Almine Rech - Ha Chong-Hyun’s sixth solo exhibition
29/04/2026
Almine Rech Brussels is pleased to present Ha Chong-Hyun’s sixth solo exhibition with the gallery, on view from April 22 to June 27, 2026.
Abstraction and figuration are foundational terms in the context of modern and contemporary art, yet their meanings are all too often taken for granted. The work of Korean artist Ha Chong-Hyun invites us to reconsider these categories beyond simple binaries. In much of Western aesthetic thought, abstraction and figuration are positioned as diametric opposites along the axis of representation. Central to this opposition is the notion of “likeness”, that is, the degree to which an image resembles the subject it depicts. From this perspective, abstraction appears detached from reality, while figuration is assumed to mirror it more truthfully. The problem with this distinction is that it presupposes an ontological primacy of mind over matter, embedded in the conception of the image as a “window” onto reality rather than as a material entity.
Ha Chong-Hyun’s practice challenges these assumptions at their very core. His works investigate abstraction as something deeply grounded in materiality, where repeated gestures – dragging, piercing, pressing – give rise to “figures” in their own right. This approach resonates with European Art Informel, but is primarily representative of the Korean Dansaekhwa movement, of which Ha Chong-Hyun is a central figure. Dansaekhwa has long been undervalued, reductively framed as tardive or derivative in relation to Western movements such as Minimalism or Abstract Expressionism. Such readings severely overlook the movement’s distinct material sensibility and the sociopolitical conditions under which it emerged.
[…]
— Pieter Vermeulen, art critic, lecturer, researcher, and curator
Abstraction and figuration are foundational terms in the context of modern and contemporary art, yet their meanings are all too often taken for granted. The work of Korean artist Ha Chong-Hyun invites us to reconsider these categories beyond simple binaries. In much of Western aesthetic thought, abstraction and figuration are positioned as diametric opposites along the axis of representation. Central to this opposition is the notion of “likeness”, that is, the degree to which an image resembles the subject it depicts. From this perspective, abstraction appears detached from reality, while figuration is assumed to mirror it more truthfully. The problem with this distinction is that it presupposes an ontological primacy of mind over matter, embedded in the conception of the image as a “window” onto reality rather than as a material entity.
Ha Chong-Hyun’s practice challenges these assumptions at their very core. His works investigate abstraction as something deeply grounded in materiality, where repeated gestures – dragging, piercing, pressing – give rise to “figures” in their own right. This approach resonates with European Art Informel, but is primarily representative of the Korean Dansaekhwa movement, of which Ha Chong-Hyun is a central figure. Dansaekhwa has long been undervalued, reductively framed as tardive or derivative in relation to Western movements such as Minimalism or Abstract Expressionism. Such readings severely overlook the movement’s distinct material sensibility and the sociopolitical conditions under which it emerged.
[…]
— Pieter Vermeulen, art critic, lecturer, researcher, and curator
