At first glance, Ha\u2019s pared-back abstractions \u2013 and the output of the Dansaekhwa artists more broadly \u2013 may seem to share significant overlap with the other examples of non-representational painting that proliferated around the globe in the second half of the 20th century. In particular, comparisons are often drawn to the work of US minimalists such as Robert Ryman, who famously restricted his palette to\u00a0white and off-white paint. But there is a deep cultural specificity to Ha\u2019s approach that is fundamental to understanding his art.<\/p>\n
Ha Chong-Hyun. Photograph: Ha Chong-Hyun; Lisson Gallery<\/p>\n
Ha was born in Sancheong in Korea\u00a0in 1935, during the Japanese occupation. He lived in Japan as a child for several years before returning to Korea after liberation in 1945. \u201cOn\u00a0our journey home, we encountered a violent storm at sea and\u00a0I lost my grandmother and my young sibling,\u201d he recalls. \u201cAmid all the upheaval, I continued to draw. I\u00a0remember making a portrait of Yi Jun, the Korean independence activist, which my teacher displayed on the classroom wall.\u201d (We corresponded via\u00a0email; Ha\u2019s children translated between Korean and English.)<\/p>\n
In the turbulent decades that followed \u2013 the Korean war, postwar economic privation, a military dictatorship that didn\u2019t end until 1988 \u2013 Ha developed an artistic language that responded to and expressed its historical circumstances. Abstraction, for him and other artists, was at least partly a way to rebel against the figurative style favoured by the state. The use of hemp as a support for his paintings, meanwhile, began as a matter of necessity. \u201cIn the poverty that followed the Korean war, conventional art supplies were difficult to obtain,\u201d Ha explains. \u201cAmong the materials around us were coarse sacks that had carried grain and other relief supplies from abroad.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Ha, his commitment to working back-to-front \u201chas never meant simply repeating the same thing\u201d. Over time, he has introduced \u2013 or reintroduced \u2013 a\u00a0number of different elements to his practice: holding a flame to the surface to singe the paint, using wooden slats instead of hemp as the support, incorporating brighter colours such as\u00a0red and blue. \u201cI still believe, as I\u00a0have\u00a0always told my students, that \u2018a\u00a0painter should never allow the paint on his palette to dry\u2019,\u201d he says. \u201cAs long as my health allows me to stand in the studio, I want to keep working. There are still things I have not made, and things I have yet to discover.\u201d<\/p>\n
Works by Ha Chong-Hyun will be on display at the Lisson Gallery, London, <\/a>24 September to 7 November<\/a><\/p>\n Reverse course: five works from the exhibition<\/p>\n White Paper on Urban Planning No 5, 1968 (main image) Photograph: George Darrell\/Ha Chong-Hyun; Lisson Gallery<\/p>\n Work 72-72(B), 1972 <\/p>\n Before he developed the back-pressure method, Ha\u2019s work often incorporated common industrial materials such as barbed wire or metal springs. \u201cThe use of objects in these works is connected to the three-dimensional quality of his Conjunction paintings,\u201d says Lisson Gallery\u2019s Bossier.<\/p>\n
This work is from an early series executed between 1967 and 1969. \u201cI remember how rapidly Seoul was changing at the time,\u201d Ha says. \u201cThe city was emerging from the devastation of war: new roads were being laid out, new buildings were rising, and the environment around us was becoming increasingly geometric and architectural. I wanted to bring something of that order and energy into my painting.\u201d<\/p>\n
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