Lee Munhyeong paints chaekgeori — the Joseon scholar's bookshelf — with Haring, Matisse, Kusama, and Dalí seated inside. Traditional minhwa updated in today's grammar.
In Lee Munhyeong's chaekgeori, where Joseon-era books usually sit, Keith Haring's dancing figures appear instead.
Chaekgeori (冊架圖) — a representative genre of late-Joseon minhwa. Paintings of a scholar's bookshelf stood in for the owner's temperament through arrangement of objects. Lee Munhyeong invites the language of 20th-century Western masters into this traditional form. Keith Haring, Henri Matisse, Yayoi Kusama, Salvador Dalí. Names that would never sit together otherwise gather in one house on hanji.
Hanppyeong Museum, and Korea Art Museum
Lee Munhyeong is a minhwa artist. In 2025 he held Lee Munhyeong Solo 2025 at Hanppyeong Museum in Cheonan. At Korea Art Museum in Seoul he has continued group shows like Minhwa's Flight — Chapter 6: Repetition and Pattern.
- 2025 7th Korea Minhwa Art Fair, Personal Booth (SETEC, Seoul)
- 13th Contemporary Minhwa Open Call — Excellence Prize
- 20+ minhwa group shows
An artist who works steadily inside the traditional frame of minhwa while constantly opening the grammar of the form in other directions.
Chaekgeori × Contemporary Art — Five Works
— dots on the Joseon bookshelf
