leaf, and 24K gold powder. In her series of fluid, slightly bulbous sculptures, she takes thrown out shards from present day Korean ceramicists and combines each naturally formed piece to produce asymmetric figurines typical to modern Korean art, such as the moon jar. By covering the cracks with gold, she seemingly refers to the Japanese tradition of mending ceramics known as kintsugi. For Yee Sookyung, her choice of gold is based on the Korean homophone of “gold” (geum) and “crack” (geum). She said, “I wanted to add a sense of humor to my work by filling geums (cracks), which are considered as defects, with a valuable material such as real geum (gold).” When I was choosing my piece of art for this podcast, this piece immediately caught my eye. I was awed by the flowing, elongated sculpture and I felt that this piece of art both showcases and explores the connection between modern and historical art of not only Korea, but Japan as well. By combining broken shards unsatisfactory to the perfectionist ceramicists, she creates new meaning and breathes new life into otherwise humble pieces. This has been another Bulldog Podcast by Justin Lee.
Listen to core object information.
Audio Description
Listen to core object information.
Audio Description
The artist is Yeesookyung, born in 1963 in Seoul, South Korea. The title of the work is Translated Vase, created in 2009. The work was made with ceramic shards, epoxy, 24 karat gold leaf, and 24 karat gold powder.
Listen to Audio Description
Audio Description
Listen to Audio Description
Audio Description
This is a large, globular ceramic sculpture constructed from many broken pieces of pottery. Each large piece is joined like a puzzle with what looks like molten gold for glue. Many of the pieces are completely white with a sheen of porcelain glaze. Some scattered pieces are patterned with blue in various designs. Some pieces have spouts, handles, vase necks, bases, or, in one place, a clawed and scaled foot of a creature. The overall shape is organic, bubbling out in all directions, with various appendages jutting out. On closer examination, some pieces are more identifiable than others. A teapot extends its spout from the uppermost tip, while three jug spouts converge on a lower projection. Ring bases of vases show circular patterns primarily around the lower half. Most of the blue on white patterning is painted, but a few places have a raised texture of rocky, stylized mountains and puffy, swirling clouds. Some painted ceramic pieces show floral imagery. Others show birds in flight or perched in a tree. The overall effect is a meticulous yet haphazard ceramic assemblage in white and blue, with cracks highlighted in gleaming gold.
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Audio Description
Listen to Label Text
Audio Description
Yee’s artistic practice delves deep into Korean consciousness, uncovering fragments of historical memory that she transforms into new manifestations of contemporary life. The sculptures in her Translated Vessels series are composed of broken ceramic pieces from waste piles of Korean ceramicists that she reimagines as biomorphic “mutant” sculptures. Each organically shaped form emerges from a painstaking jigsaw-puzzle process in which Yee instigates new connections between disparate shards.
Hear a SWMS student's perspective.
Audio Tour – Bulldog Art Tour
Hear a SWMS student's perspective.
Audio Tour – Bulldog Art Tour
Listen to Tombstone
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Listen to Tombstone
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Listen to Audio Description
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