2025.1.22

Solo Exhibition “Study of Dansaekhwa” and “Dansaekhwa” Art Front Gallery

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We are pleased to announce the first solo exhibition of Nanae Mitobe at Art Front Gallery.
We look forward to your visit.

Outline of the exhibition                                  
This solo exhibition will be held during two separate periods.
Period
First period: Thursday, March 5, 2025 – Sunday, March 16, 2025 (tentative) “Study of Dansaekhwa
Phase II: March 21 (Friday) – April 20 (Sunday), 2025 (tentative) “Dansaekhwa 
Reception:March 21, 2025 (Fri.) 18:00-19:00 (tentative)
Closed: Mondays, Tuesdays, and during the exhibition change period (March 17-20)
Hours: 12:00-19:00, Wednesday-Friday / 11:00-17:00, Saturday, Sunday and holidays
Venue: Art Front Gallery (Hillside Terrace A, 1F, 29-18 Sarugaku-cho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0033, Japan)
URL: http://www.artfrontgallery.com
Inquiries: Art Front Gallery (Attn: Katai, Hong) / e-mail: contact@artfrontgallery.com

Highlights                                  
This solo exhibition will present Nanae Mitobe’s new challenge under the theme of “Dansaekhwa (Dansaqua)”.

The theme is “Dansaekhwa”.                                   
Dansaekhwa” is a form of painting practiced by Korean artists in the 1970s, meaning monochrome painting. However, it is not only a visual expression, but also features a variety of forms and materials such as spirit and performance. Dansaekhwa” is translated as ‘monochromatic painting’ in Japanese, but when referring to the works of the pioneers, it is not simply a painting with fewer colors, but a painting that can be experienced more materially and physically by limiting the number of colors. He learned of this “Dansaekhwa” during a residency at the Youngeun Museum of Contemporary Art in Gwangju, South Korea, which he participated in from the end of 2024 to 2025. Until now, Mitobe has produced many impressive paintings with a variety of colors and heavy, raised paints, but now that he has gained insight into “Dansaekhwa,” he is enthusiastic about the new challenge, saying, “I think I can express what I want to convey more strongly by narrowing down the number of colors He is also very enthusiastic about the new challenge. He also noticed that the works of Seo-Bo Park, U-Fan Lee, and Sang-Hwa Jeong, who are also pioneers of “Dansaekhwa,” create strong paintings by repeatedly applying and removing paint, for example, by folding the canvas and using the cracks created by the folding process. In terms of “the materiality of painting and action,” he found similarities with Mitoobe’s previous works that utilize the materiality of paint and objects. Furthermore, in the 1960s–70s, Korea was impoverished in terms of material resources and was under a dictatorial political system. Against this backdrop, Ha Jong Hyun embarked on his “Joining” series, in which he further traced and rubbed the overflowing painting surface with a brush by “backing” the black and white oil paints he had created by pressing them onto the back of a linen cloth. Mitobe pursued the materiality of the paints in their works and the potential of the canvas as more than a mere support, and he also explored the physical analogy of the “body” in materiality painting, which he called “Dansaekhw

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