JEONG GWANG HEE

Jeong Gwang Hee is a conceptual artist who uses calligraphy, painting, process art and performance art to explore the paradoxical Zen Buddhist use of language and non-language in the soteriological pursuit of enlightenment. A classically trained calligrapher, Jeong Gwang Hee is the latest in a distinguished tradition of East-Asian linguistic-conceptual calligraphers that includes Ruan Yuan (阮元; 1764-1849), Kim Jeong-hui (金正喜; 1786-1856), Mokin Jeon Jongjoo (木人 全钟柱, b. 1951), Suh Se-Ok (徐世鈺; 1929-2020), and Xu Bing (徐冰; b. 1955) amongst others. At the same time, Jeong is a conceptual artist whose focus on language and non-language place him in dialog with language-based Conceptual artists such as Joseph Kosuth (b. 1945) and Lawrence Weiner (1941-2021) as well as anti-language Fluxus artists such as John Cage (1912-1992) and Nam June Paik (1932-2006). However, unlike Kosuth and Weiner who used language to address questions in art, Jeong uses art to address questions of language or, more precisely, meaning beyond language—specifically, the visual semiotics that precede language, insights that follow emancipation from language, the embodied experiences that underlie language, and soteriological methods that supersede language.

Text courtesy INKstudio.