- 1078
Chung Sanghwa
Estimate
1,000,000 - 2,000,000 HKD
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Description
- Chung Sanghwa
- Untitled 89-5-16
- acrylic on canvas
signed in Hanja and English, titled in Hanja and dated 1989 on the reverse, framed
Provenance
Motomachi Gallery, Kobe
Gallery Kai, Kobe
Acquired by the present owner from the above
Gallery Kai, Kobe
Acquired by the present owner from the above
Condition
This work is generally in very good condition. When examined under ultraviolet light, there appears to be no evidence of restoration.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."
Catalogue Note
The White Revolution
Chung Sanghwa
[Chung Sanghwa’s] work accumulates personal experience into cosmic space. He starts out with a white canvas and adds up rich details little by little. He can be seen as an archaeologist burying artifacts back into the ground. – Lóránd Hegyi1
Quietly riveting with an entrancing spiritual presence, Untitled 89-5-16 (Lot 1078) is exemplary of Chung Sanghwa’s acclaimed monochrome canvases. The painting constitutes a deft amalgamation of Eastern Western ideals as well as a conscious elaboration on traditional Korean art, exhibiting the exquisite technical dexterity of the Dansaekhwa master’s signature process of carving and filling. After priming his canvas with kaolin clay, the artist repeatedly scores and excavates paint from the canvas surface, employing a ritualistic, intuitive and meticulous method where acrylic is repeatedly coated on and peeled off. The resulting labyrinthine lattice tends delicately towards the sculptural: in equal parts calming, transfixing and electrifying, the current lot unfolds upon close viewing into intricate layers and surfaces that undulate with ethereal lyrical radiance.
Korean Dansaekhwa (“monochrome”) emerged in the early 1970s when the Republic of Korea was still under a military dictatorship. Working independently at first, a group of young artists separately yet concurrently took to a revolutionary minimalist aesthetic that favored material tactility and a focus on the appreciation of nature. In painstaking search for identity and healing in face of an oppressive authoritarian regime, Dansaekhwa artists forged a uniquely silent resistance via introspective, labor-centered, performative painting that brought them ever closer to the natural world. The emphasis on the tactile accentuates a return to nature that contrasts with the logical, visual-oriented modernism of the Western monochrome: characterized by enthralling rugged textures and neutral hues, Dansaekhwa put forth a singular aesthetics grounded in spiritual appreciation for the earth.
The current lot’s mesmerizing ivory hue epitomizes Dansaekhwa (also translated as “School of White”) artists’ favoring of the color white. The color (or non-color) is central to Korean identity and Korean culture: in the catalogue preface for the seminal Dansaekhwa exhibition “Five Korean Artists, Five Kinds of White” in Tokyo in 1975, the critic Lee Yil explains: “Before it is the colour white (baeksaek), it is a universe that we call baek”.2 Dansaekhwa artists forged a unique approach to painting that transcended the concept of color, striving instead to evoke and embody a cosmic spirit of the universe. Chung Sanghwa himself comments on the beguiling depths of white: “Colour is very mysterious. Even [the] colour white has many different types. […] sometimes [the] colour white [mixed] with some other colour…seems brighter than white by itself. Just like this, artists must seek for and make their own colour”.3
Born in 1932 in South Korea, Chung received a B.F.A. from the College of Fine Arts in Seoul National University in 1956 before briefly moving to work in Paris in 1967. By then, abstraction had become a symbol of post-war art in the West, with the Informel group in Europe and Abstract Expressionism in North America. While informed by such developments, Chung’s oeuvre proposes a wholly unique mode of abstraction evocative of Eastern philosophies such as Taoism and Buddhism. Through apparent non-intentionality, neutrality and indifference, Chung internalizes, materializes and immortalizes the profound transience of life and vitality. Deeply meditative and rigorous in both methodology and thought, the consummate painting constitutes a divine space through which to contemplate on the ephemerality of time, gesture and existence.
1 Lóránd Hegyi on Chung Sang-Hwa, quoted in exh. cat. Chung Sang-Hwa: On Time and Labour, Wooson Gallery, 2013, p. 45
2 Oh Kwang-Su, “Dansaekhwa and Korean Contemporary Art”, in Dansaekhwa: Korean Monochrome Painting, conference proceedings, 2012, p. 21
3 Lóránd Hegyi, “Chung Sang-Hwa: On Time and Labour”, Chung Sang-Hwa, 2012, p.85
Chung Sanghwa
[Chung Sanghwa’s] work accumulates personal experience into cosmic space. He starts out with a white canvas and adds up rich details little by little. He can be seen as an archaeologist burying artifacts back into the ground. – Lóránd Hegyi1
Quietly riveting with an entrancing spiritual presence, Untitled 89-5-16 (Lot 1078) is exemplary of Chung Sanghwa’s acclaimed monochrome canvases. The painting constitutes a deft amalgamation of Eastern Western ideals as well as a conscious elaboration on traditional Korean art, exhibiting the exquisite technical dexterity of the Dansaekhwa master’s signature process of carving and filling. After priming his canvas with kaolin clay, the artist repeatedly scores and excavates paint from the canvas surface, employing a ritualistic, intuitive and meticulous method where acrylic is repeatedly coated on and peeled off. The resulting labyrinthine lattice tends delicately towards the sculptural: in equal parts calming, transfixing and electrifying, the current lot unfolds upon close viewing into intricate layers and surfaces that undulate with ethereal lyrical radiance.
Korean Dansaekhwa (“monochrome”) emerged in the early 1970s when the Republic of Korea was still under a military dictatorship. Working independently at first, a group of young artists separately yet concurrently took to a revolutionary minimalist aesthetic that favored material tactility and a focus on the appreciation of nature. In painstaking search for identity and healing in face of an oppressive authoritarian regime, Dansaekhwa artists forged a uniquely silent resistance via introspective, labor-centered, performative painting that brought them ever closer to the natural world. The emphasis on the tactile accentuates a return to nature that contrasts with the logical, visual-oriented modernism of the Western monochrome: characterized by enthralling rugged textures and neutral hues, Dansaekhwa put forth a singular aesthetics grounded in spiritual appreciation for the earth.
The current lot’s mesmerizing ivory hue epitomizes Dansaekhwa (also translated as “School of White”) artists’ favoring of the color white. The color (or non-color) is central to Korean identity and Korean culture: in the catalogue preface for the seminal Dansaekhwa exhibition “Five Korean Artists, Five Kinds of White” in Tokyo in 1975, the critic Lee Yil explains: “Before it is the colour white (baeksaek), it is a universe that we call baek”.2 Dansaekhwa artists forged a unique approach to painting that transcended the concept of color, striving instead to evoke and embody a cosmic spirit of the universe. Chung Sanghwa himself comments on the beguiling depths of white: “Colour is very mysterious. Even [the] colour white has many different types. […] sometimes [the] colour white [mixed] with some other colour…seems brighter than white by itself. Just like this, artists must seek for and make their own colour”.3
Born in 1932 in South Korea, Chung received a B.F.A. from the College of Fine Arts in Seoul National University in 1956 before briefly moving to work in Paris in 1967. By then, abstraction had become a symbol of post-war art in the West, with the Informel group in Europe and Abstract Expressionism in North America. While informed by such developments, Chung’s oeuvre proposes a wholly unique mode of abstraction evocative of Eastern philosophies such as Taoism and Buddhism. Through apparent non-intentionality, neutrality and indifference, Chung internalizes, materializes and immortalizes the profound transience of life and vitality. Deeply meditative and rigorous in both methodology and thought, the consummate painting constitutes a divine space through which to contemplate on the ephemerality of time, gesture and existence.
1 Lóránd Hegyi on Chung Sang-Hwa, quoted in exh. cat. Chung Sang-Hwa: On Time and Labour, Wooson Gallery, 2013, p. 45
2 Oh Kwang-Su, “Dansaekhwa and Korean Contemporary Art”, in Dansaekhwa: Korean Monochrome Painting, conference proceedings, 2012, p. 21
3 Lóránd Hegyi, “Chung Sang-Hwa: On Time and Labour”, Chung Sang-Hwa, 2012, p.85