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Dansaekhwa (Korean: 단색화, also known as Tansaekhwa), often translated as "monochrome painting" from Korean, is a retroactive term grouping together disparate artworks that were exhibited in South Korea beginning in the mid 1970s. While the wide range of artists whose work critics and art historians consider to fall under this category are often exhibited together, they were never part of an official artistic movement nor produced a manifesto. Nonetheless, their artistic practices are seen to share "a commitment to thinking more intensively about the constituent elements of mark, line, frame, surface and space around which they understood the medium of painting." Their interests compose a diverse set of formal concerns that cannot be reduced to a preference for limited color palettes. Dansaekhwa ignited a series of debates on how to define and understand not only Dansaekhwa, but contemporary Korean art as a whole. It was at the center of discussions in Korea during the latter half of the 20th century on how to narrativize a history of Korean abstract art connected to, but distinct from the rest of the world. Promoted in Seoul, Tokyo, and Paris, Dansaekhwa grew to be the international face of contemporary Korean art and a cornerstone of contemporary Asian art. Artists associated with Dansaekhwa include Cho Yong-ik, Choi Myoung Young, Choi Byung-so, Chung Chang-sup, Chung Sang-Hwa, Ha Chong Hyun, Hur Hwang, Kim Guiline, Kim Tschang-yeul, Kwon Young-woo, Lee Dong-Youb, Lee Kang-so, Lee Seung-jio, Lee Ufan, Park Kwang-Jin, Park Seo-Bo, Suh Seung-Won, and Yun Hyong-keun. Terminology Dansaekhwa is only one of a number of terms used to describe the set of works that have been identified as falling under this rubric. Other terms include dansaekpa (monochromatic wave), "white painting," "monochrome painting" (translation used instead of the transliteration), and "monotone school.": 12  Art historian Kim Mikyung has advocated for the replacement of Dansaekhwa with dansaek-jo hoehwa (monotone painting) to signal the artists' use of one tone of color rather than a single color.: 76  Curators of the 2014 show "Overcoming the Modern: Dansaekhwa: The Korean Monochrome Movement" (Alexander Gray Associates, New York) Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath have proposed the term "process" rather than "monochrome" to emphasize the physicality rather than color palette of Dansaekhwa works. Curator Yoon Jin Sup attributes the origin of the dominant use of the English transliteration "Dansaekhwa" rather than the translation "Korean Monochrome Painting" to his writing for "A Facet of Modern Korean and Japanese Art." He chose to use the transliteration in the catalogue for the exhibition on Dansaekhwa and Mono-ha held at the Gwangju Museum of Art in 2000.: 26, note 1  A 2017 collection of primary documents on Dansaekhwa published by the Korea Arts Management Service (KAMS) also credits the use of "Dansaekhwa" in the international art world to this show.: 11 Art historian Joan Kee has opted for the romanization "Tansaekhwa" instead because the McCune-Reischauer system is still in use for English-language databases, archives, and libraries when identifying Korean-language sources.: vii  History Rise: late 1960s – 1970s Broader historical context Dansaekhwa artists were born during Japan's occupation of Korea, and began building their careers during the turmoil of multiple military conflicts (most significantly the division of Korea and the Korean War), and authoritarian regimes of the 60s and 70s. Joan Kee emphasizes the importance of understanding this context in relation to Dansaekhwa, arguing that the artists' emphasis on objecthood was informed by both a history of material dispossession during the Korean War and anxieties around further loss with the suspension of civil liberties in postwar Korea.: 10  Dansaekhwa's questions around form grappled with the limits of representation and agency under the Yushin Constitution.: 34  Their material focus also reveals a keen awareness of the rapid industrialization and architectural transformation of the country, evident in, for example, Ha Chong Hyun's piercing of canvases with wire.: 14  Ha's writing on the state of Korean contemporary art in the 60s and 70s underlines the influence of urban architecture and dominance of mass production on Korean art in the 20th century.: 129  Art historical context The tumult of postwar Korea was in some ways mirrored in the discourse around art, especially in discussions on the role of abstraction. Experimental and avant-garde artists clamored for institutional support that would reflect the major changes occurring in the Korean art world, and provide emerging artists a platform to show their work. But unlike the contemporary artists who sought to change the Korean art world through organized collectives and manifestos, Dansaekhwa artists did not band together to create a new artistic movement. A number of Dansaekhwa artists were active in the late 1950s - mid 1960s Art Informel movement in Korea, and Park Seo-Bo traces the tendency to use a limited color palette in Dansaekhwa back to the movement.: 118  However, after the Korean Art Informel movement, many of the artists did not participate in avant-garde movements that followed in the late 1960s and 70s initiated by groups like the 1967 Young Artists Coalition, and later A.G. (Avant-garde) and S.T. (Space & Time).: 25  Dansaekhwa artists separated themselves from and stood in contrast to younger generations of artists like those in the Young Artists Coalition, A.G., and S.T. who turned away from established practices in painting to focus on installation and performance. Dansaekhwa artists' lack of involvement aligns with Yoon Jin Sup's argument that the rise of Dansaekhwa was in some part a response to the rejection of two-dimensional surfaces common to many of the 60s and 70s avant-garde movements in Korea. While the dominant art historical opinion has been that the Informel generation used Dansaekhwa in the 70s and 80s to regain their status, Yoon claims that their resistance to these groups signified a crisis for their own.: 41  Without, as Lee Ufan describes an "-ism," or movement, to guide it,: 57  Dansaekhwa artists instead busied themselves with formal concerns that unsettled the boundaries between abstraction and figuration, painting and sculpture, tradition and modernity, and local and global. Their focus on material rejected these sharp aesthetic divisions. A few artists who spent time abroad like Kwon Young-woo argued for the deemphasis of the distinction between painting from the East versus the West, arguing that attempts to distinguish paintings as belonging to one or the other usually rely on superficial differences based on medium or the image in the work.: 76–77  Some of the earliest Dansaekhwa artists began experimenting with a wide range of materials that rejected painterly traditions, but also emerged out of a lack of resources in postwa.... Discover the Korea Arts Management Service popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Korea Arts Management Service books.