YEONDOO JUNG: THE INEVITABLE, INACCEPTABLE
Kukje Gallery is pleased to present Yeondoo Jung’s The Inevitable, Inacceptable, a solo exhibition at the gallery’s Busan outpost.
April 25 – July 20, 2025
Working across diverse mediums including video, photography, sculpture, and performance, Jung traverses and conjoins heterogeneous subjects, exposing fissures in our era through subtle observations and interweaving a new texture of senses. Marking his first solo exhibition at the gallery since 2008, The Inevitable, Inacceptable examines the intersection of two subjects, blues music and the rhythm of fermentation, weaving their distinct cultural frameworks together in unexpectedly powerful ways. Through his unique perspective, Jung elaborates on an attitude of humor and yearning as a means of surviving a reality that diverges from one’s intentions and expectations.
The exhibition space unfolds in five distinct yet interconnected conversations, each centered on a performer engaging with the specific material rhythms of their immediate surroundings. Each of these conversations is centered around one of five musicians, arranged in the interior space divided into polygonal structures of various colors. They are simultaneously playing different parts of blues music, each corresponding to the adjacent video, photography, and sculptures installed across from them and conveying their own story within the loose ensemble.
Jung’s ongoing interest in the juxtaposition of visual images and sonic elements such as music, voice, intonation, and noise powerfully frame his philosophy about the invisible dynamism and vibrancy of life, which is made tangible through music. In particular, by focusing on blues music, Jung is able to tap into a farcical and boisterous imagination expressed in this genre and elaborate on a musical way of enduring inexplicable circumstances and inevitable difficulties. Rooted in the experiences of African Americans of the Deep South in the mid-nineteenth century following the Civil War, blues developed its distinctive rhythm and lyrics in response to the challenges of a harsh and unforgiving reality.
In the face of life’s enigmatic mechanisms, Jung’s work challenges conventional categories, juxtaposing macro and microcosmic worlds with a spirit of humor and yearning, sustained by an abiding affection for life’s many wonders. In this exhibition-as-stage, music and image resound in polyphonic harmony—music that is the very rhythm of the heart, accompanying one through life's inevitable joys and sorrows as well as fate and coincidence.