Odyssey in Italy
is the title of T-yong Chung’s second solo exhibition at Otto Zoo gallery. Chung is a South Korean artist who has been living in Italy for several years. The exhibition will be open from February 4 to March 14, 2015 (opening February 3, h 18.30).
The new installation draws inspiration from the journey, real and symbolic, that the artist has taken throughout Italy in the past few years. He visited different places, lived in different cities, and approached Italy’s huge cultural tradition. His artistic research is attracted to the iconography and the modern merchandising of the immense Italian Heritage.
The Center of the exhibition at Otto Zoo are a group of chalk busts depicting classical and historical characters (from young Augustus to Beatrice d’Aragon, from Septimius Severus to Napoleon Bonaparte). Chung intervened on these reproductions by executing geometrical cuts on them. Installed on a plinth, according to a classical pattern – but arranged in a series – each bust is emptied of its original sense as a tribute to a character and obtains a new contemporary identity.
The exhibition also includes a series of photographs taken by Chung in Alpine landscapes where he positioned old utensils and gears. Lastly, the spatial continuity of the gallery is broken by a video where a boomerang moves from one side to another of the screen cutting a circle – a classical perfection symbol.
The development of the South Korean artist is filled with frequent recycling of objects that are lost in time and space: items that are capable of maintaining a ghostly presence in their history and, at the same time, capable of activating numerous possible meanings.
T-yong Chung (Tae-gu, 1977) is a South Korean artist who lives and works in Milan. After graduating in Environmental Architecture at the University of Seoul, he moved to Italy where he attended the Brera Art Academy in Milan. He participated in numerous residencies and workshops at the Museo Carlo Zauli in Faenza, at the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa in Venice, and at Madeinfinlandia in Pergine Valdarno ( Florence ). His work has been recently exhibited at the Space BAR in Tae-gu ( South Corea ) at the Museo d’Arte Contemporanea in Lissone, at the Spazio Espositivo of Casso ( during the Dolomiti Contemporanee project), at the Fondazione Spinola Banna in Turin, and the Galleria Civica d’Arte Contemporanea in Trento. Solo show of his work has been held at Otto Zoo gallery and MARS space in Milan and at the Car project gallery in Bologna.
