"A hauntingly moving show of paintings"

"From toxic to tonic: as figurative painting continues its creaking comeback, it was a slight curveball to see some exquisite abstractions in Helen Frankenthaler’s ‘Pittura/Panorama’ at the Palazzo Grimani Venezia, Arshile Gorky’s brilliant retrospective at Ca’ Pesaro and a hauntingly moving show of paintings by Korean Dansaekhwa painter Yun Hyong-keun. My heart almost stopped when I entered the Palazzo Fortuny, where Hyong-keun’s elongated, deeply gloomy abstractions demonstrate an almost religious commitment to reduction. Hyong-keun’s works are spare, yet mean so much: his are hollow paintings, realized in umber and ultramarine, which seem to stare at you with a sense of apocalyptic blankness."

Read the full text in Frieze

Yun Hyong-keun. A retrospective is on view at Palazzo Fortuny in Venice through November 24, 2019.

Image: Installation view, Yun Hyong-keun. A retrospective, Palazzo Fortuny, Venice, 2019