Chung Seoyoung: Knocking Air

Barakat Contemporary will present Chung Seoyoung’s solo exhibition, Knocking Air, from 12th May to 5th July 2020. Chung Seoyoung is an artist who played a leading role in establishing ‘Contemporary Art’ as a new category within the Korean art world in the 1990s. Focusing on sculptural elements, Chung Seoyoung began making her work in the 1990s, drawn to the odd gaps that appeared in the reality of the rapidly changing social atmosphere of the time. In particular, the artist deals with fundamental questions about Sculpture itself, bringing non-sculptural materials found commonly throughout industrialized society, such as Styrofoam, linoleum, plastics, sponges, and plywood, to a sculptural state. In this exhibition, the artist flexibly expands the scope of sculpture through the use of more diverse materials including ceramic, aluminum, Jesmonite, glass, and cloth.

The title of this exhibition, Knocking Air, speaks to the impossible act of knocking on the invisible element of air and, at the same time, is accompanying linguistic performativity that derives future unforeseen circumstances to eventually occur from this. This exhibition will feature 27 works, both past and new, including sculptures, installations, videos, and textual drawings on ceramic.

Starting from the artist’s free reasoning about objects, the sculpture of Chung Seoyoung creates a new dimension, or fictional and poetic realm, that branches out from the accumulating intimate time between artist and object. Through this unfamiliar territory, one faces an extraordinary moment where objects become sculpture.