Choi Myoung Young
Choi Myung-young's "Plane Conditions" series of monochromatic paintings. a working scene of DANSAEKHWA-Korean monochrome paintings.
BornSeptember 23, 1941
Hwanghae Province(Hwanghae-do) Haeju
NationalityRepublic of Korea
Known for"Plane Conditions",DANSAEKHWA-Korean monochrome paintings.
Websitehttps://www.choimyoungyoung.com 최명영 웹페이지

최명영, Choi Myung-young (born September 23, 1941) is a South Korean DANSAEKHWA - monochrome painting artist.

(left) A photo of his father Choi Jong-cheol and mother Jeon Byung-sook's engagement in 1935. (Right) A commemorative photo with friends in the art class of the Incheon National Sabeomhaggyo (Gyeongin National University of Education) in 1959. As students of Jeong Sang-hwa, they went to art college later and each of them will perform a major role in Korean contemporary art.

Life

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On September 23, 1941, he was born in 397 Bukwook-dong, Haeju, Hwanghae-do, present-day North Korea, among his father Choi Jong-cheol (1917-2006), mother Jeon Byung-sook (1916-2001), 3th of seven sons and two daughters. In a wealthy family grew up without shortage financially. On June 25, 1950, he came over to South Korea due to the outbreak of the Korean War and spent his youth days in Gunsan, Yongin, and Incheon.

In 1957, he entered Incheon National Sabeom Haggyo (Gyeongin National University of Education) , where he received art guidance from Korean monochromatic master Chung Sang Hwa. In 1960, after graduating from Incheon National Sabeom Haggyo (Gyeongin National University of Education) , he entered the Department of Painting at Hongik University College of Art and received 4,19 the April Revolution. While attending Hongik University, he taught practical classes by Professor Han Mook (1914-2016), Lee Bong-sang (1916-1970), Yi Kyu-sang (1918-1967), Kim Hwan-ki (1913-1974), Lee Kyung-sung (1919-2009, history of Western art), Choi Soon-woo (1916-1984, history of Korean art). Professor Cho Yo-han (1926-2002, Aesthetics) and Professor Lee Ki-young (1922-1996, Buddhist Philosophy) took theoretical lectures. Especially, the guidance of Professor Yi Kyu-sang and Professor Kim Hwan-ki on their future attitudes as artists was used as an 'important indicator of Choi Myung-young's artistic orientation'.

As an educator, Choi Myung-young was a professor at Hongik University College of Fine Arts (1975-2007), an exchange professor at Wolverhampton University (1990-1991), and a dean of Hongik University School of Fine Arts (1988-2000). He is currently an honorary professor at Hongik University College of Fine Arts. In 1963, when he was a college student, he held the founding exhibition of geometric-oriented ORIGIN Donginhwa with his fellow students and presented experimental three-dimensional works at the Korea Avant-garde Association from 1970 to 1973. Choi Myung-young married her wife Lee Soo-ja (1943~ ) in October 1967, and have her eldest son Ji-man, second son Ji-ho, and one daughter Ji-yeon.

 
"The 5th Origin" Exhibition, SHINSEGAE Gallery 1971. Choi Myung-young stood in front of the work of "Changing 71-F."  

Adolescence

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Choi Myung-young's formation opportunity about painting perspective originated from skepticism about the reality of two-dimensional painting by describing the subject of painting in his second year in college. Under the question of "the implementation of flatness in painting," he published works such as "Oh"-Enlightenment(悟,Satori), "Deterioration", and "Equation" from 1963 to 1974. The importance of Professor Yi Kyu-sang's willingness to artist on the plane, the instructive criticism of Professor Kim Hwan-ki's continuous performance in his work, and the tendency to think about the basis of Choi Myung-young's own personality became more interested in the nature of painting.

This opportunity is revealed by the will to planarize in the geometric trend of "O, Enlightenment (悟,Satori) " which was submitted to the establish exhibition of Origin in 1963. Since then, the "O, Enlightenment" series will evolve at the Paris Biennale (France, 1967), Invitational Exhibition of Contemporary Artists(Chosun Iibo Co., Ltd.,1968~69), and Bienal De Sao Paulo (Brazil, 1969). Afterwards, it will announce a series of "degradation" and "equations" that accept expansion and reduction logic through the "1970-72 (National Public Administration Service, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul Korea)" exhibition A.G.(Korea Avant-garde Association Exhibition). A Degradation is the work of repeatedly grinding colored surfaces with sandpaper to dissipate substances in the plane. An equation is a fingerprint work intended to mentalize a substance by repeatedly rubbing the substance on a plane with fingerprints. In the early 1970s, Choi Myung-young's work was a intense search period for the so-called "Conditional Plans", an Exploration of foundation and Materials as the Foundation for the Series , which continued from the 1975s to the present.  

 
(Top) Equation 76-42, 80×100cm Oil on canvas, 1976 (Down) plane condition 8021, 70×115cm.

Fingerprint and Roller Timing

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Choi Myung-young held her first solo exhibition at the Seoul Gallery in 1976. Since the mid-1970s, the title of the work "Conditional Plans" has appeared. During this period, two formative characteristics to investigate the way of being as a plane are revealed. Repeated work by fingerprints = 'fingerprint' work that introduced the mentalization of physical properties and expansion of inner space. "Choi Myung-young continues to do two types of work. One is to irregularly crush the regular multi-layered colored bands painted in a monotone color on the canvas, and the other is to stamp the wide fingerprint evenly with the bottom of the finger on a canvas with nothing, resulting in the fingerprint being the substance of the canvas. However, this seemingly contradictory process has the same root-to-contrast concept in the end.”

Roller Painting = The unfamiliar oil color in a kneaded state is applied and repeat as uniformly as possible on the plane and pushed out of the canvas. It was adhered to the standard within the radius of physical behavior in revealing the scalability of the planar space that builds the stratum by repeatedly applying the material on the plane dozens of times with a roller. This is a so-called inductive approach to confirm Choi Myung-young's painting Assumptions of flat non-planarization.

The working characteristics of this period are as follows. The flatness of a homogeneous surface, the central absence of an Illusion exclusion furnace, the repetition of strokes as an act, Agglomeration that is a contact of Materials, and the neutral color that does not contain characteristics are monochromatic, and inner spatialization (layer) by layers. "If the square is an indoor space, the expandable 'edge' becomes a world that extends and encompasses around it. It implies a world that communicates and sympathizes with others beyond one's own world. This suggests that he has a resonant perception of the world, and even the universe, rather than a materialistic view of art.”

 
(Top) Plane condition 8016, 77×53.5cm Silk screen ink on section paper, 1980 (Down) Plane condition 8036, Oriental Ink on Korean Hanji, 1980.

Timing work on awl, section paper and hanji

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In the early 1980s, Choi Myung-young's "planar condition" adds to the "the act of giving a body with an awl" of the sense of production, which is implemented by permeation of Korean paper and materials and tactile sensation. The quantum that comes into contact (response) with a given material (media) is intended to Identify the nature of the plane as an absolute condition by allowing it to permeate, dissolve, and reveal its existence in an empty space.  

In addition, a section paper is a repetitive task of imparts physicality that continuously fills a material with a finger on a unit area. It also presents Hanji's attempts at painting through "planar conditions." It is made by cutting a white hanji into a long band shape sideways on top of the paper dipped in ink and pasting it horizontally. "We used white hanji instead of white paint. Cutting and pasting into bands is a variant of square division. By using Korean paper instead of paint, black sides by ink were needed. At the same time, the attempt to bring it together continues, eliminating the relationship between 'ground' and 'image'.”

 
Plane conditions 8584, 140×80 cm Oil on canvas, 1985.  

In the mid- to late 1980s, 'plane conditions' are concentrated into vertical and horizontal repetition tasks. It is an existential horizon intention of generation and extinction by repetitive ups and downs of seed strings (history) and flying ropes (reality). The planality of this period aims at inner spatialization (layer) through central absences, non-images, repeatability, agglomeration of materials, monochromatic tones, and performance layers that task of imparts physicality.

Rules, repetitive vertical and horizontal periods

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"In Choi Myung-young's 'plane condition', the minimum unit is vertical and horizontal lines and planes. The artist superimposes numerous white brushes on a black background to erase the foundation, while on the other hand, stacking white. The black lines on the screen are the minimum margins left in the process of overlapping white color. Another minimum unit for 'plane conditions' is color. His main use of black and white is a neutral color that can embrace the essence of different colors and is the most ideal color for achieving the planarity that the artist seeks.”

"The neutral white tint I'm choosing means that the color itself converges on itself, at least to me, and the color is more meaningful to the trend of the material itself than to its characteristic aspect. As if I were repeating asceticism in a maze filled with vertically and horizontally, contact with foundation, a plane mass that gradually accumulates homogeneously and ebb and flow with the amplitude of be sensitive emotions, my daily life on the expressionless and tasteless of the horizon, I'm faced with a plane structure as a world that passes through my mental sphere, and it goes beyond the physical and visual framework of the screen ,will enjoy its existence.”

"For Choi Myung-young, plane conditions mean structuring as none other than planes. In the 1980s, work was accomplished by a deliberate, regular, and repetitive square frame that covered the screen evenly.”

Since the mid-1990s to the present, vertical and horizontal work has been cut off as if irregular the conditions of line had disappeared instead of regular squares in the early 1980s, and then continued and disappeared again, it's coming out again. "There is no repetition of the same pattern already, and what is revealed on the screen is rather a randomized, disconnected spread of vertical and horizontal intersections andI t's like that non-continuous spread. Therefore, the screen is also not a homogeneous plane. In fact, as Choi Myung-young comes to his latest work, the plane conditions of Choi Myung-young are gradually becoming more internalized as the generation and extinction of vertical and horizontal the conditions of line becomes more secretive. The vertical and horizontal the conditions of line, so to speak, form finite and infinite spatial conditions.”

 
Plane conditions 99-102, 182×228 cm Acrylicon canvas, 1999.

Vertical and horizontal timing of asceticism

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In addition, 'breathing' is a very meaningful part of Choi Myung-young's work. "If you look closely at the work of the cross-section, you can feel that lines are kept in layers of paint. Each of them is as welcome as a sprout that penetrates through the leaves of the forest piled up. However, if you move your eyes around it, you will see that it is what artist Choi Myung-young said, "with immersed in the endless breathing and physical movements." It is perceived as a kind of the lines of the spirituality of Oriental calligraphy rather than as 'painting'.”

Since the mid-1990s, the 'planar condition' has been recognized as a 'painting of Buddhist scriptures' of the performance of repetitive work of task of imparts physicality. “The monochrome screen created by Choi Myung-young's vertical and horizontal brushstrokes is a planarized layer that appeared through the process and is a performance that task of imparts physicality. If Chusa (‘Chusache-Completed by Chusa Kim Jeonghui(1786-1856), a calligrapher of the Joseon Dynasty period)’ is a world of poetry with various meanings on the plane, it is a non-image painting that forms a Sibang(time and space throughout the universe) layer in repetition and performance of Choi Myung-young's work, and a philosophical act as an endless question. Although his painting is a logical process of contemporary art, his painting methods consist of primitive and essential asceticism.”

Choi Myung-young's "Plane Condition" has been accompanied by changes since 2015 by revealing the basis of the plane. The so-called fingerprint work builds a space for mentalization through chemical fusion through repetition of planes, materials, and actions. “Choi Myung-young`s work is a be simplifyed paradoxical process in which concepts and objects are endlessly overlapped, rather than divided into individual sounds, unlike the general writing system, and shows how to accommodate and capture only various situations without specific words. It is simple, short, and loosely connected, but quietly continues until it dispels some fear, as if incantation every day. In doing so, what is offered to us is his free way of thinking, questioning everything, how to think anew.”

 
Artist Choi Myung-young posed in front of "Plane Conditions" and "Fingerprints" in the studio.<Picture = Kwon Dong-cheol, 2022>  

The fingerprinting period of mentalization

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“Choi Myung-young’s ‘Conditional Planes’ draws inspiration from the traditional natural view of the East and the understated inner beauty. The spirit of the sublimity a monumental inscription is come into view in his paintings. It is connected to DAN, the most Korean identity that has continued beyond time and space. In other words, Choi Myung-young’s ‘Conditional Planes’ is the spirit of fusion with the center of things through human physicality called "fingerprint" in the digital media era. This is a passage that deeply meets Chusa Kim Jeonghui(1786-1856) and ilhoeng(일횡, 一橫, It embraces 309 a monumental inscription in one horizontal)..”

After the April 19 Revolution in 1960, the "Origin" art movement, which is composed of people from Hongik University's Western Painting Department, is the oldest contemporary Korean art organization. Choi Myung-young, Kwon Young-woo, Lee Seung-jio, Suh Seung-won, Lee Sang-rak, Kim Sou- ik, Kim Tek-hwa, and Shin Ki-ock were the members. Origin members used geometry as a pictorial essence, not an impulsive expression instinct. If you look at the founding of the Origin Painting Association in 1962, the years almost matches the history of korean modern art. In the 1960s, it drew out geometrical abstractions for the first time in Korea, and in the 1970s, monochromatic paintings-Dansaekhwa were successful in making modern paintings best suited to Korean aesthetics, it held a series of Korea-Japan and Korea-China exchanges and the younger generation is the center of hyperrealism painting in the 1980s, in the 1990s, increasing from 9, at the time of its foundation members to 205 members. In this era, symbols and symbols were included, the rhetoric of shapes and images increased, and flat paintings, which were rich in texture, were researched respectively.”

Founded in 1969 based on a innovative and radical experimental spirit with the decline of Informel, the "Korea Avant-garde Association" is an art group movement that served as an important bridge to Korean contemporary art until 1975. The beginning and the establishment of Choi Myung-young's painting gallery can be summarized as the conceptual logic tendency through the "Korea Avant-garde Association" A.G. movement in the early 1970s, a sense of reduction, De-image trend, attempts to apply material experience through object work, and its mentalization.

“Choi Myung-young was a artist who realized the process of placing a plane in one space, excluding any narratives, and ultimately acquiring its existence as a plane that merges with the space. Above all, the practical force that immersed him in the flatness of painting for such a long time was the mental return of the material experienced in the process of integrating physicality and body with canvas, and the mental return is based on mutual harmony and moderation of planar conditions. After all, the proper relationship between the materials contained in the world of Choi Myung-young's work will be in the authenticity of the work that our intelligence and the artist's intellect approach to the fundamental nature of the mutually understandable matter.”

“Choi Myung-young`s the foundation of its reach the limit ‘Conditional Planes’, he`s overcoming conventional painting on the ridge. While overcoming it, it is to walk the path of narrow possibility, the ridge. It is a 'painting' that is being attempted within a narrow horizon and a limited horizon of positivity. This is the original painting world of the vast horizon of Choi Myung-young’s ‘Conditional Planes. We must not miss this point.”

 
In 1963, the Origin Foundation was held. (From the left in the back row) Kim Suo-ik, Shin Ki-ock, Choi Chang-hong, Kwon Young-woo, Kim Tek-hwa (from the left in the front row) Choi Myung-young, Suh Seung-won, Lee Seung-jio, and Lee Sang-rak.

An art movement

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Choi Myung-young participated in the formation of Korean monochromatic paintings in the mid-1970s along with art groups and movement such as the Origin Painting Association (1962-2006), the Korea Avant-garde Association (1969-1975), and Ecole de Seoul (1975-1999).

Selected Solo Exhibitions

Selected Group Exhibitions

Artworks and Painters’ Assessmentation

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National Museum of Contemporary Art. Gwacheon Korea. Busan Museum of Art. Seoul Museum of Art. Gwangju Museum of Art. Daegu Art Museum. Daejeon Museum of Art. Walkerhill Art center. Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Hongik museum of art, Totalmuseum, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Japan, Mie Prefectural Art Museum,Shimonoseki City Art Museum.

A major history

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  • 1941 Born in Haeju, Hwanghae Province, Korea
  • 1960 Graduated from National Incheon Sabeomhaggyo
  • 1964 Graduated from Hongik University, College of Fine Arts, Department of Painting
  • 1975~2007 Professor of Painting, Hongik University College of Fine Arts
  • 1976 8th Cagnes-Sur-Mer(France)
  • 1978 Korean Art Grand Prize Exhibition, the grand prize
  • 1983 Vice of directorship, International Affairs of the Korean Art Association
  • 1990-1991 Professor of Exchange at the University of Wolverhampton, England
  • 1995~the present An advisor to the Korean Fine Art Association
  • 2007 Civil Merit Medal Award
  • 2007~the present honorary professor at Hongik University College of Fine Arts

Solo and group exhibitions

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4)Dansaekhwa: Korean Monochrome Painting exhibit-National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea-an exhibition book, 2012

  • 2022 The Page Gallery, Seoul, Korea
  • 2019 The Page Gallery, Seoul, Korea
  • 2017 Gallery Shilla, Daegu, Korea
  • 2015 The Page Gallery, Seoul, Korea
  • 2000 Tokyo Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
  • 1997 Jo Hyun Gallery, Busan, Korea
  • 1986 Inax Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
  • 1986 Dong San Bang Gallery, Seoul, Korea
  • 1981 Kwan Hoon Gallery, Seoul, Korea
  • 1980 Muramatsu Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
  • 1976 Seoul Gallery, Seoul, Korea

12)‘Reduction and Expansion of Contemporary art Origin Painting Association 1962-2006’an exhibition book, book publishing ARTNOW.

  • 2021 Modern Life, The 10th Anniversary Exhibition of Daegu Art Museum
  • 2021 Hyeong Yeong, Sibang(Chusa Kim Jeonghui, Lee Ufan, Choi Myoung Young, Choi In Soo), The Page gallery, Seoul
  • 2017 Rediscovery of Colors-Looking into Korea Art, Part 2 : Dansaekhwa Exhibition, Museum SAN, Wonju
  • 2017 Rhythm in Monochrome Korean Abstract Painting, Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Tokyo
  • 2016 ORIGIN(Choi Myoung Young,Lee Seung Jio,Suh Seung Won), Galerie Perrotin, Paris
  • 2014 Empty Fullness-The Properties and Spirituality of Korean Contemporary Art, SPSI Art Museum, The Shanghai Oil Painting and Sculpture Institute
  • 2014 Form as Thinking-Rediscovery of Drawing, Museum SAN, Wonju
  • 2012 Danseakhwa Korean Monochrome painting, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Gwachon
  • 2011 The opeing Exhibition of Daegu Art Museum“Qui is Full – Section 1 Drawing Yi”, Daegu Art museum, Daegu
  • 2010 Group Exhibition 2010 : Kim Jeunghui, Yun HyongKeun, Choi Myungyoung, Gonggan purple, Heairi
  • 2009 The color of nature Monochrome Art in Korea, Wellside Gallery, Shanghai.
  • 2008 Korean Abstract art:1958-2008, Seoul Metropolitap Art Museum, Seoul
  • 2006 Korean Art 100 Years, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea
  • 2002 Age of Philosophy and Aesthetics, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea
  • 2000 The Exhibition of the Plane Surface as Sprits, Busan Municipal Museum of Art, Busan
  • 2000 The 3rd Gwang-Ju Biennale-Special Exhibition of the “Contemporary Art, Korea & Japan”, Gwang-Ju
  • 1998 ’98 PICAF-Light on the New Millennium-Wind From Extreme Orient-Korean Exhibition of Contemporary Art, Municipal Museum of Art, Busan
  • 1996 Korean Monochrome in the 1970’s, GALLERY HYUNDAI, Seoul
  • 1987 Olympiad of Art: The International Contemporary Painting Exhibition Committee, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea
  • 1986~99 The Seoul Art Exhibition, Seoul Museum of Art(SeMA), Seoul
  • 1984 Exhibition of Human Documents ‘84/’85, Tokyo Gallery, Tokyo
  • 1983~85 An invitation to contemporary art(現代美術招待展), National Museum of Contemporary Art, Gwacheon
  • 1981 Korea Drawing Now, Brooklyn Museum, New York
  • 1975~87 Exhibition of ‘Ecole de Seoul’, Kwan Hoon Gallery, Seoul
  • 1975 Indian Triennial, New Delhi, India
  • 1972~79 Salon des indpendants Exhibition, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul
  • 1971 The 6th Cagnes International Painting Festival, Cagnes Sur-mer, France
  • 1970~72 A.G : Korean Avant-Garde Association Exhibition, National Public Administration Service, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul
  • 1969 Bienal De Sao Paulo, Brazil
  • 1968~69 The Invited Exhibition of Contemporary Artists, Hosted by the Chosun Ilbo, Seoul
  • 1967 The 5th the Paris Biennale, Paris, France
  • 1963~93 Exhibition of The Origin Painting Association Exhibition, Seoul

Museum Collections

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References

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Footnote

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[[Category:People from Haeju]] [[Category:Hongik University alumni]] [[Category:Hongik University faculty]] [[Category:South Korean contemporary artists]] [[Category:South Korean painters]] [[Category:1941 births]]