Tokyo Gallery + BTAP is pleased to announce “Park Seo-Bo”, our seventh exhibition with Park Seo-Bo from March 26 to May 7.
Park Seo-Bo is a pioneering figure in contemporary Korean art known for his leading role in the Dansaekhwa (monochrome painting) movement. Born in 1931 in Yecheon, Gyeongsangbuk-do, Korea, Park completed his studies at the Department of Painting, College of Fine Arts at Hong-Ik University, in 1954. The artist has developed monochrome line drawings and a style that maximizes the texture of hanji, or Korean paper. Park participated in Five Hinsek ‘White’: Five Korean Artists (1975, Tokyo Gallery), a group exhibition presenting the works today acknowledged as the origin of the Dansaekhwa movement, and has held six solo exhibitions at Tokyo Gallery since then. This exhibition presents a total of 17 works: 15 paintings from the late-Écriture phase and two drawings.
Park’s Écriture series may be divided into three phases of different techniques: early-Écriture, characterized by pencil line drawings in the late 1960s and after; mid-Écriture, in which Park began using hanji in the 1980s and 1990s; and late-Écriture, since 2000. Displayed in this exhibition are works of late-Écriture, also known as color-Écriture for its vividly colored pictorial surface and three-dimensionality of vertical lines repeated across wet hanji.
The late-Écriture was inspired by Park’s visit to Mount Bandai in Fukushima during his stay in Japan for his solo exhibition in autumn 2000. He recalls that the autumn colors he viewed from the mountaintop, constantly shifting from the wind blowing from various directions, were like “a surging fire.” Mesmerized by the colors of nature, Park embarked on the late-Écriture phase. The monochromatic pictorial surface implies assimilation into nature, conveying a message of solace and kindness that transcends the ages.
Park Seo-Bo’s artworks is housed in the collections of Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Guggenheim Museum (New York), Guggenheim Abu Dhabi (UAE), National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, and M+ (Hong Kong). The bibliography on the artist includes: Park Seo-Bo: from Avant-Garde to Ecriture (Kate Lim, Singapore: BooksActually, 2014), and Park Seo-Bo (Lee JinJoo, New York: Rizzoli, forthcoming April 2022). In 2021, Park was awarded the Geumgwan (Gold Crown) Order of Cultural Merit in recognition of his contribution to the Korean art field. In April this year, an exhibition featuring Park’s work is scheduled to be held simultaneously with the Venice Biennale. A museum dedicated to the artist is currently under construction in his hometown of Yecheon, Gyeongsangbuk-do.
Along with this exhibition, Tokyo Gallery will publish a catalog with reviews by art critics Toshiaki Minemura and Kate Lim this September. We look forward to your visit.
