About the artist
CHUNG Hyun
CHUNG Hyun (b. 1956, Korea) is among the most distinctive sculptors of his generation. For more than three decades he has given form to discarded and weathered materials — wooden railroad ties pulled from the tracks, asphalt, coal, wood charred by fire, crushed iron and rusted rebar — drawing from their accumulated time and scars a spare, resilient image of the human being.
His best-known works, the Standing Man series, raise bundled railroad sleepers into upright figures that seem to carry the weight of memory and endurance. Refusing polish and ornament, CHUNG locates dignity and life-force in what society has thrown away — his sculpture insists that value lies not in the new but in the used, the scarred, the survived.
Since his first solo exhibitions in the early 1990s, his work has been presented at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (Artist of the Year, 2006), Kumho Museum of Art, Hakgojae Gallery, the Jardin du Palais-Royal in Paris (2016), Seosomun Shrine History Museum (2019), the Seoul Museum of Art (2023), Cheongju Museum of Art (2025) and Art Basel Miami Beach (2024). His work is held in major public collections including MMCA Korea, the Busan Museum of Art and the Pohang Museum of Steel Art. He is represented by PKM Gallery, Seoul, and lives and works in Paju.
