Ha Chong Hyun (Korean: 하종현; born 1935) or Ha Chong-hyun is a South Korean artist. Today, through his Conjunction series (1974–present), Ha is best known as a leading practitioner of the Korean monochrome art trend known as Dansaekhwa.[1]: 7 [2]: 13 However, the arc of Ha's practice from the 1960s to the present is more fundamentally characterized by his wide explorations of materiality and ways of challenging the conventions of art making.
In his early artistic experiments across the two decades following the end of the Korean War, Ha moved between abstract painting and installations as he at once demonstrated his engagement with a broad array of materials and pursued hybridity across artistic categories, while arguably reflecting upon South Korea's contemporaneous urban transformation. Whereas his experiments with what is conventionally characterized as gestural and geometric abstraction served as a preparatory ground for his engagement with materiality, his involvement with the art group AG (est. 1969) led him to further explore materiality through non-painterly mediums, spanning sculpture and installations. In 1974, he began to focus solely upon painting as he began his Conjunction series.
Ha's oeuvre has been a subject of frequent critical and art-historical studies. His works have often been contextualized within exhibitions and writings on Dansaekhwa, but his early experimentalism forms a vital part of 1960s and 1970s art in Korea.