YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES: LIFE IN THREE EASY VIDEO TUTORIALS
January 6 – March 12, 2017
Art Sonje Center
YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES: LIFE IN THREE EASY VIDEO TUTORIALS
The Art Sonje Center will hold the solo exhibition of YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES, titled LIFE IN THREE EASY VIDEO TUTORIALS from January 6 – March 12 2017. While Young-hae Chang and Marc Voge, representatives of YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES have been actively exhibited abroad such as the Tate, Centre Pompidou, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, there haven’t been many opportunities to see their work in South Korea other than the 2004 solo exhibition at the Rodin Gallery and the 2013 special exhibition at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Seoul.
The solo exhibition at the Art Sonje Center is composed of video installations specifically created for the Art Sonje Center’s main exhibition halls on floors 1 to 3, web pieces that can be viewed on the Art Sonje Center’s homepage (www.artsonje.org), printed works in the form of exhibition leaflets, and banners installed along the front and back walls of the museum building. In addition, we have organized an artist talk for February 9th, and two screenings for February 16th and the 23rd in an effort to highlight YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES’ world of artworks from various angles.
LIFE IN THREE EASY VIDEO TUTORIALS is an animation work that introduces contemporary Korean society in an easy to understand way, such as a ‘video tutorial,’ using a combination of text and music. The work is composed of three parts covering the topics of ‘family,’ ‘economy,’ and ‘politics,’ and will be installed on the first three floors of the Art Sonje Center as 2-channel videos in Korean and English. Installed on the first floor is ALL UNHAPPY FAMILIES ARE ALIKE. Based on the opening lines of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, which reads: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” the work revolves around the scene of a family dinner. SAMSUNG MEANS TO DIE, installed on the second floor, explores the logic of capital that dominates our daily lives, not only supplying products but also hospitals, schools, and housing. And on the third floor, POLITICIANS WHO DYE THEIR HAIR — WHAT ARE THEY HIDING ? likens the deceptive behavior of politicians to the act of dying their hair black. This solo exhibition takes up the themes of capital and politics that YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES have continuously engaged with in their work. As they examine a cross section of Korean society, their speculations, which appear to expose our lives and the improprieties therein, approach us with a biting wit.
The works of YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES can be seen from anywhere in the world through their website (yhchang.com). In addition to the video installations at the Art Sonje Center, the web pieces on the Art Sonje Center website and printed works distributed to visitors, allow anyone to see the work as well as take it with them.
About the Artist
YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES is yhchang.com. Based in Seoul, YHCHI has done their signature animated texts set to their own music in 26 languages and shown many of them at some of the major art institutions in the world, including Tate, London, Centre Pompidou, Paris, Whitney Museum and New Museum, New York. Young-hae Chang (KR) and Marc Voge (US), the two principals of YHCHI, were recent Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Creative Arts Fellows.
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