As an early member of the Dansaekhwa art movement, Suh Seung-Won (b. 1941) presents the theoretical basis for Korean modernism. For over 50 years, Suh has expressed his aesthetic views on the simultaneity of time and space through his exploration of interactions between geometric patterns and backgrounds.
Suh’s firm investment into this aesthetic philosophy and the consistency of his artwork over the past 50 years is a remarkable feat of consistency, maintaining relevance in a dialogue of temporary aesthetics constantly in flux.
According to Suh, “simultaneity enables the unseen to be seen, ensuring that what is happening in the world of nirvana or ‘beyond dark’ could be represented through me.” Around 1990, the rigid geometric forms found in Suh’s previous work began to disappear, creating new depths of space composed of smoothly overlapping rectangular forms. This new approach expanded on the artist’s exploration of visible and invisible reality by creating canvases which appear monochrome from a distance, but upon closer examination are revealed to be composed of a variety of colors.
This exhibition is presented in collaboration with Donghwa Cultural Foundation.
Suh Seung Won: Simultaneity
February 7 – April 19, 2019
Closed: Monday, March 4 to Wednesday, March 6 for renovation.
OPENING RECEPTION: Thursday, February 7, 2019
Gallery Reception | 6 PM
Gallery Talk with Kyunghee Pyun | 6:30 PM
A Korean Master of Monochrome Painting
50 Years of Challenges by Suh Seung-Won
One of the most significant masters of Dansaekhwa will be honored in his solo exhibition held at the Korea Society. This talk summarizes artistic innovations and challenges of Suh Seung-Won’s half a century career. Sequences of brush strokes and layers of paint accumulate time and space the way archaeological sediments are formulated throughout centuries. Focusing on his signature series of Simultaneity, the talk highlights aesthetic and philosophical backgrounds of Suh’s vision.
About the Speaker
Kyunghee Pyun, Ph.D.
Kyunghee Pyun is an Assistant Professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology, State University of New York. Her scholarship focuses on history of collecting, reception of Asian art, diaspora of Asian artists, and Asian American visual culture. She was a Leon Levy fellow in the Center for the History of Collecting at the Frick Collection and works on a book project entitled Discerning Languages for Exotic: Collecting Asian Art. Her new book, Fashion, Identity, Power in Modern Asia focuses on modernized dress in the early 20th-century Asia and was just published by the Palgrave Macmillan in 2018.
As an independent curator, she has collaborated with Asian American artists in New York since 2013. Her recent projects were the Violated Bodies: New Languages for Justice and Humanity held at The Anya and Andrew Shiva Gallery, John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the Postmodernism and Aesthetics: Collide or Steer at the Korean Cultural Center, New York, both held in 2018.
@ The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor, NYC
Gallery hours: 10 AM - 4:30 PM by appointment
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