Renowned as a pioneer of experimental art in Korea, Sung Neung Kyung’s first overseas solo exhibition, “Off the beaten track: the artistic meanderings of Sung Neung Kyung”, is on view at Lehmann Maupin New York through November 9. 

This exhibition comes on the heels of “Only the Young: Experimental Art in Korea, 1960s–1970s,” a monumental retrospective group exhibition surveying the Korean avant-garde. In 2023 and 2024, the exhibition traveled from the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.

As a key member of the influential art collective ‘Space & Time’ throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Sung has explored unconventional mediums including performance, photography, and archival methods to examine the construction of knowledge and power, often in response to sociopolitical friction. His work often features everyday objects and deconstructs established forms, using his body to engage the public and transform the mundane into the provocative.

Sung was also one of the first Korean artists to embrace photography in the 1970s. He made a significant impact on the Korean art history with his performance of cutting out the text of articles and leaving only ads and images.

This solo exhibition offers a comprehensive look at Sung Neung kyung’s extensive body of work from the 1970s to the present, highlighting his exploration of themes such as knowledge, power, bodily expression, and reinterpretations of daily life. On Thursday, October 24, Sung staged performances in the gallery space featuring the artist’s ongoing series Fanning the fire of poetry and Drawing performance.

References

• 리만머핀, 길 아닌 길 위에서: 성능경의 예술 행각 (Lehmann Maupin, Off the beaten track: the artistic meanderings of Sung Neung Kyung)

Ji Yeon Lee has been working as an editor for the media art and culture channel AliceOn since 2021 and worked as an exhibition coordinator at samuso (now Space for Contemporary Art) from 2021 to 2023.