Luminous City: 정정주

Luminous City

Jeong-ju Jeong

25 August - 21 September 2023

The solo exhibition 《Luminous City》 of Jeong-ju Jeong will be held at Gallery Chosun in Samcheong-dong, Seoul, from August 24 to September 21, 2023. He works with video, light, and sculpture, exploring the physically fixed architectural space and the constant movement of light within the room, deepening the symbolism of urban light in the form of minimalist sculpture. According to him, light is a transcendent image of Idea and a medium that visually reveals everyday spaces. In addition, the artificial light that floods modern cities is a symbol of modernized civilization that reveals the desires of capital. The LED lights of a solid and organized sculptural structure, harmonize with the metal surface and cast a shadow over the space, revealing a rich interplay between urban life and the symbol of light. 

Light becomes a gaze into the space with definite architecture and functions as a sculptural element with abstract space. When the light becomes the gaze, it drags reflection on seeing and being seen, subject and object. <City of Gaze-Nagoya>, 2007, creates an architectural model of an urban space, installs surveillance cameras inside it, and shows the viewer the gaze through a projector. Working with a specific site related to the 5.18 Gwangju Democratization Movement, <Commercial Attach>, 2019, evokes painful history and memory, past and present through the dynamics of the gaze. 

His work leads to the dynamics of the gaze, surveillance, and issues of history and memory as they intersect with light, gaze, and space. The video works, such as <Morning Sun>, 2019, and <Green Light>, 2022, are 3D animated films based on fictionalized or architectural spaces from other paintings as a motif, which capture the movement of light through a floating gaze and the sculptural changes created by light and shadow.  

Immersed in the interaction between light and space, Jeong-ju Jeong attempts to give form to light in his series <Curved Lights>, 2021~ and <Metaphysical Star>, 2021~. For him, light is both an 'abstract idea' and an also 'stranger'. It is transcendent, eternal, and social system.