Yeondoo Jung

Jung Yeondoo (; born 1969) is a South Korean visual artist who works primarily with photography, videography, and sculpture. He has a studio located in Seoul. He was the youngest recipient of the "Artist of the Year" award by the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea in 2007. He has been selected as the artist featured in the MMCA Hyundai Motor Series 2023. He has shown work in numerous museums and biennials worldwide like the 51st Venice Biennial and the Liverpool Biennial in 2008. His work is featured in public and private art collections throughout the world such as the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena, the Rhode Island School of Design Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

He was born in Jinju.

Education Jung majored in sculpture at Seoul National University. Afterwards, he studied under David Annesley at Central Saint Martins College of Art. He obtained his Master of Fine Art at Goldsmiths College, University of London in 1997 where he discovered photography by coming into contact with other photographers while pursuing his degree. Jung became interested in making work that challenges cultural stereotypes.

His Evergreen Tower (2001) series is a collection of thirty two family portraits taken in an apartment block in Gwangjang-dong, Seoul. The architectural structure of the rooms are the same and the only change is the decoration and the family. During the time of the creation on this work, freestanding houses in Korea were being replaced by apartment buildings.

His Bewitched (2001), named after the 1960s TV show, series turns young people's dreams into staged photographs. He traveled to six different countries and asked locals about their wishes for their futures. He had them pose in two contrasting portraits in identical postures, one in the present and one in their future self representing their dreams.

His Wonderland (2004) series turns children's paintings into photographs. He chose 17 out of 1,200 paintings he collected in Seoul and recruited 60 high school students to pose in the work.

Jung's Location (2006) series is a collection of photographs that contrast real landscapes with man made sets. They are titled numerically by the order of creation within the series. His photograph, Adolescence (2011), was also selected.

His first solo exhibition in Australia contained two single-channel videos titled Documentary Nostalgia (2007) and Twilight Seoul (2012). Documentary Nostalgia (2007) is an 84-minute silent video consisting of stagehands pulling apart and creating a series of scenes for a stable camera. It begins in a scene depicting his memory of his father's home as workers enter the scene to add, change, and remove elements of the scene like a chandelier or a rug. It is a long sequence of composition shifts from interior settings to exterior settings like fields, hills, mountains, and a sunset.

His exhibition Just Like the Road across the Earth at Japan's Art Tower Mito in 2014 includes Blind Perspective (2014), Boramae Dance Hall (2001), and Six Points, Ordinary Paradise (2010). The photographs, videos, and installation center around the landscape lost in the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. Blind Perspective (2014) is a sculptural landscape made with the ruined infrastructure and waste found in Japan after the tsunami that is then transformed once the viewer puts on the virtual reality headset. The remains turn into natural elements like flowers and mountains that made up the landscape before the destruction from the tsunami.

Selected solo exhibitions 2001 "Boramae Dance Hall", Gallery Loop, Seoul, Korea 2002 "Tokyo Brand City", Koyanagi Gallery, Tokyo, Japan 2002 "Chinese Lucky Estate", 1A Space, Hong Kong 2003 "Bewitched", Gallery Loop, Seoul, Korea 2004 "Beat It", Insa Art Center, Seoul, Korea 2005 "Wonderland", Tina Kim Fine Art, New York 2006 "Are You Lonesome Tonight?", Kukje Gallery, Seoul, Korea 2007 "Wonderland", Galeria Espacio Minimo, Madrid, Spain 2007 "I Will Remember You", ACA Gallery, Atlanta / Red Gallery, Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, GA 2007 "Memories of You – Artist of the Year 2007", National Museum of Contemporary Art Gwacheon, Korea 2007 "Locations", Tina Kim Gallery, New York 2008 "For your loneliness", gallery Gebr. Lehmann, Dresden/Berlin

Public collections Art Sonje Center, Seoul, Korea The Calder Foundation, New York Estee Lauder Corporation, New York Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena, Italy Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Fukuoka, Japan Gyeonggido Museum of Art, Ansan, Korea Joddes Collection, Pharmascience, Montreal, Canada Joy of Giving Something Foundation, New York Museum of Modern Art, New York National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea New Line Cinema, New York RISD Museum, Providence, Rhode Island Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, Georgia Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea Ssamzie Space, Seoul, Korea