Ability vs. Invisibility

Mar. 2 - Apr. 15, 2017

Tina Kim Gallery, New York

Tina Kim Gallery is delighted to present Ability vs. Invisibility, the first solo exhibition in the United States by South Korean artist Chung Seoyoung. Following her first group show in New York, Two Hours (2016)—also presented by Tina Kim Gallery—Chung will present a range of works from 2007 to the present in the upcoming exhibition, on view from March 2 to April 15, 2017. Throughout her career, Chung has rigorously worked with a precise sculptural language, carefully manipulating everyday objects and materials, and intervening into the spaces with which her works engage. Since the early 2000s, her work has expanded to include video, performance and sound, with many of her recent exhibitions in Seoul taking the form of sculptural interventions into existing spaces, including an abandoned model house (Apple vs. Banana, 2011) and a pavilion in Deoksu Palace (Deoksugung Project, 2012). Part of a generation of artists who contributed significantly to the development of contemporary art in Seoul in the
1990s, Chung continues to develop idiosyncratic work that delights viewers.
Chung received her M.F.A. in Sculpture from Seoul National University in 1989, when the Korean art scene was still largely dominated by the opposition between modern abstract painting (a legacy of the country’s Dansaekhwa movement of the 1970s) and the populist Minjung art movement. Soon afterwards, she began studying at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Stuttgart, Germany, where she lived for several years while seeking out a mode of sculpture that would move beyond this opposition. By the time Chung returned to Seoul in 1996, international art biennales had begun to proliferate widely, serving as platforms for more experimental practices. However, given the lack of domestic institutional support at the time, South Korean artists and their artworks were often cast as simple manifestations of Korean-ness on these global platforms. Chung’s work, however, did not indulge the desire for easily legible cultural symbols or narratives. She instead focused on transposing her perception of industrialism and domestic, urban environments into the vernacular of her sculpture, which often operated through a logic of denial and reduction. Drawings reduced objects to their most basic representations, performers sat impassively in front of the audience, and language became uncanny, at odds with objects and sometimes behaving as an object itself.


http://tinakimgallery.com/exhibition/1117/press-release

https://www.artsy.net/show/tina-kim-gallery-chung-seoyoung
http://www.artnet.com/galleries/tina-kim-gallery/artist-chung-seoyoung/

"fist vs. finger" impromptu pencil drawings which derive from her impression of the process of drawing; one messy hand divides into fist and finger and their position reminds chung of the scene of which keeping each other in check 
https://igexplorer.net/explore/photo/BQTnYdoAeeU#

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10212106596602082&set=a.1843833657495.2108206.1290230385&type=3&theater

조각·설치·비디오… 정서영 개인전

2일~내달 15일까지 뉴욕 티나 김 갤러리

2017-03-01

정서영 개인전이 오는 2일부터 4월15일까지 뉴욕 첼시에 위치한 티나 김 갤러리에서 열린다.

‘할 수 있음과 보이지 않는 형태’를 주제로 열리는 이번 전시에는 2007년 이후 정서영 작가의 조각, 설치, 비디오 작품들이 선보인다.

그의 작품들에는 하잘 것 없어 보이는 덤덤한 물건들의 낯선 조합으로 이루어지는 조각적 외형 뒤에 본질적인 형태를 찾는 전통적 조각가의 엄격성과 정교함이 담겨져 있다. 그것은 보이지 않는 내면의 형태를 이루고 그것이 이 작품들에 독특한 긴장과 매혹의 순간들을 부여한다. 그러나 작가는 이 불편함을 덜어주려는 어떠한 장치도 작품 속에 마련해주지 않는다.

정서영 작가는 자신의 작업을 비현실적인 것에서 일상적인 것, 아주 추상적인 것에서 아주 구체적인 것 사이의 왕복운동으로 본다. 추상적인 어떤 개념에서 출발하여 그것을 아주 구체적인 사물의 상태로, 다시 일상 속의 구체적 언어나 도형에서 출발하여 그것을 아주 비일상적인 어떤 상태로 끌고 가는 과정으로 여긴다.

1964년 서울에서 태어난 정서영 작가는 서울대 조소과와 같은 대학원을 졸업하고 독일 스투트가르트 미술대 연구과정을 마쳤다. 독일 바덴-뷔르템베르그 주예술재단 그랜트를 받아 개인전을 연 이후 독일과 한국을 오가며 활발한 전시활동을 펼쳤다. 포스트 단색화 구상화가로 한국현대미술의 선구적 역할을 해왔으며 산업용 건축재료를 이용해 시간과 공간을 파괴하는 조각품, 설치작품으로 만드는 작업을 선보여왔다.

http://m.koreatimes.com/article/20170301/1042905