The chairman of the 2,000 Friends and Supporters of the Kronberg Academy, Dr. Thomas Rüschen, was immediately enthusiastic about the idea proposed by internationally renowned painter Kejoo Park to donate the proceeds from the sale of her series of paintings inspired by Gustav Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde to the Kronberg Academy, in celebration of its 30th anniversary. Mahler’s song cycle serves as the resonant opening of this year’s Kronberg Academy Festival. The remarkable opening concert on Thursday at the Casals Forum, which has established itself as one of the best chamber music halls worldwide, was sold out in no time.

Mahler’s composition reflects a particularly painful period of his life, as explained by the guest speaker, Christiane von der Eltz, board member of Berlin-Chemie Menarini, while welcoming the numerous guests on Friday evening at the Uhn Gallery in Königstein. Inspired by the Taoist poetry of the 8th century (particularly Li Bai), the late Romantic composer created a work of dark beauty, in which hope ultimately shines through.

Kejoo Park was deeply moved when she first heard this composition in New York and was profoundly impressed by the “total artwork of East and West, of literature and music” spanning 1,200 years. The duality of joy and sorrow, youth and transience, life and death, dissolves into harmony in Taoism: Yin and Yang, where opposites become one, symbolize hope and have always influenced her work, as Kejoo Park explained in an interview. However, in her view, something was missing from Das Lied von der Erde: “Painting!”

This became the spark for the Korean-American artist to find her own visual language “100 years after Mahler!” Kejoo Park uses modern technical means to express the spirit of the times – “otherwise, it wouldn’t be honest.”

Nature and Humanity

The theme of nature and humanity has always been her personal source of inspiration, says Kejoo Park, who is also a landscape architect. Through her art, she wants to breathe new life into nature and create her own artistic world.

Those who look closely will notice a hint of glitter in her radiant paintings, which captivate viewers as they enter the Uhn Gallery: “Shining” – as dazzling and “glitzy” as our society today!

Galerist Jimin Leyrer was quickly won over by the charitable cause and organized last Friday’s vernissage in her Uhn Gallery in Königstein, where the exhibition will be on display until October 11.