- T-Yong Chung
The subject as space
Absence, rupture and removal are considered as constructive gestures in Oriental Culture. That void produced through the consumption and obliteration of time makes way for the new. In his first solo show at Renata Fabbri Gallery T-Yong Chung proposes an action towards the future and its construction. “I delete images to balance them with the void. Observing the origins to find another space”, says the artist. Spatial and temporal elements defining his work recall an aesthetic suspended between classicism – meant as a tribute to Italy where the artist has been living and working for more than ten years – and conceptualism, in which the figure disappears leaving its trace in the space. T-Yong’s well-known sculptural portraits are here gathered for the first time in a variety of material declinations and shown along to a series of new works, specifically developed for this solo show. They give body to several iconic characters from Classicism who enter a dialogue with contemporary figures belonging to the artist daily experience and routine. These busts, made of plaster, ceramic, resin, wax and bronze are marked by a sharp cut on one side of the head. This gesture represents a look towards the future, a void to be filled. The artist indicates this same trace to the viewer through his paper works where the footprints left by a series of objects define the visual fragments of something that has passed. The show features sculptures, chalcographies and curtains that have also been printed with a chalcographic press: details of a dense and structured path that results from his recent years of practice, are here shown in a new and more distilled manner, projected towards a series of different themes and materials. In each work the significance of the light has the same functionality as the cut: it delineates those sharp shapes where time has frozen, to then start to run again in dialogue with an active present.
Absence, rupture and removal are considered as constructive gestures in Oriental Culture. That void produced through the consumption and obliteration of time makes way for the new. In his first solo show at Renata Fabbri Gallery T-Yong Chung proposes an action towards the future and its construction. “I delete images to balance them with the void. Observing the origins to find another space”, says the artist. Spatial and temporal elements defining his work recall an aesthetic suspended between classicism – meant as a tribute to Italy where the artist has been living and working for more than ten years – and conceptualism, in which the figure disappears leaving its trace in the space. T-Yong’s well-known sculptural portraits are here gathered for the first time in a variety of material declinations and shown along to a series of new works, specifically developed for this solo show. They give body to several iconic characters from Classicism who enter a dialogue with contemporary figures belonging to the artist daily experience and routine. These busts, made of plaster, ceramic, resin, wax and bronze are marked by a sharp cut on one side of the head. This gesture represents a look towards the future, a void to be filled. The artist indicates this same trace to the viewer through his paper works where the footprints left by a series of objects define the visual fragments of something that has passed. The show features sculptures, chalcographies and curtains that have also been printed with a chalcographic press: details of a dense and structured path that results from his recent years of practice, are here shown in a new and more distilled manner, projected towards a series of different themes and materials. In each work the significance of the light has the same functionality as the cut: it delineates those sharp shapes where time has frozen, to then start to run again in dialogue with an active present.
T-Yong Chung, Maschera greca, 2019Resin, 33 cm (h)
T-Yong Chung, Joo Klm, 2018Wax, cm 40 (h)
T-Yong Chung, Joo KIm, 2018Bronze, cm 40 (h)
T-Yong Chung, Marcello (Maschera), 2019Resin, 28 cm (h)
T-Yong Chung, Contact (Pieve di Cadore), 2018Printmaking on fabric, 160x106x230 cm
T-Yong Chung, Contact 2 (Installation), 2018Printmaking on fabric, 30x60x230 cm
T-Yong Chung, Contact (vasi), 2019Printmaking, 52×72 cm
T-Yong Chung (Tae-gu, South Korea, 1977) lives and works in Milan. Classicism, Arte Povera and minimalism are three elements that keep returning in his sculptural and installation work, where the tension between the fullness of Western culture and the essentiality of Eastern culture create a full formal balance. The artist uses waste materials, such as antique chairs, rusty tools and pieces of sheet metal, that he dismantles and reassembles, smooths and polishes, giving them a new identity, with a permanent link to the dignity of their past. He is famous for his sculptures depicting human faces, made of plaster, ceramics, resin, wax and bronze. He draws inspiration from Greek and Roman classicism, but also from contemporary figures of European culture, that are relevant in his day-to-day life. His sculpture busts are characterized by a clean cut that is handmade and then refined and this creates an abstraction and they evoke an idea of absence, an uninterrupted presence. Through this process of subtraction and cancellation- gestures that evoke generative acts in the eastern culture- the artworks reveal their essence in the research of different perspectives, different spaces, different identities.
T-Yong Chung graduated in Environmental Sculpture at the University of Seoul and then he graduated in Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera. From 2007 to today his works have been presented in different personal exhibitions in Florence, Bologna, Milan and Naples and in collective exhibitions in important spaces such as Careof, Milan; Galleria Comunale d’Arte Contemporanea of Monfalcone; Galleria Civica d’Arte Contemporanea in Trento, Neon/fdv, Milan and Bologna, but also in Tokyo and Seoul. He took part in many artistic residency and workshops such as Museo Carlo Zauli in Faenza and Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa in Venice.
T-Yong Chung (Tae-gu, South Korea, 1977) lives and works in Milan. Classicism, Arte Povera and minimalism are three elements that keep returning in his sculptural and installation work, where the tension between the fullness of Western culture and the essentiality of Eastern culture create a full formal balance. The artist uses waste materials, such as antique chairs, rusty tools and pieces of sheet metal, that he dismantles and reassembles, smooths and polishes, giving them a new identity, with a permanent link to the dignity of their past. He is famous for his sculptures depicting human faces, made of plaster, ceramics, resin, wax and bronze. He draws inspiration from Greek and Roman classicism, but also from contemporary figures of European culture, that are relevant in his day-to-day life. His sculpture busts are characterized by a clean cut that is handmade and then refined and this creates an abstraction and they evoke an idea of absence, an uninterrupted presence. Through this process of subtraction and cancellation- gestures that evoke generative acts in the eastern culture- the artworks reveal their essence in the research of different perspectives, different spaces, different identities.
T-Yong Chung graduated in Environmental Sculpture at the University of Seoul and then he graduated in Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera. From 2007 to today his works have been presented in different personal exhibitions in Florence, Bologna, Milan and Naples and in collective exhibitions in important spaces such as Careof, Milan; Galleria Comunale d’Arte Contemporanea of Monfalcone; Galleria Civica d’Arte Contemporanea in Trento, Neon/fdv, Milan and Bologna, but also in Tokyo and Seoul. He took part in many artistic residency and workshops such as Museo Carlo Zauli in Faenza and Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa in Venice.
- Matilde Sambo
- T-Yong Chung,
- Andrea Martinucci,
- Florian Roithmayr
October 11-13, 2019
Pav. 12 – Booth SC7
- Serena Vestrucci
The work Abbronzatissimi (2023) is now part of the permanent collection of the Santa Maria della Scala Museum in Siena
- Sophie Ko
Scuderie e Parco del Castello di Miramare, Trieste
December 6 2024 – November 9 2025
Curated by Melania Rossi
- Giovanni Kronenberg
Curated by the Curatorial Collective of students from the Luiss Business School
COSMO Trastevere, Rome
Piazza di Sant’Apollonia, 13
December 18, 2024 – January 15, 2025
Opening December 18, 7.30 pm – 22.30 pm
