Seundja Rhee: Towards the Antipodes

Seundja

Towards the Antipodes

Rhee:

SEUNDJA RHEE (1918–2009)

A pioneer of modern art in Asia, the work of Seundja Rhee (1918–2009) established a trifold aesthetic and intellectual edifice bridging multiple worlds: the East and West, Asia and Europe, France and Korea. The consolidation of abstraction as an emblem of modern art in the aftermath of World War II, the cultivation of Korean identity in her geographical and cultural displacement in Europe, and the solid affirmation of her self in a patriarchal order across all aspects of society—these construct the underpinnings of how Rhee built her oeuvre and lived her life.

She was a mother and an artist who refused to align herself with credos or aesthetic obeisance to the dominant fashions of the time. Rhee was one of the first Korean woman artists to establish, with her visual autonomy, a unique and unrepeatable artistic paradigm of her own, from the second half of the 20th century to the beginning of the 21st.

Separated from her family, she emigrated to France in 1951 at the outbreak of the Korean War. Having acquired in Paris her artistic training amidst the milieu of the then predominant modern art, Rhee began traveling back to Korea from 1965 and explored the confection of images that speaks to both worlds. The work of Rhee expresses, in an evidently early concern for such matters, the consciousness of mankind’s dependence on earth and nature. A lone woman starting life anew as an artist on foreign land, she identified art as her vital motivation. In her own words: “I am a woman, a woman is a mother, and a mother is earth.”

Rhee’s work is divided into thematic and aesthetic periods that revolve around the feminine condition and its relationship to earth. Classified by the artist herself, Rhee’s work is

Seundja Rhee at the atelier 49 Rue de la Procession, Paris 15, 1977

Courtesy of Seundja Rhee Foundation

introduced as a synthesis including the best moments of her production, featuring paintings from iconic periods titled Abstract, Woman and Earth, Superimposition, Yin and Yang, Timelessness, Road to the Antipodes, and Cosmos.

Rhee’s work can be viewed today as the expression of an alternative and paradoxical modernism, in which the languages of progress promised by the tabula rasa of the industrial revolution are confronted with non-depredatory attitudes towards the universe. The exhibition highlights how Rhee both belonged to her time and defied any association to a single historical period. Her work has become a timeless document of the future, rather than of a time that was.

About Seundja Rhee

A pioneer of the practice of modern art and one of the first Korean woman artists to attain public international relevance, Seundja Rhee maintains an unparalleled position amidst the first generation of Korean artists who moved to France. Rhee’s prolific career across six decades demonstrated constant experimentation and unwavering intention to synthesize and harmonize antipodal elements, including the East and West, natural and urban environments, mind and body, and the Earth and the celestial. Born in 1918 in Jinju, South Korea, Rhee spent her years in Korea surrounded by nature, an upbringing which would later constitute the bedrock of her body of work. She spent the majority of her youth during a tumultuous period in modern Korean history when the nation was under the Japanese Occupation (1910–1945), followed by the Korean War (1950–1953). The strains of the sociopolitical milieu during her time in Korea was further compounded by her personal experience of becoming forcibly separated from her family and three sons. In an attempt to start life anew, in 1951 Rhee left behind three decades of her life in Korea for Paris.

After arriving in Paris, in 1953 Rhee entered the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Montparnasse where she was introduced to the prevailing schools of Western modern art. In years to come, Rhee constructed a multilateral and eclectic lifetime practice identified by nine discrete stylistic periods: Figurative (1954–1956), Abstract (1957–1960), Woman and Earth (1961–1968), Superimposition (1969–1971), City (1972–1974), Yin and Yang, Timelessness (1975–1976), Nature (1977–1979), Road to the Antipodes (1980–1994), and Cosmos (1995–2008).

After an initial foray into figurative art, Rhee made a dynamic shift to abstraction under the guidance of Henri Goetz, whose surrealist influence informed her earlier works. During this Abstract period, she foregrounded a lyrical color palette reflecting her immigrant impression of France, authoring a body of work that has been regarded by critics as an unconscious reflection of her experiences in Korea rather than an explicit reference to traditional concepts and colors that were often seen in the work of other Korean artists working in Paris at the time. From the 1960s, Rhee’s poetic references to her personal narrative paved her creative trajectory and framed the perspective on her surroundings. Beginning with the Woman and Earth period, her gaze downwards, towards the ground and soil (Mother Earth), mirrored the yearning for her maternal duties, as well as the longing to become reunited with her own mother. Her almost pointillist strokes in alternating colors constructed an abstract surface plane of which the rough matiere evokes tilled soil, serving both as a nod to her motherland and the ground from which all life has birthed.

Rhee’s gaze gradually began to shift upwards from the late 1960s, as her trips to megacities in the United States sparked interest and fascination in urban environments that arose from the ground, as well as the organic geometry that the artist paradoxically discovered in cityscapes, giving way to the Superimposition and City periods. Rhee’s further investigation into geometric motifs climaxed in the Yin and Yang, Timelessness and Nature series, compelling the artist to utilize the circle as her signature mechanism to unify contrasting

elements and transcend the limitations of space and time. Throughout the rest of her artistic career, Rhee devoted herself to depicting halved circles with abutting convex and concave forms at the center for their expression of the philosophy of the harmony of duality, a condensed reflection of Rhee’s conflicted identity as being “neither French nor Korean.”

The artist further elevated her gaze to the skies and the cosmos from the 1980s, bearing two of her most iconic series—Road to the Antipodes and Cosmos—until her death in 2009.

Signifying a culmination of her gradual journey upwards throughout decades of her artistic trajectory and repeated trips back and forth between France and Korea—Rhee’s home and her homeland—halfway across the globe, Road to the Antipodes served as a figurative memoir of the artist’s travels from one locus of the globe to another. Cosmos then served as a natural progression from which Rhee could see the two antipodes of her life from a bird’s eye view and praise the cosmic sublime as countless stars shine and eddy.

Rhee’s undisputed position within Korean art history counters the dominance of male artists, demonstrating a decidedly independent stance amidst the prevalent trends of Dansaekhwa and Minjung art movement of her time. She brought forth the hybridization of dichotomies, aspiring for unity between humanity and nature. Although part of a generation that experienced the horrors of the Japanese Occupation and the Korean War, and although rattled by the injustices of patriarchy, Rhee never ceased to pursue her visionary aesthetic as both a mother and an artist, achieving a world in which life and art come into a harmonious equilibrium.

Seundja Rhee (1918–2009) has held approximately 80 solo and 300 group exhibitions in her lifetime, including a major retrospective at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA), Gwacheon, in 2018 to celebrate the centenary of her birth. The artist has also been the subject of solo presentations at institutions around the world including Espace Pierre Cardin, Paris (2001); Musée de la Citadelle, Villefranche-sur-Mer (1999);

International Monetary Fund, Washington D.C. (1997); Korean Cultural Center, Paris (1996); Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nice (1988); Korean Cultural Center, Los Angeles (1986); UNESCO, Paris (1984); the MMCA, Gwacheon (1988), Deoksugung, Seoul (1978), and Gyeongbokgung, Seoul (1970); and Galerie Charpentier, Paris (1964).

She is the recipient of the Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters, Academy of Arts, France (1991), and the Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters, Academy of Arts, France (2002). She was also awarded the 10th Cultural Prize of France-Korea (2009) and Bogwan Order of Cultural Merit, Ministry of Culture, Korea (2009). Rhee’s works are housed in major public collections such as the MMCA, Seoul; Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul; Ho-Am Art Museum, Yongin; Kumho Museum of Art, Seoul; Art Sonje Center, Seoul; Gyeongnam Art Museum, Changwon; Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Musée d’arts de Nantes, Nantes; Musée d’Art moderne de la ville de Paris, Paris; Centre national des arts plastiques (CNAP), Paris; Musée d’art moderne et contemporain - Saint-Étienne Métropole, Saint-Priest-en-Jarez; Châteaumusée Grimaldi, Cagnes-sur-Mer; Musée Magnelli - Musée de la Céramique, Vallauris; and Médiathèques des Chartreux, Issy-les-Moulineaux. Rhee passed away in 2009.

81 × 65 cm

Framed: 90 × 73.8 × 4.5 cm

A Pearl of Sap, 1959

Oil on canvas

Perspective of Centuries, 1959

Oil on canvas

65 × 50 cm

Framed: 75.7 × 60.6 × 4.7 cm

Earth No.1, 1960

Oil on canvas

81 × 100 cm

Framed: 101.5 × 120.5 × 5.5cm

White Mirror, 1960

Oil on canvas

116 × 81 cm

Framed: 123.3 × 88.3 × 5.5 cm

The Bride, 1960

Oil on canvas

115 × 89 cm

Framed: 126 × 100.3 × 5 cm

Composition, 1961

Oil on canvas

89 × 146 cm

Framed: 98.2 × 155 × 4.5 cm

My Sweet City, 1962

Oil on canvas

120 × 60 cm

Framed: 125.5 × 66.5 × 5.5 cm

Composition, 1962

Oil on canvas

130 × 194 cm

Framed: 140 × 205 × 6 cm

A Mother I Remember, 1962

Oil on canvas

130 × 195 cm

Framed: 141 × 205 × 5.5 cm

Sweet Sunrays, 1963

Oil on canvas

60 × 73 cm

Framed: 70.5 × 83.2 × 4.9 cm

Ojak-kio, 1965

Oil on canvas

146 × 114 cm

Framed: 163.5 × 131.5 × 6 cm

A Day of Serendipitous Encounter (Ojak-kio)

- Cho Byung-hwa

This is a bridge that exists only in the East

A symbol of connection

These are tears that exist only in the East

Flowing with emotions

This is longing that exists only in the East

A flickering love

Woven with Eastern wisdom

Across the galaxy

A bridge of distant stars

For love that meets and separates once a year

In the sky

This is an Eastern bridge

Placed only between loving hearts

Oh, longing

The bridge between you and me

A

Oil on canvas

116 × 89 cm

Framed: 124.5 × 97.5 × 5 cm

World without Obstacle, 1968

Midnight at Empire State Building, 1969

Acrylic on canvas

162 × 114 cm

Framed: 172 × 124 × 5.5 cm

“I was very impressed by New York.

I felt the pressure of the material abundance such as the large groups of mass and the density, the forest of skyscrapers reeling in the air. Standing at the top of the Empire State Building at midnight surrounded by the city lights from the overlapped skyscrapers led me to my new attempt, Superimposition.”

- Seundja Rhee

Superimposition Traffic, 1971

Acrylic on canvas

130 × 162 cm

Framed: 136 × 168.5 × 5.5 cm

Timeless January No.1, 1976

Acrylic on wood panel

130 × 160 × 10 cm

Road to the Antipodes July No.2, 1981

Acrylic on canvas

130 × 162 cm

Framed: 134 × 165.5 × 4.5 cm

My Cottage of Great Bear October No.2, 1995

Acrylic on canvas

130 × 97 cm

Framed: 138.5 × 106 × 4.5 cm

My Cottage of Venus June, 2000

Acrylic on canvas

92 × 73 cm

Framed: 99 × 80 × 4.5 cm

A City of Yong Keuk May, 2003

Acrylic on canvas

150 × 150 cm

Framed: 159 × 159 × 5 cm

A City of September, 2008

Acrylic on canvas

130 × 162 cm

Framed: 138 × 170 × 6.5 cm

TOWARDS THE ANTIPODES.

THE WORK OF SEUNDJA RHEE

Bartomeu Marí, Curator

One of the series of works that Seundja Rhee (1918 –2009) produced towards the end of her life, and which inspires the title of this exhibition, places us, the artist, and those of us who contemplate her work today, in the midst of a journey. Road to the Antipodes encompasses the work of a lifetime, paintings in which the Korean artist captured two of the central axes of her life experience. On one hand, the geographical and cultural displacement experienced since 1951 when she moved from her native Korea to France, where she lived until her death. This kind of diaspora, a product of dominant habits of Korean society, came about as the result of an abrupt breakup of her marriage and estrangement from her family, which coincided with the outbreak of the Korean War (1950 –1953). On the other hand, Rhee’s work reflects the awareness that human beings maintain with nature, the world, the earth, and the elements—a symbiotic relationship which is neither predatory nor domineering, but one of codependence and harmony. The popular culture of Korean society at the beginning of the 20th century had, as today to a lesser extent, deep roots in Buddhism. Economically based on the primary sectors, since 1910 Korea had been under a colonial regime imposed by a belligerent and imperialist Japanese Empire that was also expanding into Southern China and Southeast Asia, in a similar fashion to what Nazi Germany did shortly afterwards in Europe. Rhee witnessed the rapid industrialization imposed by external forces and the exploitation of people and resources to feed the metropolis. In fact, Rhee is among the first Korean women to be educated at a Japanese university.

As a result of her regular trips from France to Korea since 1965, Seundja Rhee was able to admire, from an airplane window, the extraordinary landscapes of a nature yet unscathed by industrial alterations, a rare grand scenery unknown to most of her fellow citizens. Thousands of meters above sea level, where birds do not fly, the views of the North Pole, large expanses of land, sea water, and ice were appreciated with perspectives that evaded convergence into a single vanishing point and where the horizon was considerably curved. The clouds ceased to complement the sky, instead becoming an attribute of the ground below or floating between spaces that venture towards infinity, without visible borders.

Rhee’s aerial landscapes are populated with signs of colorful punctuation and seem to constitute a coded language, music, or calculations. The path to the antipodes speaks to the artist and she translates it for us and through time.

Traveling the road to “the other side” of the globe is an experience that Rhee accumulated in both directions. Perhaps it is in the experience and materiality of the path between two worlds that Rhee constructed, consciously or unconsciously, her own place. Oscillating between the two opposite loci on the globe, with all the associated meanings, Rhee traced the borders of a territory from which she became an artist, being probably the most accurate definition of the place where she belongs: to both worlds at the same time, to neither one exclusively. For Rhee was a foreigner in Europe and built throughout her life a portable identity, undoubtedly Korean but highly transformed. After 1953, at the end of the war, Rhee’s native Korea no longer existed, there was no place to return to, and it was necessary to build a new home from a distance that she could visit cerebrally, in memories and emotions. Towards the end of her life and together with the series Road to the Antipodes, Rhee elaborated a final series of paintings that also concludes this exhibition. Cosmos projects into the future a formative idea that seems to bring to date the holistic awareness of Buddhist roots that places the human being in harmony with the surroundings and with what exists. Rhee’s pictorial project concludes with explosions of color and almost psychedelic traces that are always punctuated by signs and tiny graphic elements that seem to compose a score or trace a stellar movement. But to the experience of the heights and the cosmos, Rhee has departed, as we shall see, from the earth and its soil, the components of the natural and the productions of the human being.

This brief essay aims to situate, from a contemporary perspective, the reception of the work of Seundja Rhee, a pioneer of modern art in Korea and Asia. Appreciated today in her native country as in her adoptive Europe, Rhee’s work deserves, for several reasons, a fresh look from the perspective of today. On one hand, not having belonged to any particular artistic

group or aesthetic current, her work was seen at the time as an exception—a free verse.

Formally trained in Paris since 1953, the French art system (and European in general) shifted substantially, as it had since the end of the 19th century, to the beat of groups, creeds, chapels, movements, fashion, and tastes. Belonging, especially at the beginning of one’s career, to an aesthetic, programmatic, or ideological group seemed to be an obligation for every artist; it was an essential attribute in order to exist as an artist, contrary to the current panorama where all artists seem to be unique, independent individuals, disconnected from one another. Being part of a movement was like belonging to a family. And Rhee, who had just been estranged from hers, was not interested in new gregarious impulses: she harbored an attitude of freedom that allowed her the utmost creative capacity when it came to acting, painting, and thinking.

By first practicing and going through the conventions that the school of that time transmitted in order to free herself from its grasp, Rhee soon elaborated the basis of a language of her own that would accompany her ever since. Very quickly brushing over the stages of the decomposition of realist images as initiated by impressionism at the end of the 19th century, Rhee ends almost naturally, as if by decantation, in the cultivation of abstraction under the colorist influence of Paul Klee or Joan Miró. But by the end of the 1950s, when she consolidated her first artistic stages, Rhee had already created one of her constant technical innovations: a painting composed of short, repetitive strokes associated to or combined with pointillism, a visually rough and complex treatment of the surfaces on which she depicts simple shapes in high-contrast colors. In these paintings, another constant of her work also appears: the represented object. If modern painting profoundly alters the components of classical painting (background and figure, perspectives and volumes), Rhee places the representation of space at the center of her interests. And we will see it throughout the works gathered in this particular exhibition: the artist’s fascination with the high points of early 20th-century painting, European sculpture and the historical avant-garde to which the artist had copious exposure in Paris or the organic abstraction that allowed her to overcome

the world of fluctuation between the abstract and the figurative which had been cultivated by late surrealism.

From this first period, the works Perspective of Centuries and A Pearl of Sap, both from 1959, clearly represent the will to distance herself from what she had learned and to launch herself into the invention of her own territory that would be consolidated from the beginning of the 1960s and onwards. They are paintings of soft colors in which almost geometric shapes float on a highly elaborated background with a rugged texture. They are works where simple geometric shapes appear (including triangles, squares, circles, rectangles) that will soon evolve towards what reminds us of landscapes of nature and labor. The artist’s attention is directed to the representation of the cultivated land, spaces ordered by orography or human action. In fact, her attention was distributed throughout the whole of her work towards two apparently opposite poles—especially from the perspective of Western cultures: the wild and the constructed, the natural and the mechanical.

Rhee herself periodized her work by dividing it into specific thematic groups, each of them within a precise chronological range, and such was her awareness of her work. Thus, the Figurative (1954 –1956) would be followed by the Abstract (1957–1960) to which these aforementioned two works belong. Between 1961 and 1968, always according to her own classification, Rhee developed a line of work that she called Woman and Earth, from which the exhibition includes an extraordinary group of works such as Earth No.1, White Mirror, and The Bride, all three from 1960; My Sweet City, Composition, and A Mother I Remember, all from 1962. Each of these works declines a similar motif with slight variations in chromatic and formal tonalities, eminently relatable. The titles with which Rhee identifies her works add undeniable layers of meaning.

The association between “woman” and “earth” is present in diverse cultures around the globe that remained unconnected before the development of modernity, explorations,

and colonization. Rhee connects in this association two facts of her own life: the rural environment of her childhood and her condition as a mother of three children, a motherhood that must live with the trauma of an early and prolonged separation. Her own motherhood carries with it an undoubtedly emotional charge that is somehow transferred to the earth, rendering the sentiment universal.

In this group of paintings, two examples of transition or conciliation between conceptual opposites stand out, very central in Rhee’s work as a whole: Ojak-kio (1965) and A World without Obstacle (1968) belong chronologically to the period that the artist calls Woman and Earth. But the orthogonal repetition of lines that evoke the furrows of tilled land ready to bear new fruit, as seen in the fields of the continental interior or the mountainous terrains of the Mediterranean inlands, for example, are in these paintings giving way to a series of highly complex compositions of lines and volumes where what seem to be aerial views of imagined cities are arranged, with clear divisions of spaces but without codes that indicate uses or functions. Such arrangement of spaces, where circular and straight forms compete with one another (in the manner of avenues or walled environments), reminds us of ancient archeology, in any case, of monumental spatial forms, perhaps premodern or even typical of science fiction. Ojak-kio (1965) is perhaps the most futuristic and in it the mechanical and the geometric are superimposed on the organic.

The period Superimposition is developed subsequently—between 1969 and 1971—and in the exhibition, we find two excellent examples of this group of work that anticipates the next thematic axis developed by Rhee and is centered on the representation of an idea related to the big city, the modern metropolis. In fact, this and the following period of works called City (1972–1974), are thematically and aesthetically intertwined. If we focus on the titles, Midnight at Empire State Building (1969) and Superimposition Traffic (1971) synthesize two motifs

typical of the metropolitan experience: the skyscraper illuminated from within that soars at night to mingle with the stars in the sky or the artificial lights that abound on the surface,

and the flow of cars on the outstretched streets of the city. The depiction of buildings and their harmonious relationships with one another translate into a bustling, rhythmic image with a powerful sense of movement. Midnight at Empire State Building (1969), however, seems more like a flat representation of a portion of a city than a built structure, erected vertically. The motifs in the painting resemble the characters of an archaic language, or perhaps an invented hybrid of geometric strokes such as those that make up the Korean alphabet, albeit with much more complex signs, with right angles and perpendicular compositions dominating, without the curves. The background of the painting recreates a landscape of movement with points of light that compose an abstract landscape of flashes. The descending vertical vision that explains the paintings from the previous periods is shifting: the modern city has entered the repertoire of subjects that attract Rhee’s attention, thus reappearing as one of the most manifest paradoxes, the tension between nature and artifice. In Superimposition Traffic (1971), bundles of colored lines compose authentic urban highways that act like the arteries of an organism or like pentagrams that host a thunderous symphony. This painting is based on the declination of curved and wavy lines with a dominance of orange and mauve colors. In the center, one of the most constant figures in Rhee’s work, a circle divided in two with a central slit where the two halves meet, presides over the image as if it were a chromatic center of gravity. In fact, it is a representation of harmonization of opposites that, apart from being present in numerous works by Rhee, also became the blueprint for her studio built in the south of France in 1997.

The experience of the great American cities that Rhee gained on several trips to the United States in the 1960s endowed her work with a new vocabulary in seemingly frontal contrast to the forms and themes explored until then. Perhaps, the trip to the antipodes that defines Rhee’s life and work is a round trip, or a spiral journey, which first descends from the subject of the earth and its metaphor associated with motherhood and, merging with nature, becomes fascinated by its opposite, the artifice, the built, the city, and its appearances of immensity, organization, hierarchies of spaces, and spectacle of life and movement. From

there, the artist’s gaze moves to the heights and looks again at the spectacle of a terrestrial nature that confirms its place within the infinity of the cosmos.

Courtesy of Seundja Rhee Foundation

SEUNDJA RHEE

b. 1918, Jinju, Korea

d. 2009, Tourrettes, France

EDUCATION

1935 Graduated from Jinju Ilshin Girls’ High School, Jinju, Korea

1938 Graduated from Jissen Women’s College, Tokyo, Japan

1953 Entered the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, Paris, France

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2023 Seundja Rhee: Into the Woods, Rhee Seundja Jinju Museum of Art, Jinju

2022 Seundja Rhee: The Sound of Forest, Rhee Seundja Jinju Museum of Art, Jinju

2021 Seundja Rhee: Esperanto, Rhee Seundja Jinju Museum of Art, Jinju

Seundja Rhee: Life of Floating, Rhee Seundja Jinju Museum of Art, Jinju

2020 Collection Exhibition: Endless Journey to Space, Rhee Seundja Jinju Museum of Art, Jinju

2019 Collection Exhibition: Beyond the City into Space, Rhee Seundja Jinju Museum of Art, Jinju

2018 The 100th Anniversary of Birth Rhee Seundja: Road to the Antipodes, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Gwacheon

The 100th Anniversary of Birth Rhee Seundja: A Star Shining on Earth, Rhee

Seundja Jinju Museum of Art, Jinju

Célébration du centenaire Seundja Rhee, Espace Muséal, Tourrettes-sur-Loup

City Hall, Tourrettes-sur-Loup, France

The 100th Anniversary of Birth Seundja Rhee: 1957– 1968, Gallery Hyundai, Seoul

2016 Apesanteur Enchantée, Musée départemental des Arts asiatiques, Nice, France

2008 Le Retour Aux Sources, Gyeongnam Art Museum, Changwon

VILLES NOUVELLES DU FUTUR: PEINTURES RÉCENTES DE SEUNDJA RHEE, Musée departemental des Arts asiatiques, Nice, France

2007 Songs of Cosmos, Gallery Hyundai, Seoul

2006 A TRAVERS BOIS Seundja Rhee gravures sur bois, livres d’aristes et bois originaux, Bibliothèque Louis Nucéra, Nice, France

Seundja Rhee, Librairie-Galerie Laure Matarasso, Nice, France

Seundja Rhee, Mediathèque d’lssy-les-Moulineaux, d’lssy-les-Moulineaux, France

2004 Seundja Rhee, Librairie-Galerie Auguste Blaizot, Paris, France

2003 Chemin au Pays du Matin Calme, Musée Magnelli, Musée de la Céramique, Vallauris, France

2002 Seundja Rhee, Grenoble International, Grenoble, France

2001 Seundja Rhee, Espace Pierre Cardin, Paris, France

Seundja Rhee, Librairie Lettres et Images, Paris, France

1999 Seundja Rhee in France, Debeck Plaza Gallery, Daegu

Seundja Rhee: 30th Anniversary of MBC in Masan, MBC Art Hall, Masan

Seundja Rhee, Korean Cultural Center Osaka, Osaka, Japan

Seundja Rhee, Musée de la Citadelle, Chapelle Saint-Elme, Villefranche-sur-Mer, France

1998 Seundja Rhee, Seoul Arts Center, Seoul

Seundja Rhee, Yochii Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

Seundja Rhee, Espace Chubac, Tourrette-Levens, France

1997 Seundja Rhee, Gallery Hyundai, Seoul

Seundja Rhee, Semi Gallery, Seoul

Seundja Rhee Paintings & Woodblock Prints Exhibition, International Momentary Fund, Washington, D.C., USA

1996 Seundja Rhee, Centre Culturel Coréen, Paris, France

Seundja Rhee, Galerie la Nouvelle Gravure, France

1995 Seundja Rhee, Chosun Ilbo Museum, Hyundai Gallery (Hyundai Department Store), Seoul

Seundja Rhee Exhibition, Haeban Gallery, Incheon

1994 Seundja Rhee, Foster Bank Community Center, Chicago, USA

Seundja Rhee, Espace Michel-Simon, Noisy-le-Grand, France

Seundja Rhee, Librairie Lettres et Images, Paris, France

Seundja Rhee, Librairie-Galerie Jacques Matarasso, Paris, France

1991 Michel Butor et Seundja Rhee, Librairie-Galerie Jacques Matarasso, Nice, France

Seundja Rhee 40 ans à Paris, Youngnam Gallery, Youngnam Department Store

Co., Ltd., Jinju

1990 Seundja Rhee, Gallery Hyundai, Seoul

Seundja Rhee Exposition des Dessins des années 60, Institut Français de Séoul, Seoul

1988 Seundja Rhee, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Gwacheon

Seundja Rhee’s Prints in 1960s, Gallery Hyundai, Seoul

Seundja Rhee Aspects de l’Oeuvre gravé, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nice, Nice, France

1986

Seundja Rhee, Gallery Hyundai, Seoul

Seundja Rhee, Korean Cultural Center, Los Angeles, USA

Seundja Rhee, UNAC Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

Seundja Rhee, Mie Gallery, Seoul

Seundja Rhee, Jacques Matarasso Librairie-Galerie, Nice, France

Seundja Rhee, Chez Noel Le Gall, Paris, France

1985

Seundja Rhee, Gallery Hyundai, Seoul

Seundja Rhee 1960–1964, Lloyd Shin Gallery, Seoul

Seundja Rhee, Galerie Alexandre de la Salle, Saint-Paul, France

Seundja Rhee, Galerie de la Fondation Sophia Antipolis, Sophia Antipolis, France

1984 Seundja Rhee, UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), Paris, France

Seundja Rhee, Maison de la Culture Andre Malraux, Reims, France

1982 Seundja Rhee, Hôtel de Ville de Saint-Ouen-l’Aumône, Saint-Ouen-l’Aumône, France

Seundja Rhee, Forum 3M, Cergy-Pontoise, France

1981 Seundja Rhee, Galerie Kim-Jungfernhof, Neustad (Wied), Germany

Seundja Rhee 30 ANS A PARIS, Galerie Jacques Massol, Paris, France

Seundja Rhee 30 ans à Paris a travers ses AFFICHES, Centre Culturel Francais de Seoul, Seoul

Seundja Rhee 30 ans à Paris à travers ses AFFICHES, Gallery Hyundai, Seoul

1980 Seundja Rhee, Maison de Van Gogh, Auvers-sur-Oise, France

1979 Seundja Rhee, Librairie-Galerie Jacques Matarasso, Nice, France

1978 Seundja Rhee, National Museum of Modern Art (Deoksugung), Seoul

Seundja Rhee, Ambassade de la République de Corée en France, Paris, France

1977 Seundja Rhee, Galerie Cavalero, Cannes, France

Seundja Rhee, Gallery Hyundai, Seoul

Seundja Rhee, Gogwandang Gallery, Busan

1976 Seundja Rhee, Chateau Musée Grimaldi de Cagnes-sur-Mer, Cagnes-sur-Mer, France

1975 Seundja Rhee, Galerie Yves Brun, Paris, France

Seundja Rhee, Librairie Jacques Matarasso, Nice, France

1974 Seundja Rhee, Galerie Beno, Zürich, Switzerland

Seundja Rhee, Galerie Soleil, Paris, France

Seundja Rhee, Gallery Hyundai, Seoul

1973 Seundja Rhee, S. Domenico, Imola, Italy

1971 Seundja Rhee, Galerie Nuova Loggia Grafica, Bologna, Italy

Seundja Rhee, Libreria Renzi, Cremona, Italy

1970 Seundja Rhee, National Museum of Modern Art (Gyeongbokgung), Seoul

1969 Seundja Rhee, Seibu Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

1968 Seundja Rhee, Galerie Charpentier, Paris, France

1967 Seundja Rhee, Galerie de la Lumière, Paris, France

SIGNE DE LUMIERE Seundja Rhee, Gemmacothèque, Tours, France

1965 Seundja Rhee, Seoul National University Faculty Club, Seoul

Seundja Rhee, Gallery Ichibankan, Tokyo, Japan

1964 Seundja Rhee, Galerie Charpentier, Paris, France

1963 Seundja Rhee, Galerie Rümelin, Basel, Switzerland

Seundja Rhee, Galerie Cavalero, Cannes, France

1962 Seundja Rhee, Galerie Synthèse, Paris, France

1961 Seundja Rhee, Galerie Cavalero, Cannes, France

1960 Seundja Rhee, Galerie Perou, Paris, France

1959 Seundja Rhee, Galerie Beno, Zürich, Switzerland

1958 Seundja Rhee, Galerie Lara Vincy, Paris, France

1956 Seundja Rhee, Galerie Guillaumet, Le Puy, France

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2021 MMCA Lee Kun-hee Collection: Masterpieces of Korean Art, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul

2020 HYUNDAI 50, Gallery Hyundai, Seoul

2018 Digital Promenade, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul

2016 Being in Nature, Museum SAN, Wonju

Recall the moments, Youngeun Museum of Contemporary Art, Gwangju

2015 Three Eyes I do Have, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Deoksugung), Seoul

Korean Abstract Painting — 45th Anniversary of Gallery Hyundai, Gallery Hyundai,

Seoul

SEOUL PARIS SEOUL: ARTISTES COREENS EN FRANCE, Musée Cernuschi, Paris, France

2014 The Moment of Truth 2, Museum SAN, Wonju

Korean Modern and Contemporary Abstract Art — Silent Resonance, Wooyang Museum of Contemporary Art, Gyeongju

2013 Contemporary Art in the Textbook, Goyang Aram Nuri Arts Center, Goyang

Korean Modern Paintings in the 1960–70s, Gallery Hyundai, Seoul

Masterpieces of Modern Korean Painting, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Deoksugung), Seoul

Zeitgeist Korea, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Seoul), Seoul

2012 1958 L’École de Paris, Shinsegae Gallery, Seoul; Incheon; Busan

The Star of Korean Contemporary Art in the 20 Century, Incheon Culture & Arts Center, Incheon

15th Anniversary of Ulsan Metropolitan City: 100 years Korean Art, Special Show of 35 Masters, Ulsan Culture Art Center, Ulsan

The 3th Anniversary of Grand Opening of Pohang Museum of Steel Art: Meditation of Korean Modern Art, Pohang Museum of Steel Art, Pohang

2011 L’Art entre les Lignes, Livres d’Artistes et Explorations de Michel Butor, Musée de l’Hôtel Sandelin, Saint-Omer, France

Portrait of Artists, YoungIn Museum of Literature, Seoul

Korean Abstract Painting_10 Perspectives, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul

2010 2010 In the Midst of the Korean Contemporary Art, Gallery Hyundai, Seoul

The Masters of Korean Modern and Contemporary Art, 63 Sky Art Museum, Korea University Museum, Seoul

2008 Aspects de l’Art en France (1950–1970), La Collection Allemande, Musée

Departemental de l’Oise, Beauvais, France

Contemporary Korean Artists in Paris, Seoul Arts Center, Seoul

Wander on the Sky, 63 Sky Art Museum, Seoul

2007 2007 International Incheon Women Artist’s Biennale, Incheon Multiculture & Arts

Center, Incheon

2006 Suites Coréennes, Hommage a Huit Artistes Coréennes en France, Passage de Retz Paris, France

L’Ecriture nomade, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, France

Exposition de Huit Artistes Pionnières, Gallery Hyundai, Seoul

2003

43 Artistes avec Michel Butor, Galerie Ô Quai des Arts, Zurich, Switzerland

2002 100 Masterpieces of Modern Korean paintings: 1900–1960, National Museum of

Modern and Contemporary Art (Deoksugung), Seoul

The Color of Korea, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea; Iwate Museum of Art;

Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art; The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan

International Contemporary Print Arts Exhibition, Sungsan Art Hall, Changwon

Le Paradoxe d’Alexandre, Centre International d’Art Contemporain, Carros, France

2001 Salon d’Automne, Espace Auteuil, Paris, France

2000 Salon d’Automne, Espace Eiffel Branly, Paris, France

32 Artistes avec Michel Butor, Musée Savoisien, Mediathèque Jean-Jacques

Rousseau, France

1999 Women’s Art Festival ‘99’: Parade of Patjwi, Seoul Arts Center, Seoul

Corée, la Résonance, Résidence de I’Ambassadeur de la Délégation de la Corée

auprès de I’OCDE Paris, Paris, France

Salon d’Automne, Espace Eiffel Branly, Paris, France

1998 52ème Salon de Mai, Espace Eiffel Branly, Paris, France

22 Artistes avec Michel Butor, Mediathèque Louis Aragon, Le Mans, France

1997 51ème Salon de Mai, Espace Eiffel Branly, Paris, France

Michel Butor et la Gravure, Hôtel du Doyen, Bayeux, France

SAGA – GANA Graphique, Espace Eiffel Branly, Paris, France

Trois Artistes Coréens en France, 63 Gallery, Seoul

1996 Salon de Mars, Espace Eiffel Branly, Paris, France

50ème Salon de Mai, Espace Eiffel Branly, Paris, France

50ème Anniversaire de l’UNESCO 100 Peintres Vivants de l’Ecole de Paris

1945–1975, Maison de l’UNESCO, Paris, France

35ème Grands et Jeunes d’Aujourd’hui, Espace Eiffel Branly, Paris, France

50 Artistes Coréens a l’UNESCO, UNESCO, Paris, France

1995 Modern Art of Korea Since 1945–1955, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Gwacheon

1994 49ème Salon de Mai, Grand Palais, Paris, France

34ème Grands et Jeunes d’Aujourd’hui, Espace Eiffel Branly, France

1993 33ème Grands et Jeunes d’Aujourd’hui, Grand Palais, Paris, France

Graveurs d’Aujourd’hui, Association Le Trait, Cité Internationale des Arts, France

1992 47ème Salon de Mai, Grand Palais, Paris, France

32ème Grands et Jeunes d’Aujourd’hui, Grand Palais, Paris, France

Mémoire de la Liberté, Shinsegae Gallery, Shinsegae Dongbang Plaza Art Museum, Seoul; Busan

Peintres Coréens en France, Centre Culturel Coréen, Paris, France

1991 46ème Salon de Mai, Grand Palais, Paris, France

25 Korean Contemporary Artists, Gallery Hyundai, Seoul

Mémoire de la Liberté, Centre Georges Pompidou (Musée National d’Art Moderne), Paris, France

1990 45ème Salon de Mai, Grand Palais, Paris, France

Paris, École de Seoul, Gallery Hyundai (Hyundai Department Store), Seoul

31ème Grands et Jeunes d’Aujourd’hui, Grand Palais, Paris, France

1989 44ème Salon de Mai, Grand Palais, Paris, France

1988 Korean Modern Paintings in the 70s, Walkerhill Art Museum, Seoul

43ème Salon de Mai, Grand Palais, Paris, France

29ème Grands et Jeunes d’Aujourd’hui, Grand Palais, Paris, France

1987 Printings of Ten Established Artists, Gallery Hyundai (Hyundai Department Store), Seoul

42ème Salon de Mai, Grand Palais, Paris, France

28ème Grands et Jeunes d’Aujourd’hui, Grand Palais, Paris, France

Corée – France, Centre Culturel Coréen, Paris, France

1986 Seoul-Paris, Seoul Gallery, Seoul

Paravents Modernes d’Orient et d’Occident, Centre Culturel Coréen, Paris, France

27ème Grands et Jeunes d’Aujourd’hui, Grand Palais, Paris, France

Oeuvres Croisées avec Michel Butor, Centre National d’Art Contemporain (CNAC),

Paris, France

Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, Grand Palais, Paris, France

Salon Comparaisons, Grand Palais, Paris, France

1985 Xylon 9, Italy, February

Xylon 9, Musée Gruérien, Bulle, Switzerland

Xylon 9, Schwetzingen Palace, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

26ème Grands et Jeunes d’Aujourd’hui, Grand Palais, Paris, France

3ème Rencontre des Artistes Contemporains, Palais Croisette, Paris, France

Artistes de Michel Butor, Maison des Arts Plastiques Rhône-Alpes, Lyon, France

Aspect de l’Art en France de 1950 à 1980, Musée Ingres, Montauban, France

Autour de Nice, Acropolis, France

Un Instant de Paix, Café de la Paix, France

1984 38ème Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, Grand Palais, Paris, France

9ème Biennale International de Céramique d’Art, Vallauris, France

Oeuvres Croisées, Maison de la Culture Andre Malraux, Reims, France

Salon Comparaisons, Grand Palais, Paris, France

Salon du Dessin, Peinture a l’Eau, Grand Palais, Paris, France

Voir avec Michel Butor, Salle St. Geoges-Liege, Liege, Belgium

1983 La Maison des Artistes, Exposition 83, Rue Berryer, Paris, France

26ème Salon d’Automne, Grand Palais, Paris, France

39ème Salon de Mai, Espace Pierre Cardin, Paris, France

Bois pluriel 1, Première Biennale de gravure sur bois de Croissy-sur-Seine, Maison de la Culture, Croissy-sur-Seine, France

Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Grand Palais, Paris, France

Parallèle, Centre Culturel Coréen, Paris, France

Prospective en Porcelaine, Saint-Yrieix-la-Perche, France

1982 Vingt Artistes du Livre avec Michel Butor, National Library of Luxembourg, Luxembourg, Luxembourg

Les Artistes du Tiers Monde à Paris, U.C.J.G., Paris, France

Livres d’Artistes, Livres-Objets, Maison de la Culture de Saint-Etienne, La Galerie

N.R.A, Saint-Etienne, France

2ème Exposition des Artistes Coréens à Paris, Centre Culturel Coréen, Paris, France

30ème Salon d’Art Sacré, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France

8ème Biennale Internationale de Céramique d’Art, Vallauris, France

Les Gravures Coréennes Contemporaines, Copenhagen, Denmark

La Gravure sur bois contemporaine, La Mairie du Castellet, Le Castellet, France

La Gravure sur bois contemporaine, Association Amateurs d’Estampes, Marseille, France

Livre d’Art et d’Artistes, Villa Imperiale, Italy

Premier Manifeste du Livre-Artiste, Livre-Objet, Centre Georges Pompidou (Musée National d’Art Moderne), Paris, France

Xylon pluriel, Centre d’Action Culturelle Pablo Neruda, Corbeil-Essonnes, France

1981 The 3rd Seoul International Print Biennale, National Museum of Modern Art (Deoksugung), Seoul

Les Gravures Coréennes Contemporaines, Denmark

1980 Contemporary Western Painting Exhibition, Gallery YHE, Seoul

Korea Print Drawing Exhibition, National Museum of Modern Art (Deoksugung), Seoul

13ème Biennale de Menton, Menton, France

21ème Grands et Jeunes d’Aujourd’hui, Grand Palais, Paris, France

Maison de Van Gogh, Auvers-sur-Oise, France

28ème Salon d’Art Sacré, Musée de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France

7ème Biennale Internationale de Céramique d’Art, Vallauris, France

Gravure sur Bois Contemporaine, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France

La Sérigraphie et les Peintres Contemporains, Grande-Couronne, France

L’Art Coréen Contemporain en France, Centre Culturel Coréen, Paris, France

Le Grain d’Or, Galerie Claudine Ratié, Paris, France. Organized by Jean Chieze Association

1979 Trois Graveurs: Seundja Rhee, James Guitet, Yves Milet, Maison de la Culture et des Loisirs, Saint-Etienne, France

Les Ateliers d’Artistes de XVème Arrondissement, Paris, France

1977 18ème Grands et Jeunes d’Aujourd’hui, Grand Palais, Paris, France

F.I.A.C 77, Grand Palais, Paris, France

31ème Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, Parc Floral de Paris, Paris, France

Maison des Artistes, Haut-de-Cagnes, Cagnes-sur-Mer, France

1976 32ème Salon de Mai, La galerie de l’Esplanade de la Défense, Paris, France

30ème Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, Parc Floral de Paris, Paris, France

Formes et Couleurs, Billom, France

17ème Grands et Jeunes d’Aujourd’hui, Grand Palais, Paris, France

Mostra della Xilografia Contemporanea ‘Asia oggi’, La casa dell’Arte Sasso

Marconi, Bologna, Italy

Collections Abstraites du Musée de Nantes, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Quimper, Quimper, France

Dialogue, UNESCO, Paris, France

L’Essentiel, Le Grand Hôtel, Paris, France

Peintres Coréens à Paris, Ambassade de Corée à Paris, Paris, France

1975 29ème Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, Parc Floral de Paris, Paris, France

16ème Grands et Jeunes d’Aujourd’hui, Grand Palais, Paris, France

13ème Biennale de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

5ème Biennale Contemporaine de Gravure, Faenza, Italy

La Casa dell’Arte, Centre de Culture et d’Information, Bologna, Italy

1974 15ème Grands et Jeunes d’Aujourd’hui, Grand Palais, Paris, France

30ème Salon de Mai, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France

28ème Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, Parc Floral de Paris, Paris, France

C.I.P.A.C Exposition, Paris, France

Editions 1974, Rue du Cygne, Paris, France

Micro Salon 1974, Iris Clert/Christofle, Paris, France

1973 27ème Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, Parc Floral de Paris, Paris, France

2ème Foire de l’Estampe et du Multiple, Galerie du Centre Culturel Municipal de

Ville Parisis, Paris, France

14ème Grands et Jeunes d’Aujourd’hui, Grand Palais, Paris, France

C.I.P.A.C Exposition, Paris, France. Organized by CREAC

Estampes Contemporaines, Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris, Paris, France

International Exhibition of Miniature Graphy 1973, Gallery Gamlebyen, Fredrikstad, Norway

L’ École de Paris, Borås Kunstmuseum, Borås, Sweden

1972 28ème Salon de Mai, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France

Salon d’Automne, Grand Palais, Paris, France

2nd International Triennale of Contemporary Xylograph, Musée de Gravure Ugo

Da Carpi, Carpi, Italy

4ème Festival International de la Peinture, Musée du Château de Cagnes-sur-Mer, Cagnes-sur-Mer, France

4ème Biennale Internationale de Ravenna ‹Morgan’s Paint›, Ravenna, Italy

Exposition Internationale de Xylographie Contemporaine, Musée Espagnol d’Art

Contemporain, Madrid, Spain

Grands et Petits Maîtres d’Aujourd’hui, Centre Culturel de Limoges, Limoges, France

L’ École de Paris, Borås Kunstmuseum, Borås, Sweden

Mostra Internazionale de Xilografia Contemporanea, Faenza, Italy

Mostra Internazionale de Xilografia Contemporanea, Ravenna, Italy

Mostra Internazionale della Xilografia Cast-Sforzesco, Milan, Italy

1971 27ème Salon de Mai, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France

Peintres Coréens Contemporains à la Cité Internationale des Arts, Cité

Internationale des Arts, France

Mostra della Xilografia Contemporanea ‘Asia oggi’, Centro d’Arte Mediterranea, Naples, Italy

1970 Contemporary Printings of Sixteen Artists, Hongik Museum of Art, Seoul

2nd International Exhibition of Original Drawings, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Rijeka, Croatia

2nd International Print Biennale, Buenos Aires, Argentina

L’ École de Paris, Borås Kunstmuseum, Borås, Sweden

1969 1st International Triennale of Contemporary Xylograph, Musée de Gravure Ugo Da

Carpi, Carpi, Italy

Les Peintres Asiatiques de Paris, Maison de l’Iran, Paris, France

1968 Modern Painting in Korea, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan

1st International Print Biennale, Buenos Aires, Argentina

12th Exhibition of Contemporary Artists, Svensk-Franska Konstgalleriet, Malmö, Sweden

L’Agrifoglio, Millano, Italy

1967 Salon Comparaisons, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France

7ème Biennale Internationale de gravure, Moderna Galerija, Ljubljana, Yugoslavia

Salon d’Art Sacré, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France

1966 Salon d’Art Sacré, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France

Salon Comparaisons, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France

Un livre, une gouache, Galerie Françoise Ledoux, Paris, France

1965 Xylon IV Exposition Internationale de Gravure sur Bois, Salle des Casemates, Musée d’Art et d’Histoire de Genève, Geneva, Switzerland

6ème Biennale Internationale de Gravure, Moderna Galerija, Ljubljana, Yugoslavia

100 Gravures, Galerie Argos, Nantes, France

Estampes Contemporaines, Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris, Paris, France

Salon d’Art Sacré, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France

Salon Comparaisons, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France

1964 20ème Salon de Mai, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France

Galerie Cavalero, Cannes, France

Exposition Internationale d’Art Sacré, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France

L’École de Paris, Galerie Charpentier, Paris, France

Festival des Arts Plastiques de la Côte d’Azur, Cultural and Artistic Center of City of Antibes, Antibes, France

Salon d’Art Sacré, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France

Salon Comparaisons, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France

Painter and Light, La Palissy, Vallauris, France

1963 18ème Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France

1er Festival des Arts Plastiques, Bastion Saint-André, Antibes, France

5ème Biennale Internationale de Gravure, Moderne Galerija, Ljubljana, Yugoslavia

Art d’Aujourd’hui, Galerie Cavalero, Cannes, France

Blickpunkts Paris, Gallery Emmy Widmann, Germany

Graphik 63, Musee Albertina, Vienna, Austria

La Lettre et Les Signes dans l’Art, Galerie Valérie Schmidt, Paris, France

Seundja Rhee et Lappien, Gallery Numaga, Neuchatel, Switzerland

1962 Salon Comparaisons, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France

17ème Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France

18ème Salon de Mai, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France

L’École de Paris 1962 “une mère que je connais”, Galerie Charpentier, Paris, France

4ème Salon de Peinture Crest, Drôme, France

6 Rencontres Poétiques de Provence, Mairie de Coaraze, Coaraze, France

Grand Prix de Biarritz de Peinture, Union Culturelle de Biarritz, Biarritz, France

Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, Centre Culturel et Artistique d’Antibes, Antibes, France

Peinture et Lumière, Mairie de Vallauris, France

1961 16ème Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris,

Paris, France

28ème Salon des Surindépendants, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France

Grandes Toiles de Montparnasse, The American Center, Paris, France

A la Recherche de la Nature Perdue, Galerie Ursula Girardon, Paris, France

1960 9 Peintres Coréens, Cercle Volney, Paris, France

27ème Salon des Surindépendants, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France

Groupe Structures, Musée de la Ville de Toulon, Toulon, France

1959 26ème Salon des Surindépendants, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France

Aeschbacher, Arman, Fedor Ganz, Seundja Rhee, Sculptures de E. Blasco Ferrer, Galerie Bellechasse, Paris, France

Nouvelles Cantates de Theo Kerg et Groupe de Mai, Galerie Bellechasse, Paris,

France

Prix de la Peinture Etrangère, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France

1958 25ème Salon des Surindépendants, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France

Henri Goetz, Seundja Rhee, Rodolphe Buchi, Galerie 54, Saint-Imier, Switzerland

Salon des Indépendants 1958, Grand Palais, Paris, France

1957 7 Peintres de l’Atelier Goetz, Galerie Voyelles, Paris, France

Modern paintings by a selected group of Contemporary Younger French Artists by order of art investor corporation, Parke-Bernet Gallery, New York, USA

3ème Salon des Structures, Galerie des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux, France. Organized by Jean-Maurice Guy

24ème Salon des Surindépendants, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France

Salon des Indépendants 1957, Grand Palais, Paris, France

L’Esprit souffle, Galerie Bonaparte, France

Première Biennale d’Art Abstrait, Galerie des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux, France

J. L. Bouvot, M. L. Hardy, S. Rhee, R. Roure, La Goujonnette, France

1956 Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France

Salon des Indépendants 1956, Grand Palais, Paris, France

Salon de l’Union des Artistes d’lle-de-France, Cercle Volney, Paris, France

GRANTS AND RESIDENCIES

1991 Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters, Academy of Arts, France

1997 Art prize at the 7th KBS Overseas Koreans Awards, Korea

2002 Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters, Academy of Arts, France

2009 10th Cultural Prize of France-Korea

Bogwan Order of Cultural Merit, Ministry of Culture, Korea

SELECTED COLLECTIONS

Gyeongnam Art Museum, Changwon, Korea

Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea

Lee Jung Seob Art Gallery, Jeju, Korea

Korean Stone Art Museum, Seoul, Korea

National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea

Museum SAN, Wonju, Korea

Rhee Seundja Jinju Museum of Art, Jinju, Korea

Wooyang Museum of Contemporary Art, Gyeongju, Korea

Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, France

Centre Pompidou, Paris, France

Château-musèe Grimaldi, Cagnes-sur-Mer, France

Embassy of France, Brasilia, Brazil

La France au Luxembourg, Luxembourg City, Luxeumbourg

MAMC, Musée d’art moderne et contemporain, Saint-Étienne Métropole, France

Musée d’Art moderne de la ville de Paris, Paris, France

Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes, Nantes, France

Musée Magnelli, Vallauris, France

Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris, France

KoRICA (Korean Research Institute of Contemporary Art)

Founded in 2021, KoRICA aims to highlight the historical status of Korean art and to link contexts between Korea and the rest of the world. Korean art history abounds with narratives of artists who channeled the spirit of their time through art as they experienced the tumult of the 20th century. Contemporary Korean artists project universal human values while also striving to share with global audiences the autonomous and immanent traditions passed down throughout Korean history, as interpreted through each of their aesthetic sensibilities. In honor of such endeavors, KoRICA supports a range of ventures that bridge Korean and global art in hopes to actively contribute to the globalization of Korean art, including the international exchange of Korean artists, research and documentation of Korean modern and contemporary art, and provision of research grants.

In February of 2024, KoRICA inaugurated Sorol Art Museum in Gangneung, with the mission “to discover the aesthetic connections between Korean art and global art, [and] aiming to promote the historical value of Korean art in the global art scene.”

Bartomeu Marí

Bartomeu Marí is an unaffiliated Spanish curator and critic. His curatorial experience extends from his position as Curator at IVAM-Centre Julio González, Valencia and as Curator of Exhibitions at the Fondation pour l’Architecture, followed by directorships at the Witte de With, Centre for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam and Centro Internacional de Cultura Contemporánea in Donostia-San Sebastián, Basque Country. From 2004 to 2008, he served as Chief Curator and later—from 2008 to 2015—as Director at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona (MACBA), Barcelona. Between 2015 and 2018, he served as Director of the MMCA, where he organized Seundja Rhee’s centennial exhibition, Road to the Antipodes. He also co-curated the 2002 Taipei Biennial with Chia Chi Jason Wang and curated the Spanish Pavilion at the 51st International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia in 2005. Marí has curated numerous exhibitions on modern and contemporary artists including Lawrence Weiner, Francis Picabia, Rita McBride, Marcel Broodthaers, Joan Jonas, Francis Alÿs, and John Baldessari.

www.korica.org