Lehmann Maupin presents DNA:Study/(Visual:Ear), an exhibition of new work by pioneering Chicago-based artist McArthur Binion (b. 1946, Macon, MS) at the gallery’s newly expanded Seoul location. Binion has for decades undertaken a careful and innovative exploration of abstraction, suggesting its unique capacity to both obscure and reveal aspects of identity. Highlighting the depth of the artist’s practice, the Seoul presentation marks Binion’s fifth solo exhibition with the gallery and will feature new paintings from two of his most evocative bodies of work, DNA and Visual Ear.

Across his practice, Binion engages with hallmarks of Minimalism and Conceptualism—grids, serial forms, and repetition all operate as strategic devices in the artist’s work. Crucially, however, where many Minimalist and Conceptual artists valued these compositional tactics for their informational, supposedly neutral qualities, Binion reveals these seemingly orderly and dispassionate forms to be inextricable from formations of subjecthood. In each of the series, the artist creates grid-like structures over his characteristic “underconcious,” an underlayer consisting of photocopies of the images and documents, which appear partially visible, partially obscured. Some works incorporate photocopies of the artist’s personal documents—such as his address books, passport, and birth certificate, while others also include sheet music from “‘Brown Black X,” a composition by Pulitzer Prize-winning musician Henry Threadgill specially commissioned by the artist. Throughout his decades-long career, Binion has taken significant inspiration from music, describing jazz as an influence more important to him than any art historical precedent.