HA CHONG-HYUN

A major figure of Korean abstract painting, Ha Chong-Hyun (b. 1935) is a founding member of the avant-garde movement Dansaekhwa (whose name means ‘monochrome painting’) that came about in the early ‘70s in Korea. He has played an essential role in the international reconsideration of the history of abstraction and modernity. Within this new generation of artists, his formal explorations, primarily guided by material and volume, the surface of the canvas, and the frame, profoundly transformed the nature of Korean art, while also converging with movements or groups of Western artists with similar concerns, at least in the radicalness that characterised the time, such as Supports/Surfaces, Arte Povera or Post-Minimalism. [...]

For his monochrome Conjunctions, Ha Chong-Hyun has invented an unconventional artistic technique that has become his signature. In his desire to free himself from the constraint of the medium, paint is not only applied to the front of the canvas. Ha also places it on the verso of the hemp fabric, pressing it so that it passes through the fabric. Subtle variations in light, texture, and colour thus appear on the front of the canvas, depending on the size of the gaps in the weave and how tightly it is woven, and the amount of paint the artist chooses to force through by the strength of his gesture.

— Charles Barachon, art critic and writer

Press release courtesy Almine Rech