The Whanki Museum is currently revisiting Kim Whanki’s work, while early abstractions including Rondo and Mountain and Moon are on view at MMCA Gwacheon. Today’s Dear Now returns to the artist who helped shape the language of Korean abstraction.
NowHitz Editorial · 2026-09-29 · From the archive
Kim worked in Seoul, Paris and New York. Yet mountains, moons, plum blossoms and white porcelain—forms rooted in his memories of Korea—never disappeared. With distance, they became more abstract, eventually turning into rhythms of color and dots.
Distance does not always make a memory fade. Sometimes leaving a familiar view helps its lasting colors and forms become clearer. Across Kim Whanki’s work, recognizable subjects give way to abstraction, but their connection to a remembered world continues in another form.
Seeing Kim Whanki, then, is not simply about identifying ‘Korean motifs.’ His Korean-ness also lived in the process of looking again from afar and rebuilding familiar memories through his own structure and color.
Leaving can be another way of seeing what was familiar in a language of your own.
