Art Sonje Center is pleased to present a lecture program featuring Kyung An and Kenji Kajiya in conjunction with the exhibition Ha Chong-Hyun 5975. This program offers a deeper exploration of the exhibition and the artistic practice of Ha Chong-Hyun.

About the lecture
Ha Chong-Hyun: An Enduring Spirit of Experimentation by Kyung An
“There is one type of artist who stays tenaciously committed to one method his entire life; then there is another who searches for something new as he continually denies everything. I would think the latter would apply in my case.” Thus Ha Chong-Hyun defined himself in 1975. This talk will explore the enduring spirit of experimentation that has underpinned Ha’s decades-long practice, with a focus on his early works of the 1960s and the 1970s. It will also consider Ha’s oeuvre within the expanding collection of process-oriented Post-minimalist and Conceptual art and global exhibitions programming at the Guggenheim Museum.

Ha Chong-Hyun and Japan by Kenji Kajiya
Ha Chong-Hyun and Japan will examine the relationship between Ha Chong-Hyun and Japan. Ha has maintained significant connections with the Japanese art world. In 1968, he participated in the Contemporary Korean Painting exhibition at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, and in 1972, he held a solo exhibition at the Gin Gallery in Ginza. He later took part in various group exhibitions in Japan and held seven solo exhibitions there. Through Lee Ufan, Ha engaged with Japanese artists, particularly those associated with Mono-ha, while Japanese art critics showed great interest in his paintings, which challenged the structure of painting itself. This talk will explore how Ha interacted with the Japanese art world and developed his own unique artistic language.

About the speakers
Kyung An (Curator, Asian Art Initiative and Head, Global Exhibitions Initiative, Solomon R, Guggenheim Foundation)
Kyung An, PhD, plays a significant role in the research, presentation, and collection of Asian and Asian-diaspora artists under the purview of the Asian Art Initiative at the Guggenheim. Since joining the museum in 2015, she has organized critically acclaimed exhibitions Sarah Sze: Timelapse (2023) and Only the Young: Experimental Art in Korea, 1960s –1970s (2023 –24). In addition, An contributes to the growth of the museum’s collection as an appointed curator on the International Director’s Council and as a founding curator of the Asian Art Circle. As Head of the Global Exhibitions Initiative, she makes key strategic decisions related to touring exhibitions originating from the Guggenheim New York. She received her BA and MA in art history from the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, where she also completed her PhD in 2015.

Kenji Kajiya (Professor at Department of Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo)
Kenji Kajiya is an art historian who focuses on modern and contemporary art in the United States and Japan. He is a professor in the Department of Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies at the University of Tokyo. He is the author of Emancipated Painting: Color Field Painting and 20th Century American Culture (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 2023; in Japanese) and the co-editor of FromPostwar to Postmodern, Art in Japan 1945−1989: Primary Documents (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2012).