Yun Hyong-keun (1928-2007), Burnt Umber & Ultramarine Blue, oil on canvas, 1978. Photo courtesy of Tate.

Yun Hyong-Keun

Yun Hyong-keun (1928-2007), Burnt Umber & Ultramarine Blue, oil on canvas, 1978. Photo courtesy of Tate.
Yun Hyong-keun (1928-2007), Burnt Umber & Ultramarine Blue, oil on canvas, 1978. Photo courtesy of Tate.

The UK’s first ever public gallery exhibition of works by one of the leading figures of twentieth-century Korean art; the man once dubbed ‘Korea’s Rothko’. In the aftermath of the Korean War (1950–1953), the country found itself effectively isolated from the rest of the world’s art markets and movements. This led South Korean artists to develop their own sets of rules derived from the Korean tradition and creative parameters in the field of abstraction, with a group – including Yun Hyong-keun – who founded the ‘Dansaekhwa movement.’ From 1973, the artist began to establish a distinctive style of his own, informed by nature and the scholar-calligrapher Chusa Kim Jeong-hui. His two-year stint Paris in the 80s, saw him engage with Western art and he used these influences to create a signature palette of umber and ultramarine and form rectilinear compositions reminiscent of traditional East Asian ink-wash paintings. Part of Korean Art London, a wide programme exploring Korean visual arts, this summer.

Yun Hyong-Keun
Hastings Contemporary
Hastings
10 June-1 October

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