Installation view © gallery soso

Standing Worker. This person cannot sit here. He can’t afford to sit down because of his busy mind. He looks around sincerely, checks left and right constantly, and rings the bell regularly. The light of the high watchtower does not go out like what the busy mind would hope for, and the arms extending in all directions under the shoulders are folded and stretched, moving all the time. The body is woven with hard-working mainspring, straps, and objects placed everywhere to encourage each other. This silent person is looking around steadily like this.

​Artist Yang, Jung Uk continuously imagining by looking at every corner of people’s lives and coming up with artworks is a genuine storyteller. He has told people in quick drawing, moving sculptures, his own voice, and writing stories that endlessly came out of his head. His exhibitions, which have the same title as a passage from an essay, have made the audience listen to his stories wandering among the works. This time, he came out with works he created with care like the diligently moving sculpture. What is it that fills his silent exhibition?


Installation view © gallery soso

In this silent exhibition, it is his’s new drawings that fill in the lines of silence. ‘Doodles of someone who recorded their memories’ series hung on the wall in the cozy light of Standing Workers, a moving sculpture is quietly silent. Various forms that he usually draws quickly were engraved on the exterior wall material for buildings that covered plywood. The drawings, which have been completed by scratching the rough surface unique to the exterior wall several times with iron brushes and charcoal, show the inside of each work in depth, unlike his previous drawings, which seemed to run fast toward the next story. Drawings, which vary in strength of scratching, number of scratching times, and type of tools and where light and shade are finely expressed, provoke the audience to take the time to gaze at them taking as much as the artist worked on them.

​As such, when the drawings are holding the flying time, he does not talk about anything. It’s just that the busy moving pieces in the distance diligently light up all over the place, and the small lumps balancing their arms on the narrow pedestal fill up the space. Nevertheless, there is a certain story that their relationship creates between these works like air. Each piece of work that has been carefully filled over time tells each other their own story, and my story flows out while listening to their story. As such, the time of the silent works slowly flows and creates a story that nobody has told.

Artist Yang, Jung Uk has always told such stories about people, how a person lives through a certain moment, all the banalities and emotions felt in that moment, and the stories that unfold as people of different emotions get together. The stories he has told were the those of people who lived their best and he always showed it with all his heart. Then suddenly, even if there was no word, and even if he did not say anything, he created artworks that the stories of their lives permeate into people’s heart like a cozy light. Sometimes there are more empowering drivers than any other words – caring eyes, small acts of love, and quality time spent together albeit short. In this exhibition with works of Yang, Jung Uk, he moves busily “without saying anything” flows a friendly heart that quietly stands by him.

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