Koo Jeong A

Koo Jeong A incorporates still images, video, sculpture, sound, and scent into site-specific interventions that demand a degree of exploration, examination, and discovery from viewers in order to first notice their existence and then decipher their meaning. Subtle, thoughtful, and deliberate, her installations teach us to look more attentively at our surroundings and find beauty in the ordinary. In one work, thousands of Swarovski crystals embedded into a stone wall glisten as the sun shines. In another, a sculptural, fully functional skatepark glows in the dark, imbuing the wooded landscape of Vassivière in France with a mysterious, almost dream-like quality. An interest in the five elements—earth, fire, metal, water, and wood—as well as in Eastern philosophies and beliefs underlies the South Korean artist’s restrained aesthetic.

Koo’s most recent project is a glow-in-the-dark skatepark series. The first skatepark, named OTRO, was built in 2012 in collaboration with L’Escault Architectures, and was erected on Vassivière Island, France. The second, EVERTO, was built in 2015 in Liverpool, UK, for the 2015 Liverpool Biennale; the third, Arrogation, was commissioned for the 32nd São Paulo Biennial in 2016; and most recently OooOoO was built in Milan, Italy, as part of the 2019 Triennale. 

Koo was named the 2016 Artist of the Year by the Korean Cultural Centre UK, a finalist for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum’s Hugo Boss Prize (2002), and winner of the Villa Medici Award (2000).