Light from the East: Artist of Light, Ha Dong Chul Invitational Exhibition to be Presented at CAFA Art Museum

TEXT:Sue Wang    DATE: 2015.9.11

Poster of Light from the East

The first exhibition features Korean artist Ha Dong Chul in China, will be presented at CAFA Art Museum from September 11 throught to October 9. It includes his representative works in the thirty years from the end of 1970 to the beginning of 2000, and they showcase his insight into the logicality and sensibility of the world with “light.” In addition to over 80 pieces of paintings, prints and rubbings, the exhibition especially comprises his “Light 84-P2” which was shown on the first biennale in Korea.

In the 1990’s, Ha Dong Chul (1946-2006), a leading Korean abstract artist, sought to represent the essential nature of creation through an examination of “light.” The resulting series of paintings bear his trademark synthesis of Western Modernism and native Korean technique. Ha used the “plucked ink line,” the age-old tool of the Korean carpenter and stonemason, to mark his canvasses with diagonal stripes. His bold, primary colors come directly from the obangsaek, the spectrum of red, blue, yellow, white, and black used to represent the cardinal directions in Korean tradition.

A painter, print-maker, and educator, Ha Dong Chul received the 1974 Prize at the Korean National Art Exhibition and a 1977 Fulbright Scholarship to the Tyler School of Art at Temple University. He served as Chairman of the Korean Contemporary Print Association from 1990 to 1991 and Dean of the College of Fine Arts at Seoul National University from 2000 after teaching there for over two decades. His work is in the permanent collections of the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Korea, the Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art in Japan, the Cincinnati Museum of Art, and the British Museum.

About the exhibition

Dates: September 11 – October 9, 2015

Opening: September 11, 3:00PM

Venue: Gallery A on the second floor of CAFA Art Museum

Courtesy of the artist and CAFA Art Museum, for further information please visit http://museum.cafa.com.cn/en.