Chung Seoyoung South Korea, b. 1964

Chung Seoyoung (b. 1964, Seoul), is one of the representative sculptors in contemporary Korean art, who began her work in earnest in the mid-1990s. As an artist, Chung Seoyoung played a leading role in the establishment of “Korean Contemporary Art” as a new category of contemporary art in the 1990s. Chung began producing work that incorporated as sculptural elements the unrealistic divides that were emerging amid the rapidly changing social climate. As she focused on fundamental questions concerning sculpture itself, she incorporated non-sculptural materials found throughout industrialized society—Styrofoam, linoleum, plastic, sponges, plywood, and the like—and transformed them into a sculptural state. In particular, the artist was sensitive in her perception of the “functional objects” situated throughout the everyday landscapes created by accelerated growth.  Actively contemplating the “relationship between language and objects,” both as surplus products of the real-world economic structure’s rapid transformation and as evidence of that process, she brought them into the realm of sculpture. Originating in her free contemplation of objects, Chung’s sculptures create a new dimension, a fictional and poetic realm that separates away from the inner moments established between the artist and the objects. Through the unknown territory that emerges unexpectedly from these combinations of strange and different objects, one encounters the “extraordinary moments when an object becomes sculpture.”

Chung Seoyoung studied sculpture at Seoul National University and the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart and lives and works in Seoul. She was a representative artist for the Korean Pavilion at the 50th Venice Biennale and has held solo exhibitions at Portikus Frankfurt, Germany; Art Sonje Center, Seoul, Korea; Atelier Hermès, Seoul, Korea; and the Ilmin Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea . She has also participated in group exhibitions at the 4th and 7th Gwangju Biennale, Korea; Plateau, Seoul, Korea; The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea; the Seoul Mediacity Biennale, Korea; Shiseido Gallery, Tokyo, Japan; Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan; and the Hong Kong Arts Centre. She has been honored with the Kim Se-jung Sculpture Award, artist support from the state of Baden-Württemberg, and arts foundation support, and a number of her works are included in the collections of various public and national museums and institutions in South Korea, including the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul Museum of Art, Gyeonggi Museum of Art, Art Sonje Center, and Platform-L.