Lehmann Maupin is pleased to present Off the beaten track: the artistic meanderings of Sung Neung Kyung, the artist’s first solo exhibition outside of Korea. 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. Off the beaten track: the artistic meanderings of Sung Neung Kyung is a retrospective of the artist’s decades-long artistic career, featuring works from the 1970s to the present. Recognized as a pioneering figure in South Korean avant-garde art, Sung is known for his exploration of unconventional mediums including performance, photography, and archival methods to examine the construction of knowledge and power, often in response to sociopolitical friction. On Thursday, October 24 at 5 PM, Sung will stage performances in the gallery space featuring the artist’s ongoing series Fanning the fire of poetry and Drawing performance, followed by an opening reception.
As a key member of the influential art collective ‘Space & Time’ throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Sung’s artistic practice was shaped by conceptual art and the political turmoil of South Korean democracy. 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’s practice is process-oriented, focusing on ephemeral works and unique performances documented as photographic installations.
Off the beaten track: the artistic meanderings of Sung Neung Kyung unites crucial pieces of Sung’s artistic practice. As one of the first Korean artists to embrace photography in the 1970s, Sung's interest in the medium began while working with newspapers; he staged performances where he cut out the text of articles, leaving only ads and images. In Reading newspaper, presented in the gallery as a printable film, Sung cuts out headlines from local papers until only skeletal frames remain. This act demonstrates that meanings are shaped not by fixed definitions, but by their public usage and expression.
Initiated in 1979, the artist’s acclaimed Venue series demonstrates his long-standing interest in the dynamic between language and power. Here, the artist carefully arranges close-up shots of press photographs that contain graphic symbols (like dotted lines, arrows, circles, and triangles), then adds additional symbols to their surfaces with ink. In this way, Sung critiques media censorship and suggests alternative modes of knowledge production and information sharing. In Venue 2 (1980), the artist photographs a press image of a taxi driver with an arrow pointing to the taxi fare meter, chosen to reference the controversial government policy on taxi meter replacements and fluctuating fares. Drawing arrows on the 18 film negatives, Sung directs attention to different locations from those highlighted by the original newspaper editor, disrupting the intended messages of the original images. Through this act of alteration, Sung challenges editorial authority and the political implications embedded in the newspaper’s narrative, using the same tools that shape public discourse to subvert and deconstruct it.
Works from the artist’s Everyday English series, which he began in 2003, transform everyday objects using newspapers that have been delivered to Mr. Sung’s door. In these works, Sung meticulously anotates the “English Review” pages of these daily papers, integrating his English language studies into his artistic practice. Each year since the inception of the series, Sung has produced approximately two hundred collage-drawings from these newspapers. This routine challenges both traditional definitions of art-making and the artist’s role while underscoring the continued significance of newspaper reading in his work. For Sung, Everyday English embodies the intersection of his art, life, and studies, representing what he views as a ‘sacred trinity’ of his existence.
Anchoring the exhibition is An upside down map of Die Westlichen Erdteile (2024), which reimagines traditional cartography by using perspectival shifts to challenge understandings of geography and cultural narrative. Based on the latitude and longitude grids, a map of the Americas is divided into rectangular sections measuring 19 x 15 cm each, resulting in a total of 285 pieces. The pieces are then randomly rearranged to disrupt the cartographic layout and render it 'illegible.' Through this disarray, Sung reveals how geography has misconstructed public perception and highlights the fictional nature of the world, drawing attention to the politics of cartography.
Sung has significantly advanced the hybrid performance genre throughout his extensive career, exploring themes of knowledge, power, bodily expression, and the reinterpretation of daily life. A record of his 1998 performance M.V.G.W. at the Kumho Museum of Art in Seoul is on view in the exhibition. M.V.G.W. is an acronym for a series of noteworthy events that Sung experienced that year, including his road trip in a Jeep to the Maguryeong road¹, a controversial Viagra incident², a major downpour during the summer referred to as ‘Guerrilla rainstorm,’ and the shocking failure of South Korea's national soccer team in the 1998 World Cup. In his more recent performance Fanning the fire of poetry, which Sung will perform during the opening reception, the artist begins by inscribing a prayer on a fan and lighting it on fire, evoking an ancient ritual of new year wishes. He invites the audience to participate in his unique 'fan blessing,' gently fanning the flames among viewers.
In line with his exploration of daily life and performativity, Sung challenges traditional notions of photography. In Art is the Shadow of Delirium: Kitchen (2001), he photographs everyday spaces in his home—such as the bedroom, kitchen, and living room. Using a Cibachrome printing technique, he employs a B shutter setting and fires about 200 flashes in front of his subject, creating a distinctive shadow of the flash on the image.³ This technique highlights the interplay between the subject and the photographer, showcasing how the photographer's actions contribute to the performance aspect of the work. Additionally, Sung experiments with color here, marking a shift from his earlier focus on conceptual art and returning to color as an act of signifying a reconnection with painting.
Off the beaten track: the artistic meanderings of Sung Neung Kyung represents a pivotal moment in Sung's artistic career, offering a space to critically examine the connections between art, politics, and daily life. This exhibition encourages viewers to immerse themselves in Sung's creative techniques—from his inventive use of everyday materials to his performances. By questioning traditional narratives and fostering public engagement, Sung reshapes the artist's role in society, urging viewers to rethink their relationships with media and language.
¹ Maguryeong road is prominently steep hills of Sobaeksan Mountain, celebrated for their historical importance as challenging routes for traveling people. The name "Maguryeong" comes from the fact that merchants used to drive their horses through this pass.
² Viagra, the “magic blue pill” for male erectile dysfunction, was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in March of 1998. In the same year, 130 people were found to have died from taking the pill, and the FDA ordered the drug maker to strengthen warnings about the risks to people with heart problems. The artist became aware of this news since it was widely reported across Korea at the time.
³ A dye destruction positive-to-positive photographic process that is used to reproduce film transparencies on photographic paper. This method prints on a stable polyester base instead of traditional paper using thirteen layers of azo dyes sealed in polyester; the prints resist fading, discoloration, and deterioration over time.