White Cube, Hong Kong, is hosting an exhibition of paintings by Park Seo-Bo. Featuring rare, early works from the artist’s best-known “Ecriture” series, the show marks his formal representation by the gallery.
The works in this exhibition, which date from 1967-1976, all feature delicate pencil lines incised into a gray or white monochromatic surface, applied in horizontal, diagonal, or vertical strokes and occasionally overlaid on a faint grid. The exhibition is on view through January 5, 2019.
“Credited as one of the originators of the Korean Dansaekhwa movement (also known as the Korean monochrome movement), Park’s rigorous conceptual work is inextricably linked to notions of time, space and material. Rooted in Taoist and Buddhist philosophy, in particular the writings of Lao-Tzu and Chuang Tzu, this lineage is manifest in the process of repetitive action and a highly physical manipulation of paint and materials,” states the press note by the gallery.
Consisting of a loosely affiliated group of artists, whose work centred on a minimalist pictorial language, Dansaekhwa is firmly rooted in Korean cultural traditions.
Emerging in the late 1960s and early 1970s during a period of great social unrest resulting from the impact of the Korean war, these artists adopted an existential perspective and embarked on an exploration of tactility, spirit and performance.
“The concept of being minimal or conceptual is a Western dichotomous approach and outcome. Dansaekhwa should be regarded as a spiritual journey. The process of making the work is a tool for moral training, and the work is a residue of that ordeal,” the artist said.
According to the gallery, Park’s “Ecriture” series can be understood in terms of a spiritual approach to the ‘drawing’ within painting. Also referred to by the artist as ‘Myŏbop,’ which loosely translates from Korean as the ‘law of drawing’ or ‘way of drawing,’ this series eliminates expressive gesture, focusing instead on the ‘union of action, property and spirit.’
The “Ecriture” paintings reflect a sense of immediacy and totality that is closely tied to both the practice of calligraphy and to a philosophical concept of emptiness.
Park Seo-Bo graduated from the painting department of Hong-Ik University in Seoul in 1954. He became Dean of the University in 1973 and received an Honorary Doctorate in 2000. Park has been widely lauded for championing Korean art, and received the Asia Society: Asia Arts Game Changer Award in 2018 and Silver Crown Cultural Medal in Korea in 2011.
The exhibition is on view through January 5, 2019 at White Cube, 50 Connaught Road Central, Hong Kong.
For details, visit: http://www.blouinartinfo.com/galleryguide/853419/853417/home-overview
Click on the slideshow to have a sneak peek of the artist’s work.