SUNGSIL RYU

Sungsil Ryu’s new media works incisively delve into issues of capitalism and secular desire in contemporary Korean culture through a lens of black comedy. Working across video, installation, and performance, Ryu straddles the boundaries of contemporary art and influencer culture by planning and acting in one-person media broadcasts. The artist’s videos, marked by excessive production, crude editing, and cheap aesthetics, relentlessly reproduce the provocative grammar of one-person media, blurring the lines between reality and fiction. Through this approach, Ryu sheds light on the indiscriminate fake news and sensational marketing infiltrating platforms like YouTube and explores the gullibility of individuals ensnared by these tactics.

In previous works, Ryu portrayed her various personas in series such as the fraudulent opinion leader ‘BJ Cherry Jang,’ the profit-driven fictional tourism agency ‘Daewang Travel,’ and ‘Daewang Pet Memorial Services,’ known for its short life cycle and extreme profitability. These series satirically depict how the desire for money intersects with Korea’s traditional values.

In this exhibition, Ryu commemorates the 5th anniversary of BJ Cherry Jang’s death with a retrospective held in her hometown of New York. The exhibition is arranged as a pseudo-monument that allows visitors to retrace the footsteps of the deceased. The curved walls filling the exhibition space showcase BJ Cherry Jang’s life achievements and major activities. Alongside previously unreleased drawings and videos, the exhibition sheds new light on BJ Cherry Jang’s unfinished project that explores the Movement to restore Korean familism, also known as “Root-Finding” in Korea where it is increasingly dominated by neoliberal social structures.

Sungsil Ryu (b. 1993, Seoul, KR) incisively explores issues of capitalism and secular desire in contemporary Korean culture through the lens of black comedy. Working across video, installation, and performance, Ryu satirically depicts how the desire for money intersects with Korea’s traditional values. She has had solo exhibitions at Atelier Hermès (2022, Seoul, KR) and Post Territory Ujeongguk (2019, Seoul, KR), and has participated in group exhibitions at venues including Kunsthal Aarhus (2024, Aarhus, DK) and Nam June Paik Art Center (2024, Yongin, KR). She is currently a resident artist in the DOOSAN International Residency at ISCP.