Korean artist-obituary
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| ▲ Artist Chung Sang-hwa attends a press conference for his retrospective at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, in this file photo from May 21, 2021. (Yonhap) |
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| ▲ Visitors take photos of Chung Sang-hwa's paintings at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, in this file photo from May 21, 2021. (Yonhap) |
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| ▲ A man views paintings by Chung Sang-hwa at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, in this file photo from May 21, 2021. (Yonhap) |
Korean artist-obituary
'Dansaekhwa' master Chung Sang-hwa dies at 93
By Woo Jae-yeon
SEOUL, Jan. 28 (Yonhap) -- Chung Sang-hwa, one of contemporary Korean art's preeminent practitioners of monochrome abstract painting, or "dansaekhwa," died Wednesday at the age of 93.
The painter passed away at 3:40 a.m., according to Gallery Hyundai, which had maintained a close relationship with the artist since hosting Chung's first solo exhibition in 1983.
Born in 1932 in Yeongdeok, North Gyeongsang Province, Chung studied fine art at Seoul National University. After graduating in 1957, he became a key figure in the country's avant-garde art scene, working abroad in Paris and Kobe, Japan, and participating in major international exhibitions, including the Paris Biennale in 1965 and the Sao Paulo Biennale in 1967.
His signature style centers on a labor-intensive, repetitive process of adding and removing paints to create layered, grid-like compositions that convey a meditative and monochromatic abstraction.
His time-consuming artistic process could take up to a year to complete a single work, and he reportedly never employed assistants.
In May 2021, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art held a major retrospective of the artist, looking at his extensive body of work, which it said has "not received sufficient research in the past despite the significance and value that they hold in terms of art history."
"I've done everything I wanted to do as a painter. ... But in fact, even at this moment, I've got a lot of regrets that I should have done a little better," he said during a 2023 interview with Swiss art curator and critic Hans Ulrich Obrist, according to the interview script shared by Gallery Hyundai.
"Art, in a way, is about beginning something endless. It's not about making an end. It's about doing something endless."
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