Shin Sung Hy's Deconstructive Paintings Featured in Paris Museum Exhibition

The Musée Cernuschi in Paris is presenting a solo exhibition of works by Korean artist Shin Sung Hy, who lived in France from 1980 until his death in 2009. This show marks a significant introduction of his practice to French audiences, as he remained largely unknown there despite his decades-long residence and engagement with the local art scene. The exhibition includes approximately thirty pieces and offers free admission. Shin Sung Hy developed a distinctive artistic method that involved painting on surfaces, then tearing, cutting, and reassembling the materials into three-dimensional forms. His approach questioned the very nature of painting through simultaneous acts of creation and destruction. In the 1980s, after moving to France, he painted on cardboard, tore it apart, and reassembled the fragments on Plexiglas. He was influenced by the French Supports-Surfaces movement of the 1970s, which treated the canvas as a material object rather than just a surface. In the 1990s, he created his 'Couturages' series by painting abstract canvases, tearing them into strips, and sewing them back together in new arrangements, resulting in works with a pronounced physical presence. Later, he produced 'Nouages,' where canvas was cut into narrow strips, knotted together, and attached to a stretcher, creating a three-dimensional network that references both French artistic traditions and Korean knot-making heritage. The exhibition runs until August 2, 2026, at the museum located at 7 avenue Vélasquez in Paris's 8th arrondissement, with opening hours from Tuesday to Sunday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and closure on Mondays.