Sports Dong-A | Kim Hyun Jung Solo Exhibition ‘A Tray of Eggs, Marrying Age’

Kim Hyun Jung Solo Exhibition "A Tray of Eggs, Marrying Age"

September 2-14, Keumboseong Art Center, Jongno-gu, Seoul

Kim Hyun Jung, the 'icon of Korean painting' who throws witty barbs at society through her 'Naesoong series,' returns with the theme of 'marriage.' From September 2 to 14, she holds her solo exhibition 'A Tray of Eggs, Marrying Age' at Keumboseong Art Center in Jongno-gu, Seoul — already her 23rd solo exhibition. Her productivity is remarkable.

While her previous 'Naesoong series' focused on 'me' — an exploration of inner self and the pursuit of outer beauty — the works in this exhibition broaden the view through the institution of marriage to encompass 'the world around me,' including potential others with whom she will form close relationships. In particular, she uses the tool of parodying famous paintings to explore the sensitive subject of 'marriage' with wit.

The following is a Q&A with artist Kim Hyun Jung.

- When I think of artist Kim Hyun Jung, I remember the 2016 Naesoong Amusement Park exhibition. It seems like it's been a while since your last show.

"I started my activities in 2013, and I've held a great many exhibitions, big and small, since then. This is already my 23rd solo exhibition. It's been three years since 'Naesoong Amusement Park.' In the meantime, I did a lot of corporate collaborations and taught at universities. During that time, my work was also featured in eight different middle and high school textbooks."

- I heard this exhibition has special meaning.

"In December 2018, I received the Korea Artist Award for Young Artists at the '12th Korea Artists' Day' event hosted by the Korean Fine Arts Association. This exhibition is an invitational show commemorating that award. I turned thirty this year, myself born in 1988. For a woman, turning thirty comes with the word 'marriage' attached. I tried to unpack, through this exhibition, the vague anxieties and worries about marriage that my peers and I are going through."

- The exhibition title is unusual. What does 'A Tray of Eggs, Marrying Age' mean?

"'A tray of eggs' is a metaphor for the age of thirty, based on the fact that a tray of eggs holds 30 eggs. 'Marrying age' refers to the age at which society expects you to marry. In Korea, it seems like a lot of meaning gets attached specifically to a woman turning 30. From the year I turned thirty in Korean age, I heard my mother say, over and over until I was sick of it, 'My only wish this year is for my daughter to get married.' But hearing that over and over actually made me feel more resistant to it. I don't feel ready for marriage yet, psychologically or financially, and it felt irresponsible to be told to just go ahead and get married regardless. I wanted to sort out my own thoughts about marriage, so I chose it as my theme."

- Please introduce what this exhibition covers.

"In the first half of the exhibition, I express fantasies about marriage, and in the latter half, I increasingly express the realistic problems of marriage and my own anxieties about them. For example, 'Parenting War' contains the fear of exhausting child-rearing, and 'Exhaustion' contains worries about housework. Once you're actually married, these things might turn out to have been baseless, pointless anxieties, but for now, I'd say the keyword of the exhibition is the 'instability' of being thirty and facing marriage."

- I heard there's a new approach in your work this time.

"To put it simply, there's a change in my 'series.' Many people probably know me for the 'Naesoong series.' Until now, I dealt with the concerns that arose from relationships I had as a woman in my twenties, my hobbies, and other interests of mine. But as time passed, over the past few years, my biggest concern shifted to marriage. Thoughts about marriage naturally expanded into my work, and that's how the 'Marriage series' came about. The difference between my self-portrait in my twenties and in my thirties seems to show through 'Naesoong' and 'marriage.' And this time, many works reinterpret the composition and imagery of famous paintings. This is a new attempt born from wondering how to convey my thoughts on marriage in a witty, compressed way. For example, 'Marriage: Worlds Apart' borrows from Michelangelo's 'Creation of Adam,' 'Marriage: The Bride-to-Be Who Thinks' borrows from Rodin's 'The Thinker,' and 'Marriage: Welcome to In-Law World' borrows the composition and imagery of Munch's 'The Scream.' I paid a lot of attention to the details so that it wouldn't feel like simple borrowing, giving each piece new meaning."

- Your exhibitions have set attendance records time and again thanks to your planning. What's the key concept behind this exhibition?

"The core keyword of this exhibition's concept is marriage. A feature of this exhibition is that it's structured like an actual wedding. For invitations, mobile wedding invitations have become common these days. Inspired by that item, I made the exhibition invitation itself in the form of a mobile wedding invitation. Instead of a beautiful wedding photo of a bride and groom on the mobile invitation, I set up a photo zone at the exhibition so visitors can take their own photos. The exhibition space is conceived like a 1960s-70s wedding hall. I placed points throughout that evoke that feeling — from artwork captions and art-product signage designed around a reinterpreted traditional phoenix pattern, to the catalog itself, filled with fun little details."

- The term 'social drawing' sounds familiar yet unfamiliar.

"Social drawing is actually a term I coined myself. I'm an active user of SNS. SNS stands for 'Social Network Service.' As you can infer from that, 'social drawing' combines 'social,' meaning 'of society' or 'social,' with 'drawing.' In other words, it's a method of drawing together with netizens by harnessing online collective intelligence. It also refers to creative activity based on the participation of netizens. The way social drawing works is that I first post a topic I'm focused on to SNS. That sparks active discussion, generating various ideas that become source material for my work. I take these ideas as raw material and recreate them as artwork. The process of turning that into a finished piece is also part of social drawing. Social drawing isn't just about using netizens' ideas — it refers to the whole activity and phenomenon of posting the resulting artwork back to SNS, communicating through the conversation sparked by new ideas, and reproducing further ideas that spin off from that."

● Who is artist Kim Hyun Jung?

"The idol of Korean painting, leading its popularization and revival ... acclaimed for the Naesoong series"

Kim Hyun Jung graduated from Sunhwa Arts Middle School and Sunhwa Arts High School, then graduated from Seoul National University's Department of Oriental Painting and Department of Business Administration, receiving the alumni association's president's award at graduation. She went on to earn a master's degree in Oriental Painting at Seoul National University's graduate school and completed her doctoral coursework in the same program. She currently serves as a publicity ambassador for the City of Seoul and lectures at various universities and companies.

She has held 22 solo exhibitions under the theme of 'Naesoong,' with shows selling out and sparking a variety of topics of discussion. Her fresh ideas, themes, and techniques have earned her the reputation of being 'bold,' and she is drawing attention as a promising figure in the Korean art world for attempting change while grounded in the theory and technique of orthodox Oriental painting.

Kim Hyun Jung's 2013 solo exhibition 'Naesoong Story' was a fresh shock to audiences and caused a major stir, and her subsequent solo exhibitions 'Naesoong Olympics' (2014) and 'Naesoong Amusement Park' (2016) likewise drew acclaim from countless visitors. In particular, the 2016 exhibition set the record for the most cumulative visitors to a solo exhibition by a domestic artist, at 67,402. Kim was invited to exhibit at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea as its youngest-ever artist, and has held invitational solo exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Goethe-Institut in Germany, continuing to exhibit both at home and abroad.

In April 2017, she was named one of the influential '30 Under 30 Asia' by the globally renowned economic magazine Forbes. In September 2018, she received The Prize of Entrepreneurship in the individual category at the 2018 Korea Brand Awards hosted by the Korea Marketing Association, and in December 2018, she received the Korea Artist Award for Young Artists from the Korean Fine Arts Association.

In an art world that values seniority and career length, Kim Hyun Jung is known as the 'idol of Korean painting,' actively using SNS to steadily communicate with and win the affection of over 200,000 people. She continues her efforts to integrate Oriental painting into everyday life so that the public can approach it more easily, and through various art collaborations, lectures, and SNS activity, she is credited with lowering the threshold of the art museum and contributing to the popularization and revival of Korean painting.