A pioneer of the South Korean avant-garde, Sung Neung Kyung (b. 1944) works across non-traditional media, including performance, photography, and archival practices, to examine constructions of knowledge and power. Sung is known for his involvement in the art group Space & Time, an art and study collective active throughout the 1970s and 1980s that responded to both Western art and theory and a period of political turmoil in South Korea. His practice is intrinsically process-oriented and deals in ephemera, frequently involving one-off events or performances; his work is often archived as photographs or contact prints and exhibited as a variety of photographic installations.
Sung Neung Kyung’s work is currently included in the exhibition Only the Young: Experimental Art in Korea, 1960s—1970s at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, on view through January 7, 2024. On November 17 and 18, Sung will perform Reading Newspapers on site at the museum. More information is available on the Guggenheim’s website.