Sungsil Ryu's work, which is primarily realised as videos, installations and performances, revolves around fictional characters whose entertaining, hyperbolic narratives reveal sharp observations about the mechanics of materialistic desire in Korea. In 2021, Ryu became the youngest artist to receive the prestigious 19th Hermès Foundation Missulsang.
Read MoreRyu works with a recurring cast of fictional characters, played by the artist herself and her friends, to examine the intersections of capitalism, neoliberalism and tradition in contemporary South Korea. While her characters frequently perform questionable acts, Ryu's concern is not so much with passing judgments on their morality, but with exploring the origins and logistics of their desires.
Ryu often collaborates with eobchae, a Seoul-based audio-visual production collective, to create the matching soundtrack for her works.
The Internet provides a potent environment for Ryu, who in 2018 began streaming-performing as a young woman BJ (Korean term for streamer/influencer) named Cherry Jang on YouTube and the Korean streaming service AfreecaTV.
Jang, adorning boldly-coloured makeup and costumes, advocates the idea of 'First Class Citizen', in which attaining wealth and social status during one's lifetime ensures comfort in the afterlife. She spreads conspiracy theories and fake news – disguised as 'truths' – out of what she purports to be pure good will, while selling entry tickets to heaven.
The gaudy rhetorics of Cherry Jang and her videos are inspired by real-life phenomena that once proliferated in South Korea – or continue to do so – such as pseudo-religious leaders, whom the artist found are active on online streaming platforms, and the cult-like followings of one-person media. Taken together, Cherry Jang videos explore the underside of such ostentatious displays to reveal the intertwined relationship between belief, worship and desire, and their underlying driving force: a consensus in contemporary Korean society for the need for social status and material well-being.
Ryu's work online derived from her own experiences as an AfreecaTV streamer while studying at Seoul National University, when she became drawn to the anonymity of online personas and the potential for reaching out to a wider range of audiences that are not educated in the arts. Becoming Cherry Jang also allowed her a degree of freedom, steering the viewer's attention from her social background as a university-educated young artist born and raised in Seoul.
Cherry Jang videos remain on her YouTube channel and Ryu's Vimeo account.
Ryu's 2020 solo exhibition BigKing Travel 2020 takes the form of an online website, accessible via mobile, upon entering which the viewer is taken on a virtual tour to the fictitious land of Ching Chen. As with her other works, BigKing Travel 2020 parodies snippets of real-life phenomena, touching on aspirations for worldly gains and pleasures: the tour, led by a young woman named Natasha, is akin to exotic tours that Korean's arrange for their elderly parents which, at times, involve prostitution.
The Burning Love Song, Ryu's solo exhibition at Atelier Hermès Seoul in 2022, continued to examine the various workings of desire. Presented as a pet cremation service, the exhibition space featured installations of faux-memorials, flower wreaths used in Korean funerals and a garish mural showcasing the achievement of Lee Dae-Wang, the founder and former owner of BigKing Travel. As his travel agency suffered from the pandemic, Lee realised, in his candid and intense yearning for wealth, that funeral services would now thrive. The private experience of grief meets capitalist business in the public realm; behind that business, however, is also a deeply personal motive.
In addition to showing her work on the Internet, Sungsil Ryu has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions.
Solo exhibitions include: The Burning Love Song, Atelier Hermès Seoul (2022); Big King Travel 2020; BigKing Travel Ching-Chen Tour, Post Territory Ujeongguk, Seoul (2019).
Group exhibitions include: VIBRATION INPOLYHEDRAL LABYRINTH, Asia Culture Center, Gwangju (2022); 21st Song Eun Art Award Exhibition, SONGEUN Art Space, Seoul (2021); Follow, Flow, Feed, Arko Museum, Seoul (2020); CHERRY-GO-ROUND, Nam June Paik Art Center, Yongin (2019); NEWS, DEAR MR. RIPLEY, Buk-Seoul Museum of Art (2018).
In 2023, Sungsil Ryu was announced as one of 13 artists chosen for the Korean Artists Abroad programme supported by Korea Arts Management Service.
Sungsil Ryu's website can be found here and her Instagram account can be found here.
Sherry Paik | Ocula | 2023
