New York galleries are about to shutter for their holiday breaks, but before they do, can I entice you to take a pause from shopping to visit three superb exhibitions? Each is by an essential Korean artist who remains too little known in the United States. Tremendous pleasures await.
At the Tina Kim Gallery in Chelsea, “Ha Chong-Hyun: 50 Years of Conjunction” is on view through Saturday. Ha, 90 next year, is a grand master of Dansaekhwa, the monochrome painting movement that arose in 1970s South Korea, which was then ruled by a military regime. In the “Conjunction” works being feted here, Ha pushes a single color of paint through the back of raw burlap, then makes marks on the front. They are paragons of restraint, of how much you can conjure from very little, and you might even say that their candor embodies a certain prepossessing ethical stance.
A few examples from the 1980s and ‘90s are variously black, gray, and white, with quick marks: hard-won beauty. In more recent pieces, Ha wields explosive color, sumptuous color in a manner that is joyous, incisive, and potent. Conjunction 23-39 (2023) is as red as red can be, with six thick, meaty marks gliding down its surface. The 7½-foot-wide Conjunction 24-20 (2024) is an almost pointillist constellation of minute brushstrokes—impressions, really—ranging from a deep, watery blue to a fulsome white. It recalls fresh snow falling on ice or light moving through water, a dark place suddenly illuminated.
—Andrew Russeth
