October 2026
Ha Chong-Hyun’s First Major North American Exhibition, Ha Chong-Hyun: Retrospective Opens at the Asian Art Museum
Ha Chong-Hyun: Retrospective at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco marks the artist’s first major museum exhibition in North America, as well as a landmark showcase for a Korean contemporary artist in the region following Nam June Paik and Lee Ufan. The exhibition features 50 paintings, tracing Ha’s creative evolution over more than six decades. Though closely associated with Dansaekhwa, Ha Chong-Hyun’s body of work encompasses movements such as Informel, Geometric Abstraction, and the Korean Avant-Garde (AG). The exhibition includes new works made in 2025–2026, attesting to Ha’s ongoing artistic endeavor.
A leading institution presenting Asian and Asian diaspora artists, the Asian Art Museum is a fitting venue for this retrospective. The exhibition is co-organized by the museum and guest curator Sunjung Kim, Artistic Director of Art Sonje Center in Seoul. Kim defines Ha as an experimental artist who has pushed the limits of painting in the midst of South Korea’s turbulent modern history, defying classification as solely a Dansaekhwa painter. “Ha Chong-Hyun’s work reshapes how we understand abstraction—as a visceral experience, more than a purely visual language,” said Soyoung Lee, The Barbara Bass Bakar Director and CEO of the Asian Art Museum. “This exhibition reveals an artist who expanded the possibilities of painting and embodied the realities of his time and place.”
The retrospective also situates Ha’s practice within the broader history of global abstraction. Working in parallel with figures such as Donald Judd and Agnes Martin, he shares an interest in repetition and materiality, but his work diverges in its embrace of visible labor and imperfection. This distinctive approach is exemplified by Ha’s signature bae-ap-bub (背押法, “back pressure method”), through which he pushes paint from the back of the canvas through its open weave, bringing it to the surface. As the paint seeps through the coarse hemp fabric, the resulting surfaces embody an interplay between material and bodily action, reflecting his sustained exploration of painting’s materiality and process. Where Western Minimalism often sought industrial precision, Ha’s surfaces retain vulnerability—each mark a trace of effort and resistance. The exhibition serves as a reminder that the history of postwar abstraction is neither singular nor exclusively Western, but rather a constellation of multiple modernisms arising from distinct regions and historical conditions.
For Ha Chong-Hyun, the significance of this retrospective lies not so much in looking back as in affirming the present. “To hold a large-scale retrospective in one of America’s major cultural and artistic hubs at over ninety years old is an unexpected honor,” said Ha. “This exhibition is deeply meaningful to me because, rather than simply looking back on my legacy, it fully reflects my ongoing practice—traces of the work I am still sweating over in the studio today.” Ha Chong-Hyun: Retrospective is on view through January 25, 2027.
A leading institution presenting Asian and Asian diaspora artists, the Asian Art Museum is a fitting venue for this retrospective. The exhibition is co-organized by the museum and guest curator Sunjung Kim, Artistic Director of Art Sonje Center in Seoul. Kim defines Ha as an experimental artist who has pushed the limits of painting in the midst of South Korea’s turbulent modern history, defying classification as solely a Dansaekhwa painter. “Ha Chong-Hyun’s work reshapes how we understand abstraction—as a visceral experience, more than a purely visual language,” said Soyoung Lee, The Barbara Bass Bakar Director and CEO of the Asian Art Museum. “This exhibition reveals an artist who expanded the possibilities of painting and embodied the realities of his time and place.”
The retrospective also situates Ha’s practice within the broader history of global abstraction. Working in parallel with figures such as Donald Judd and Agnes Martin, he shares an interest in repetition and materiality, but his work diverges in its embrace of visible labor and imperfection. This distinctive approach is exemplified by Ha’s signature bae-ap-bub (背押法, “back pressure method”), through which he pushes paint from the back of the canvas through its open weave, bringing it to the surface. As the paint seeps through the coarse hemp fabric, the resulting surfaces embody an interplay between material and bodily action, reflecting his sustained exploration of painting’s materiality and process. Where Western Minimalism often sought industrial precision, Ha’s surfaces retain vulnerability—each mark a trace of effort and resistance. The exhibition serves as a reminder that the history of postwar abstraction is neither singular nor exclusively Western, but rather a constellation of multiple modernisms arising from distinct regions and historical conditions.
For Ha Chong-Hyun, the significance of this retrospective lies not so much in looking back as in affirming the present. “To hold a large-scale retrospective in one of America’s major cultural and artistic hubs at over ninety years old is an unexpected honor,” said Ha. “This exhibition is deeply meaningful to me because, rather than simply looking back on my legacy, it fully reflects my ongoing practice—traces of the work I am still sweating over in the studio today.” Ha Chong-Hyun: Retrospective is on view through January 25, 2027.
