Almine Rech Brings Dansaekhwa to Paris

By Almine Rech – 18 March 2026, Paris

Almine Rech is pleased to announce Forming the Monochrome: Masters of Dansaekhwa. Featuring works by Ha Chong-Hyun, Lee Ufan, Park Seo-Bo, Yun Hyong-keun, and Chung Sang-Hwa, the exhibition will be on view at the gallery’s Paris, Matignon space from 21 March to 23 May 2026.

Curator and scholar Yoon Jin Sup was the first to coin the term ‘Dansaekhwa’ in 2000. In his introduction to the catalogue for the exhibition The Facet of Korean and Japanese Contemporary Art at the Gwangju Biennale in 2000, Yoon described it as “devoted to the process of repetition and specificity of material based on meditative nature, which is the opposite of the Western Minimalism and monochrome’s rationality and logic”. That this generation-defining movement was named retrospectively attests to its loose and decentralised nature. Never a formal school or a tight circle, Dansaekhwa was and remains a shared sensibility amongst a group of artists active in South Korea from the 1970s.

Chung Sang-Hwa, Untitled 2017-5-12 (2017). Acrylic on canvas. 53 x 45.5 cm, 21 x 18 in (unframed); 63 x 55 x 5 cm - 25 x 21 1/2 x 2 in (framed). © Chung Sang-Hwa. Courtesy of the Artist and Almine Rech. Photo: Nicolas Brasseur

Ha Chong-Hyun, Conjunction 24-82 (2024). Oil on hemp cloth. 162 x 130 cm, 64 x 51 in (unframed). © Ha Chong-Hyun. Courtesy of the Artist and Almine Rech. Photo: Eva Herzog.

In recent decades Dansaekhwa has found a wider audience outside of Korea, significantly supported by the sustained output of artists, many of them well into their eighties, who continue to work in the tradition. Forming the Monochrome will explore the collective characteristics, as well as the individual expressions, that defined this movement, whose influence can still be seen today.

The exhibition is organised in celebration of the 140th anniversary of diplomatic relations and friendship between France and Korea (1886–2026).