Painting to destroy, destroying to paint

Tearing a canvas. Sewing it back together in strips. Knotting it into one-centimeter-wide strips, then attaching these fragments to a frame to create a three-dimensional work vibrant with knots and holes. This is not vandalism—it is the method of Shin Sung Hy, a Korean artist who lived in Paris from 1980 until his death in 2009, whose work the Cernuschi Museum is finally revealing to the French public.

For the paradox is complete: recognized in Korea, present in numerous public collections, and regularly exhibited in his native country, Shin Sung Hy remained virtually invisible in his adopted country despite three decades in Paris and a particularly fruitful dialogue with the French art scene. This solo exhibition—some thirty works, free admission—constitutes a belated and welcome redress. The work can be understood as a long dialogue with painting itself—its nature, its limits, its possibilities.

In the 1980s, after arriving in France, Shin Sung Hy painted cardboard which he tore into pieces before gluing them back onto Plexiglas. Simultaneous destruction and reconstruction: painting is called into question at the very moment it is produced. Drawing inspiration from the example of Supports/Surfaces—the influential French collective of the 1970s that treated the support as material rather than surface—he takes this logic further than his Korean contemporaries in dansaekhwa, the "monochrome painting" that then dominated Seoul.

In the 1990s, he invented "Couturages": painting an abstract canvas, tearing it into strips, and sewing them back together in a new order. The raised hems that separate each colored area give these works a striking physical presence, somewhere between patchwork and painting. Then came "Nouages"—canvas cut into strips, knotted together, and attached to a frame. A three-dimensional network stretched between the French Supports/Surfaces tradition and Korean knot art, classified as intangible cultural heritage.

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CERNUSCHI MUSEUM
Until August 2, 2026
7 avenue Vélasquez, 75008 Paris
Metro: Monceau (Line 2)
Tue-Sun 10am-6pm
Closed Mon
Free admission

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