A Park So-bo Museum Will Open in Seoul
The Park Seo-bo Museum, named after Korean artist Park Seo-bo (1931–2023), a representative of the Dansaehwa movement—Korean monochrome painting—will open on Friday in the Yeonhi-dong neighborhood in western Seoul. The building was constructed next to the artist’s home and studio, where he lived and worked until his death; it now houses the foundation named after him.
According to the Korea Herald, the five-story museum, with an area of 2,000 square meters, features three exhibition halls, gardens on every floor, and large windows to allow natural light to enter. A cubic gallery with sides measuring eight meters has been installed on the roof, where daylight streams in through translucent glass.
After the artist was diagnosed with cancer, the foundation initially planned to build a memorial hall on this site. However, the project for a public museum in Yeochon—the artist’s hometown in North Gyeongsang Province—was not carried out, and a separate museum has been under construction on Jeju Island since 2023. Ultimately, the foundation changed its concept and decided to create a full-fledged museum in Seoul.
The foundation’s chairman and the artist’s youngest son, Park Shin-ho, stated that he has no intention of turning the institution into a shrine to Park So-bo. According to him, the museum should continue the artist’s work of supporting other artists, particularly by hosting exhibitions of lesser-known artists from Korea and other countries.
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The first project will be the exhibition “Park So-bo and Hyung Do-din: Emptiness—Fullness,” which will run through January 3. It will feature 25 works by Park So-bo and 17 paintings by the French artist of Vietnamese origin, Hyong Do-din, who moved to Paris in 1953.
Park So-bo spent more than half a century working on the “Écriture” series. In these works, he repeatedly drew pencil lines across moistened hanji—traditional Korean paper made from mulberry bark—creating raised grooves on the surface. Dodin creates canvases by applying translucent layers of pigment that she makes herself from minerals sourced in southern France.
The underground gallery Space Zero will showcase works by both artists from the 1990s. The second floor is dedicated to Park So-bo’s “Écriture” series—from the black works of the late 1990s to the richly saturated red and green canvases created after 2000. The upper gallery will feature three large-format white works by the artist, which he was working on shortly before his death, alongside Dodin’s painting “X.K.N.31,” dedicated to his memory.
The museum will be open Tuesday through Sunday from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Admission is 5,000 won.
