Signature series
Heads두상
Alongside the full figure, the head has been a constant in CHUNG Hyun’s work since the late 1980s. For his heads of the 1990s he set aside the modelling spatula and struck lumps of clay with lengths of timber and with shovels, then cast them in plaster or bronze. The features remain as dents and rough planes rather than modelled surfaces.
He went on to make heads in other materials: railroad ties for the 2001 Face series, and coal and bronze in the mid-2000s. In 2024 PKM Gallery’s booth at Art Basel Miami Beach displayed a group of his heads on steel shelving, and in 2025 he presented new heads in painted bronze in “The Cumulative Burst” at PKM Gallery, Seoul. Each material changes the weight, colour and surface of the head.
Timeline
- 1988
- An early head in bronze
- 1990s
- Heads formed by striking clay with lengths of timber and shovels; cast in plaster, and some in bronze
- 2001
- A head in railroad ties for the Face series
- 2004–2006
- Heads in coal and bronze
- 2022
- Heads from the late 1980s onward shown together in “The Portrait of Time”, Seongbuk Museum of Art, Seoul
- 2024
- Heads shown on steel shelving in PKM Gallery’s booth at Art Basel Miami Beach; selected for the fair’s Editors’ Picks
- 2025
- New heads in painted bronze shown in “The Cumulative Burst”, PKM Gallery, Seoul
- 2026
- Shown in “THE FACE: Encounter”, Seosomun Shrine History Museum, Seoul
