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Hyo Gyoung Jeon

Profession
MRes Art: Exhibition Studies Alum
College
Central Saint Martins
Person Type
Alumni
Hyo Gyoung Jeon

Biography

Hyo graduated in 2013

Changing paths

I changed my concentration from painting and printmaking to curating exhibitions after college graduation.
It was sort of compulsory for me to learn about very current issues of contemporary art to be further familiarised with the field of works. 
However, more specifically, the language of contemporary art to write and speak about art was something I was keen to obtain from the postgraduate course.

Even The Neck

I have been particularly interested in curating exhibitions of artists in the forms of collaboration with the invited artists. I established an exhibition-making organisation, called Even The Neck in 2011. Even The Neck does not have a particular physical body as a residing space but looks to hire new and alternative places to hold each exhibition.

I organised an outdoor exhibition along the Regent’s Canal of a London-based artist, Ikjung Cho, in last October. It was basically a video-screening event after sunset. The screened video was about the artist’s aunt who forcibly migrated to Japan from Korea and her son whom the artist may fall in love with. It was serious enough to create various discourses on migrates and border issues, personal affairs, as well as formal visual methods of showing works in the public spaces, and at the same time, was wonderfully serene to be sat next to the canal.

About the course

The basic premise of the course is writing about contemporary art exhibition, which may or may not become a criticism or history. In order for students to do their researches well, the course creates a river of information on current issues of contemporary art and guides to find particular streams to follow.

My colleagues and I organised a symposium, ‘Artist as Curator II: Collaborative Practices’ in association with Afterall and Whitechapel Gallery in last April. It was a marvellous chance for all of us who participated in the organisation as it prompted us to have concrete networks with the speakers and broaden our insights at more practical levels. These were the precious gems that individual research could not provide.

The course is not either a traditional art history course or a curatorial programme, which motivated me to apply for the course.

Future

I would like to go back to academic circles to have my own research language in the near future. At the moment, I am working as a curator at Ilmin Museum of Art in Seoul. The museum recently opened a travelling exhibition, Animism, curated by a Berlin-based curator, Anselm Franke.

Advice

Do not to hesitate to collaborate with others in any forms and have solid connections with new people. I guess a constant solitude would not benefit in terms of acquiring insights for the research, even if the research output should be finalised at personal levels.

Central Saint Martins

Contact

Telephone

+44 (0)20 7514 7444

Address

1 Granary Square
King's Cross
London
N1C 4AA