Choi Myoung-Young is a leading figure in the Dansaekhwa movement and contemporary Korean art. Dansaekhwa, which translates as “monochrome painting,” was formalized in the 1970s in reference to Korean artists who redefined abstract painting in reaction to a turbulent socio-political environment.

Born in Haeju, Hwanghae-do, in 1941, Myoung Young defected to South Korea during the Korean War and grew up in Gunsan and Incheon. In 1957, he began studying art at Incheon National School of Education under master artist Chung Sanghwa, after which he entered the Hongik University College of Fine Arts in 1960 to study painting.

After graduating from college in 1964, Myoung Young spent the remainder of the decade as a member of the art groups Origin Society (1963–1993), Korean Avant-Garde Association (A.G., 1970–1973), and École de Seoul (1975–1999), and participated in the likes of the Paris Biennale (1967) and São Paulo Biennale (1969) to set his foot in the art scene as an emerging artist.

Since the mid-1970s, Myoung Young has persistently explored using his body and the relationship between the canvas plane and the medium of paint under the theme of “Conditional Planes,” repeating and varying physical actions on top of the flat surface to understand painterly existence. In the mid-1970s, the artist produced what are known today as the “Sandpaper” and “Fingerprint” series.

Throughout the mid-1980s and the 1990s, Myoung Young’s repetitive movements took on vertical and horizontal orientations to settle as his unique methodology and style.

Myoung Young often uses the expression “monotonous” to describe his works. Creating superficial space composed of regular units—by performing repetitive actions within the frame of the blank, quadrilateral canvas—can be seen as a daily act of validating existence. The canvas as a background no longer distinguishes or restrains art and life. Just as the body and the mind are no longer subjects for distinction, the conditional plane is now an existential “platform,” an infinite space that serves to intertwine and reveal the artist’s repetitive actions. This is precisely why Myoung Young’s creative world is a demonstration of “controlling monotony,” something that ceaselessly flows toward infinite variations.

Selected Solo Exhibitions: 

·    2025~2026

National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), Seoul, Korea - Upcoming

·    2024

Tokyo Gallery + BTAP, “Choi Myoung Young”, Tokyo, Japan

The Page Gallery, TEFAF New York, New York, USA

·  2023        

Almine Rech, “Choi Myoung Young: Conditional Planes”, Paris Matignon, Paris, France

Art Chosun Space (ACS), Seoul, Korea

·    2022            

Gallery Bisunjae, “Choi Myoung Young: Conditional Planes”, Seoul, Korea

The Page Gallery, “Choi Myoung Young”, Seoul, Korea

·    2019              

The Page Gallery, “Choi Myoung Young: Conditional Planes II”, Seoul, Korea

·    2017           

Gallery Shilla,“Choi Myoung Young”, Daegu, Korea

Selected Group Exhibitions:

·     2024

Almine Rech, Frieze Seoul, Seoul, Korea

Tokyo Gallery + BTAP, Frieze Seoul, Seoul, Korea

Almine Rech, Art Basel, Basel, Switzerland

Shinsegae Gallery, “Contemplation”, Seoul, Korea

Hammer Museum, “Only the Young Experimental Art in Korea, 1960s–1970s”, Los Angeles, USA

Hoban Cultural Foundation, “Resonance of the Times”, Seoul, Korea

Gallery Shilla, “Winter Collections In Daegu”, Daegu, Korea

·     2023

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,“Only the Young: Experimental Art in Korea, 1960s–1970s”, NY, USA

Hakojae Gallery, “Eui-geum-sang-gyeong: Over her embroidered robe she puts on a plain garment”, Seoul, Korea

Space21, “Crtic Lee II and the Avant-Garde group in the 1970s”, Seoul, Korea

Tokyo Gallery + BTAP, Art Basel Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

·    2021    

The Page Gallery, ”Chusa Kim, Ufan Lee, Choi Myoung Young, Choi In-soo”, Seoul, Korea  

·   2018          

Puerta Roja Gallery, “Reflections – Celebrating Eight Years of Cross-Cultural Collaboration”, Hong Kong

The Page Gallery, “A to P (A letter from the new Page)”, Seoul, Korea

Gallery Shilla, “Black Selections”, Daegu, Korea

·   2017

Museum San, “Looking into Korean Art Part2: Dansaekhwa”, Wonju, Korea

Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, “Rhythm in Monochrome Korean Abstract Painting”, Tokyo, Japan

The “Conditional Planes” series symbolizes Myoung Young’s artistic journey throughout his work, since the 1970s. This style emphasizes the flat surface of the canvas, aligning him with the Dansaekhwa paintings, which are characterized by geometric, simple, clear lines and forms in primary colors. Myoung Young’s particular style in this era was based on the idea of the creation and extinction of traces on canvas by using fingerprint and sandpaper.