Korean artist Jun So-jung to join Circa’s project in August

Interdisciplinary artist Jun So-jung has been selected as the first South Korean artist to join a global project showcasing digital artwork.

Her newly commissioned work is scheduled to be presented in August.

“The details, including the artist’s new work, are still in discussion with Josef O’Connor,” an official from the Barakat Contemporary told The Korea Herald. O’Connor is the founder and artistic director of digital artwork platform Circa. The gallery is the sole Seoul-based gallery taking part in the project, which earlier this year saw David Hockney’s video work displayed on large LED screens in major cities around the world.

Circa kicked off a global project in May to showcase digital artwork on commercial billboards around the world in London, New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo and Seoul with the idea of sharing art with the public when COVID-19 forced the world to go into lockdowns.

The project shows the same artwork throughout the month, every day at the same time in the five cities. The featured artist changes every month. The first piece in the project, a video work by David Hockney titled “Remember you cannot look at the sun or death for very long,” was received enthusiastically by the public.

Born in 1982, Jun won the Hermes Foundation Missulsang in 2018 and the grand prize at the 14th SongEun Art Awards in 2014. She also won the Noon Award at the Gwangju Biennale in 2016. Jun, who studied sculpture at Seoul National University, made her name with narrative-focused works of art using various media.

“Jun poses questions to the present times in a microscopic perspective through diverse attempts for different media including sculpture, installation and performance and interpretation of the senses. In particular, she has produced works that weave and crisscross with her personal experiences by paying attention to people standing on the boundary amid the ruins of modernity and invisible voices,” the artist wrote on her website.

Jun’s installation work “The Ghost in the Machine,” produced in collaboration with An Jung-ju, is currently on display at the exhibition “MMCA Performing Arts 2021: Multiverse” at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, which runs through Aug. 2.

By Park Yuna (yunapark@heraldcorp.com)