In Milan the solo exhibition of the greatest living Korean artist, Ha Chong-Hyun

Cardi Gallery in Milan is hosting a solo exhibition of the greatest living Korean artist, Ha Chong-Hyun, until December 20, 2019.

A leading figure in Korea ’s Dansaekhwa art movement, the artist devoted himself to the expressive potential of unconventional materials, such as newsprint, scrap wood and barbed wire applied to canvas, in the authoritarian political context that characterized Korea in the 1960s and 1970s. Ha Chong-Hyun helped redefine the language of painting, working with muted earth tones on canvas and hemp surfaces and combining Eastern and Western painting traditions.

In 1974, he began to focus on the materiality of painting and to use canvas not only as a mere support: this gave rise to the Conjunction series, which reflects the artist’s philosophy that the purity of the painting medium and the physicality of the artist merge in the act of painting. Here the author uses tools to push oil color, monochrome, from the back of the raw canvas until it seeps and emerges through the surface; he then spreads the paint on the front of the canvas with a brush or palette knife, resulting in a wide variety of abstract compositions. On display are works from the Conjunction series executed between 1972 and 2019. In these works, the neutral, deep blue colors typical of the artist are complemented by intense shades of blue, red, and black, colors reminiscent of Korean interiors. In particular, vermilion red is a new element, as it has only been introduced in Ha Chong-Hyun’s works since 2018.

The Dansaekhwa movement, a term that literally means monochromatic painting, defines both the techniques used and the reductionist aesthetic the group refers to.

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In Milan the solo exhibition of the greatest living Korean artist, Ha Chong-Hyun

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