Jheon Soocheon is a Korean artist best known for large-scale public projects and installation works. Born in Korea in 1947, Jheon Soocheon was educated first in Japan followed by Pratt in New York . The artist has over the past decades built an impressive exhibition career around the world, with major shows at the 1996 San Paolo Biennale; Massachusetts College of Art (1996); Norskbergverks Museum, Konigsberg (1997), Gwangju Biennale (1994, 2004), and Espace Landowski, Paris (2000). In 1995, Mr. Jheon was awarded an Honorable Mention from the Venice Biennale and was named Artist of the Year by the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul . Much like other international Land and/or Earth Artists his current project , fifteen years in the making, The Moving Drawing of Jheon Soocheon: The Line That Crosses America (2005), is a conceptual work in which the artist “drew” a metaphorical moving line between New York and Los Angeles by using a passenger train draped in white fabric, and on which the artist held a symposium during the eight days of the journey.
Following his numerous indoor installations of clay figures and neon tubes, considered signature Jheon Soocheon 1990s works, during the past decade the artist’s interest has shifted toward drawing lines in nature --along a river, across a mountain, across a continent. In this context and following the spirit of his 15year project The Line That Crosses America, at White Box, Mr. Jheon will present a site-specific installation titled, Beyond Bar Codes. In this work the artist transforms White Box’s entire floor into a giant barcode, which also will host several sculptures related to electronic consumer products. The floor’s barcode will act as a platform on which viewers will by osmosis turn into consumer products themselves. The related sculptures include a statue of a seated Buddha and a huge globe covered by consumer waste, both will be placed atop bar coded pedestals. While viewers are invited to walk around White Box’s floor, they are also encouraged to sit on the bar-coded cushion and perhaps meditate for a few moments.
Mr. Jheon believes the mechanics of capitalism have resulted in a loss of value of human beings and the objects they create. He calls for an awareness of the forever increasing de-humanizing effects of globalism, in particular its impact on the art market. His innovative use of White Box’s space has provided the artist with an ideal and appropriate environment for meditation, a space where viewers have an opportunity to contemplate and evaluate the individual, people, nations, material objects and spirituality and to reflect on these and other pressing globalizing issues.
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