Rhee Seundja, Chemin des Antipodes, Mai 87, 1987, Oil on canvas, 200×200 cm. MMCA collection
Rhee Seundja
* Source: Multilingual Glossary of Korean Art. Korea Arts Management Service
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Contemporary Korean Painting Exhibition
An exhibition of Korean contemporary held from July 19 to September 1, 1968 at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. The exhibition was historically significant in that it was the first official cultural exchange following the normalization of diplomatic relations in 1965. 17 artists including Park Seobo, Ha Chonghyun, Chung Changsup, and Lee Ufan participated in the exhibition. Choi Sunu, Lee Kyungsung, Lim Youngbang, Lee Yil, and Yu Junsang participated in the selection of the artists. Lee Kyungsung introduced the abstract art of the Korean art community in his preface for the exhibition, in which he stated that he focused on upcoming artists in their 20s and 30s who were driving the movement. The exhibition is significant as Lee Ufan’s debut within the Korean art community.
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Gallery Hyundai
A gallery located at Samseong-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul. The gallery opened in April 1970 in Gwanhun-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul, under the joint management of Han Yong-gu and Park Myung-ja. Started as Hyundai Hwarang (Hyundai Gallery), it was renamed as Gallery Hyundai in 1987. When it first opened, the gallery contributed to the development of contemporary Korean art, featuring the work of contemporary artists instead of antique calligraphy and paintings, which were actively exhibited and traded in Insa-dong. In September 1973, the gallery published an art magazine titled Hwarang, with an editing staff consisting of Lee Heung-u, Lee Gu-yeol, Park Rhaikyoung, Heo Yeonghwan, and Oh Kwang-su. After 1988, the magazine was renamed Hyundai Misul and it continued to be published until 1992. The gallery regularly held exhibitions of major figures in Korean contemporary art, such as Park Sookeun, Lee Jungseop, To Sangbong, Nam Kwan, Yoon Jungsik, and Chun Kyungja. After it moved to a new building in Sagan-dong in 1975, the gallery expanded the base for Abstract art through exhibitions featuring Yun Hyongkeun, Kim Tschang-Yeul, Park Seobo, Chung Sanghwa, and Lee Ufan.
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Bang Haija
Bang Haija (1937-2022) was an abstract artist who has spent her life making “light” visible and has lived going back and forth between Seoul and Paris. Born in Neung-dong, Goyang-gun, Gyeonggi-do Province, Bang graduated from Kyunggi Girls’ High School and went on study in the College of Fine Arts at Seoul National University. After graduation, she traveled to France with a plane ticket to Paris that she bought by selling her works at her first solo exhibition in 1961. She submitted her In the Heart of the Earth I and II to the exhibition The Foreign Painters in Paris (Les Peintres étrangers a Paris) hosted by Museum of Modern Art in Paris (Musée d'Art moderne de Paris). She enrolled in the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, studied mural painting in the atelier of Professor Lenormand from 1963 through 1966, and held a solo exhibition at Galerie Florence Houston-Brown in Paris in 1968. From 1983 through 1987, she learned printmaking at the Parisian printmaking studio Atelier 17, where she developed a sense for paper texture and contemporaneous mediums. Since 1976, she held several solo exhibitions at Gallery Hyundai in Seoul and traveled between Seoul and Paris, where she participated in a residency program at Youngeun Museum of Contemporary Art, held an exhibition at Sungkok Art Museum, and taught calligraphy and Hangeul (Korean alphabet) to French people. Her books of paintings include Bang Hai Ja and Souffle de Lumière (Breath of Light) published by the French publisher Cercle d’art in 1997 and 2007, respectively, and Song of Light published by Youlhwadang in 2015. Among notable books of poetry accompanied by her paintings are Au chant des transparences (To the Song of Transparency) by Roselyne Sibille (Voix d’encre, 2001), Une joie secrète (A Secret Joy) by Charles Juliet (Voix d’encre, 2002), Infinite Flowers by Mun Yeonghun (Yeobaek Media, 2004), and Éclosion (Hatching) by Kim Chi Ha (Voix d’encre, 2006). She also published essay collections such as Maeumui chimmuk (Silence of the Mind) (Yeobaek Media, 2001) and Agiga bon sesang (The World as Seen by a Baby) (Yeobaek Media, 2002). Her translations introducing Korean cultural heritage to France include Namsan Mountain in Gyeongju: The Mountain of Ten Thousand Buddhas (Cercle d’Art, 2002) and the Les Mille Monts de Lune (The Thousand Mountains of the Moon) (Albin Michel, 2003), a collection of Zen poems by Korean Buddhist monks. Bang was awarded the Holy Prize at the International Contemporary Art Fair Monaco, Special Overseas Artist Award at the Second Korean Artist Prize in 2008, the Order of Cultural Merit of the Republic of Korea in 2010, and the Eleventh France-Korea Cultural Prize and the Prize for Women Who Have Made the World Shine from the Korean Women’s International Foundation in 2012. Bang Haija is known as the “painter of light” as she explored and visualized the meaning of the universe and life through meditation. In 2023, the memorial exhibition for the first anniversary of her death was held at Youngeun Museum of Contemporary Art.
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Lee Ungno
Lee Ungno (1905-1989, pen name Goam) was born in Yesan, Chungcheongnam-do where he studied classic Chinese. He moved to Seoul in 1922 to study bamboo ink-painting from Kim Kyujin and was selected for the Joseon Art Exhibition [Joseon misul jeollamhoe]. In 1935, he attended Kawabatawa Art School and the Hongo Western Painting Center to study oil painting and learned Japanese realism from Matsbayasi Keiketsu. He returned to Korea in 1945 and produced realistic colored ink-wash paintings, such as the March 1st Independent Movement and Yungchayungcha. He pursued a style of semi-abstract art that attempted to express the inner spirituality. In the 1950s, he taught at Hongik University and Sorabol Art College. He moved to Europe after his exhibition in 1957 and created the letter-abstract genre that combines Western abstract art and East-Asian ink-wash painting. Diverse art critics, such as Jacques Lassaigne and Michel Tapie, praised his work, which led to several exhibitions in Europe, the U.S., and Japan. He opened the Oriental Painting Academy in Paris to teach ink-wash painting and received an honorary grand prize at the San Paulo biennale in 1965. Upon return to Korea he was imprisoned for two years because of the 1968 East-Berlin Affair and later moved to Paris to exhibit his works in Europe, the U.S., and Japan. In the 1980s, he created an ink-wash painting work depicting the people of the Gwangju Uprising. He passed away two days before a retrospective exhibition was held in 1989 in Seoul.
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