'Dansaekhwa' master Chung Sang-hwa dies at 93

Artist Chung Sang-hwa in his studio in Yeoju, Gyeonggi Province, in 2023 / Courtesy of Gallery Hyundai

Chung Sang-hwa, a towering figure in Korean modern art whose meticulously built and cracked monochrome surfaces turned the flat canvas into a signature grid, died Wednesday morning after a prolonged illness. He was 93.

Over a career that stretched from the upheaval of the 1950-53 Korean War to the international rediscovery of “dansaekhwa” (monochrome painting) in the 21st century, Chung pursued a single question with near-ascetic focus: how to push the two-dimensional plane beyond its limits without ever fully abandoning it.

He found his answer not in an image, but in a method — a cycle of “peeling off” and “filling in,” which demanded both physical endurance and what he himself described as “foolishly endless repetition.”

“Performing the same action over and over again to the point of absurdity, that’s what defines my work,” the painter said during his 2023 solo exhibition at Gallery Hyundai in Seoul.

Chung Sang-hwa's "Untitled 74-6" (1974), left, and "Untitled 87-11-10" (1987) / Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Hyundai

Born in 1932 in Yeongdeok, North Gyeongsang Province, Chung entered the College of Fine Arts at Seoul National University in 1953, despite opposition from his family. He initially made a foray into the highly gestural language of Art Informel in the turbulent aftermath of the Korean War, channeling the era’s prevailing sense of loss, anxiety and fear.

It was after his move to Kobe, Japan, in 1969, however, that he began a search for new stylistic experimentation.

The artist first started draining colors from the canvas, immersing himself in the varied gradations of white. But that wasn’t enough; he soon felt the need to introduce a greater sense of dynamism and depth to the flat monochrome surface.

His signature technique begins by coating the entire canvas with a viscous mixture of kaolin clay and water. Once the surface dries, he removes the cloth from its frame and folds it horizontally and vertically. Chung then peels away the hardened clay and refills the exposed surface with layers of acrylic paint. This labor-intensive cycle of peeling off and filling in is repeated again and again, until a perfect grid finally emerges — not as a premeditated design, but as the residue of the process.

Chung Sang-hwa, far right, with fellow Korean painter Kim Tschang-yeul in Paris in 1978 / Courtesy of Gallery Hyundai

From left, artists Lee Ufan, Park Seo-bo, Chung Sang-hwa and Yun Hyong-keun at Chung's solo exhibition at Hyundai Hwarang in 1983 / Courtesy of Gallery Hyundai

The resulting works are thus tactile records of all the invisible elements that went into creating them, from the artist’s every bodily movement to the long hours spent waiting and repeating the same action.

As he refined the technique, Chung eventually reintroduced a limited palette of colors like reds, blues and blacks after relocating to France in 1977, infusing his monochrome grids with a renewed charge of visual energy.

Following his permanent return to Korea in 1992, the artist found a studio in Yeoju, Gyeonggi Province. He continued to work alone until the very end, without the aid of any assistant. “My work can only be born when I am alone,” he would often say.

Chung Sang-hwa at work in his Yeoju studio in 2016 / Courtesy of Gallery Hyundai

In a 2023 interview with Swiss curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, Chung described his work as a lifelong pursuit without closure.

“There is no such thing as completion,” he said, reflecting on decades spent moving between Korea, Japan and France. “Art, in a way, is about beginning something endless. It’s not about making an end. It’s about doing something endless.”

Major retrospectives of Chung’s oeuvre were held at the Musée d’art moderne et contemporain de Saint-Étienne Métropole in France in 2011, and at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, in 2021.

A funeral service is being held at Seoul National University Hospital, with the procession scheduled for Friday.