PARKSEBO MUSEUM’s inaugural exhibition, ‘Park Seo-Bo & Huong Dodinh: Emptiness Fullness‘, brings together the works of Park Seo-Bo (1931–2023), a leading figure in Korean contemporary art, and Huong Dodinh (1945–), an artist born in Vietnam who has been based in France throughout her career.
Park Seo-Bo explored a new order of painting by repeatedly drawing lines across surfaces layered with Korean hanji paper, treating the act of repetition as a way of emptying the self. Huong Dodinh, layering dozens of coats of mineral pigment, creates a depth in which light appears to emanate from within the surface itself. One repeats lines, the other builds up layers of color, but both artists move toward removing the unnecessary, not toward adding more. Through this process, the emptied surface acquires an unexpected density and quiet fullness.
The exhibition begins at SPACE Ø(B2), moves through SPACE 2(G2), and concludes at SPACE 3(G3). At SPACE Ø, the beginning of the exhibition, works from the 1990s by Park Seo-Bo and Huong Dodinh are presented together, revealing the point where the two artists’ distinct visual languages intersect. On the G2, audiences first encounter the Media Room featuring videos of the two artists’ working processes and interviews. After a short passage through the corridor, in SPACE 2, the exhibition traces the evolution and expansion of Park Seo-Bo’s Ecriture series, from the Black and White Hanji Ecriture to the Color Hanji Ecriture. SPACE 3, where the exhibition ends, shows the white-tones works of both Park Seo-Bo and Huong Dodinh come together in a single space. Alongside this, 26SQM on the Lobby Floor of the PARKSEOBO FOUNDATION next to the museum, presents black and white photographs documenting the two artists’ work and practice. Adding onto the paintings and videos, this photographic presentation offers a more multidimensional look into the two artists’ worlds.
This exhibition does not confine Park Seo-Bo to his art-historical position as a representative figure of Korean Dansaekhwa. Placed alongside the work of Huong Dodinh, who has spent her life building her own artistic world in Paris, Park Seo-Bo’s work is newly read as an artistic practice that transcends the boundaries of culture and geography in its pursuit of the essence of painting.
The two artists, working within different lives and cultures, have each emptied and filled the canvas in their own way by way of repetition and restraint. ‘Park Seo-Bo & Huong Dodinh: Emptiness Fullness‘ brings their works together in one space, presenting a new perspective born from two distinct paintings.
© Photo courtesy of PARKSEOBO MUSEUM. Photo by Jeon Byung Cheol
