Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery
438 Union Avenue, 718-383-7309
Williamburg
September 12 - October 12, 2008
Reception: Friday, September 12, 7 - 9 PM
Web Site
“Relax Earth” will feature a visual language that spans a catalog of dialectics, from the allegorical to phenomenological. Chung’s work ranges from displays of skillful craftsmanship to the wry appropriation of rudimentary found objects. Objects move between levels of mediation; their unfixed and perpetually forming nature emphasize the episodic, the non-hierarchical, and the dis-associative. Carefully handmade pinatas are based on designs pulled from internet how-to guides, subverting her own technical artistry while creating an object whose traditional purpose is to be gleefully destroyed. Alternately a small plywood tombstone marked “NOT ME” has been situated with equal consideration. The implication of the found object’s sardonic message has all the affirmative joy of the playful pinatas in a ghoulish guise.
From there Chung brings us to the furthest edge of her spectrum towards pared down specific objects. A cross on the wall is formed simply by the splayed wings of a cardboard record mailer. Here the artist’s recognition of failed seriousness disavows cheap metaphor, and asserts a sensibility of seductive self-referential forms.