Sophie Jung (lives in London and Basel) works across text, sculpture and performance, navigating the politics of re/re/representation and challenging the selective silencing that happens by concluding.
She employs humor, shame, the absurd, raw anger, rhythm and rhyme, slapstick, hardship, friendship and a constant stream of slippages.
Her sculptural work consists of bodies made up of both found and haphazardly produced attributes and defines itself against the dogma of an Original Idea or a Universal Significance. Instead it stands as a network of abiding incompletion, an ever changing choir of urgencies and pleasures, traumas and manifestations that communally relay between dominant and minor themes.
She’s invested in triggering a de-categorizing of concepts and a de-conceptualization of categories, hopes for unholy alliances, cross-material solidarity and assemblages that defy resolution. Her approach to “stuff”—both legible utensil and metaphoric apparition sits somewhere between materialist responsibility and wild becoming. Her writing exists in the tradition of écriture feminine and lives as polyvocal collage, often materialized and extended collaboratively.
Jung received her BFA from the Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam and her MFA from Goldsmiths, London. Recent exhibitions include Sanetroyem at E.A.Shared Space, They Might Stay The Night at Casino Luxembourg; Unsetting at Istituto Svizzero, Milan; Taxpayer’s Money for Frieze LIVE, Dramatis Personae at JOAN, LA; The Bigger Sleep at Kunstmuseum Basel; Come Fresh Hell or Fresh High Water at Blain Southern, London; Producing My Credentials at Kunstraum London; Paramount VS Tantamount at Kunsthalle Basel and Äppärät at Ballroom Marfa. In 2016 and in 2019 she won the Swiss Art Awards and in 2018 she was the recipient of the Manor Kunstpreis. From 2016 to 2019 she was on the jury of the Swiss Performance Art Award and is a new member to the board of Kunsthalle Basel. She is an external mentor at Institute for Art, Gender and Nature at HGK Basel and has a Lehrauftrag for Performance at Akademie der Bildenden Künste Karlsruhe. In 2015 Jung won a 6 month scholarship at ISCP in New York, and will in 2022/2023 be in residence at the Istituto Svizzero Roma in 2022/23. She is currently working on a solo exhibition at Galerie Joseph Tang in Paris and her first monograph with Mousse Publishing.
Solo shows and projects
Upcoming
_Move, Centre Pompidou, Paris (FR)
_Swiss Art Awards, Basel (CH)
_Parrhesiades, London (GB)
_Galerie Joseph Tang, Paris (FR)
2021
_M'aider, Mayday Basel, CH
_Sanetroyem, E. A. Shared Space, GE
_The Hindsighters' Children, Vitrine Gallery, London, UK
2020
_Preluge - Galerie Joseph Tang, FR
_Unsetting - Istituto Svizzero, IT
_They Might Stay The Night - Casino Luxembourg, LU
_Leadeyes and Gentlament Please Put Your Ands Together And And And - Transmissions, UK
2019
_Woman Standing, National Gallery Prague, CZ
_Taxpayer's Money, Frieze Live, London UK
_The Bigger Sleep -rehush (hush), Cork Street Galleries as part of Block Universe, London, UK
_The Day Teaches The Day, Cabaret Voltaire, Zürich, CH
_Dramatis Personae, JOAN, Los Angeles, US
2018
_The Bigger Sleep, Kunstmuseum Basel | Gegenwart, CH
_Paramount VS Tantamount, Swiss Institute, Paris, FR
_Come Fresh Hell or Fresh High Water, Blain Southern, London, UK
_Thusly, Pimary, Nottingham, UK
2017
_It's Not What It Looks Like, Sophie Tappeiner, Vienna, AT
_Producing My Credentials, Kunstraum London, UK
2016
_, as we all know, Nosbaum Reding Projects, LU
2015
_New Waiting, Temnikova & Kasela, Tallinn, ES
_Ode on a Grecian Holiday, Ruine München, Saarbrücken, DE
2014
_Between the lines: A cleverer woman or a more sincere one, Sophie Jung & Germaine Hoffmann @ Belle Air, Essen
_Double, with Shana Moulton, Medienwerkstatt Wien for Vienna Art Week, Vienna, A
_The Sorcerer and her Apprentice, with my grandmother Germaine Hoffmann, Op der Kap, LU
Three Chords and the Truth, Centre D'Art Dominique Lang, LU
2013
_Learning About Heraldry, Ceri Hand Gallery, London, UK
Touch that Angel, Touch my Angle, AICA Kiosk, LU
Group shows and projects
2022
_Wenn der Wind Weht, Kunst Haus Wien, AT
2021
_Pommel, Nottingham Contemporary, UK
_To Do With So Much Mythology, Curated By Francesco Pedraglio, Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna, AT
_There Was a Person, Performance for Art Verona
_Freigeister, MUDAM, LU
_Stitches, curated by Collectif Détente at Le Commun, Bâtiment d’art contemporain, Geneva, CH
_Performance for the anniversary of the Swiss Performance Art Award, Geneva, CH
2020
_Je me n'ennui pas, en m'ennui, Centre Culturel Suisse, Paris
2019
_Widerstehlich, Nidwaldner Museum, CH
_Are We Bodies, performance program by Vlada Tcharyeva, Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich, CH
_Woman Standing, National Gallery, Prague, CZ
_Being Towards The World, Sophie Tappeiner, Vienna, A
_If it's not meant to last, then it's a performance, Vitrine, Basel, CH
2018
_Extra States - Nations in Liquidation, curated by iLiana Fokianaki, Kunsthal Extra City, Antwerp ,BE
_The Power of Now, Kunsthaus Pasquart, curated by Samuel Leuenberger and Felicity Lunn, Biel, CH
_The First Morning Fest of Unreasonable Acts, Palazzo Bentivoglio, Bologna, IT
_The Annotated Reader, curated by Ryan Gander and Jonathan P. Watts, Cork Street Galleries, London, UK
_A Guiding Dog For A Blind Dog, Future Gallery, Prague, CZ
_The Ol'Switcheroo, Jupiter Woods, London, UK
_New Swiss Performance Now, Kunsthalle Basel, CH
2017
_Cosmic Words, Municipal Gallery, Lisbon, PT
_Indique La Fin, Signe La Débauche, Atelier Meraki, Paris, FR
_Liste Performance Project, curated by Eva Birkenstock, Basel, CH
_Again, It Objects, Supplement Gallery, New York, US
2016
_You Talkin To Me? Galerie Barbara Seiler, Zürich, CH
_Unmittelbare Konsequenzen, Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, CH
_The Printed Room - Works off Paper, curated by Harry Burke, SALTS, Basel, CH
_Swiss Art Awards (Winner) CH
_Not Everything Ties Down / Your Split Ends Are Showing, DKUK Salon, London, UK
_Tarantallegra, curated by Nicoletta Lambertucci at Hester, New York, US
_Down To Write You This Poem Sat, Oakville Galleries, Ontario, CA
_Keren Cytter's First Summer Fest of Western Liberation, Réunion, Zürich, CH
_You said suicide and I think half a boat is very broken. Lithuanian pavilion, XXI Triennale di Milano, Milan, IT
_Club of the Crowd, Performance for Local Transport, Southbank Centre, London, UK
_X-Examination, Performance for Fiktion at ICA, London, UK
_Jumanji, Soft Focus Institute @ Galerie Tatjana Pieters, Ghent, BE
2015
_Jungs, hier kommt der Masterplan, Kunsthalle Basel, CH
_Absent Image, Nectar, Tbilisi, GE
_Steichen! Making Meaning of a Legacy, BOZAR, BE
_Fuera de Sitio, Gallery José Luis de la Fuente, ES
_ISCP Open Studios, ISCP New York, US
_Online commission for Inflected Objects #1 curated by Melanie Bühler for Instituto Swizzero in Milan, IT
_Uncanny Valley at Wysing Arts Center, Cambridge, UK
_äppärät, curated by Tom Morton, Ballroom Marfa, US
_Konzentration, Fiktion, Launch at HKW, Berlin, DE
_Eternal Internet Brother/Sisterhood
_Driving the Point Home, Goldsmiths Degree Show, London, UK
_London Nr.1, co-curated screening at Schwarzwaldallee Basel, CH
_Business as Usual, Set the Controls For The Heart of the Sun, Leeds, UK
_Dear Luxembourg (Yours, Bucktoothed GRL), Nosbaum Reding Projects, Luxembourg, LU
2014
_Panda Sex, curated by Tom Morton, State of Concept, Athens, GR
_Go Mango! Caustic Coastal, Machester, UK
_Fair Enough, Radio show with Garrett Nelson for NONORadio @ Oslo10, Basel during Frieze London
_read the room / you've got to, curated by Quinn Latimer, S.A.L.T.S., Basel, CH
_Pick-me-ups & pick-ups, ICA London, UK
_NY-LUX, MUDAM Luxemburg, LU
_Episode 5: in the beginning, Insitu, Berlin, DE
2013
_We Proudly Present, Kunstraum Riehen, CH
_HAUS: towards a messy singularity #fuckfrieze, curated by Jesse Darling and Takeshi Shiomitsu, London, UK
_Ma(r)king Territories, Haus für Elektronische Künste Basel, CH
_Changes - Chancen, Depot Basel, CH
_Night Loops, Legion TV, London, UK
_Side Dishes, You Shine I Shine @ Die Diele, Zürich, ZH
_Implausible Imposters, Ceri Hand Gallery, London, UK
_Rencontres International, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany
_PILOT, London, UK
2012
_A Word for a Play, Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel, CH
_Rencontres International, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, FR
_zeichnen zeichnen, toujours toujours, Kunsthalle Mulhouse, Mulhouse, FR
_A4 - an exhibition on a piece of website, Kunstgebaude Stuttgart Schlossplatz, Stuttgart, DE
2011
_I did it again, Kunsthaus L6, Freiburg, DE
_Teenage Magazines, FOAM, Amsterdam, the NL
_Information und Erfahrung, Kunstverein Freiburg, Freiburg, DE
_Marcel and Friends, Recyclart, Brussels, BE
2008
_Electronic Rendez-vous, Plug-In, Museum for Media Art, Basel, CH
_The Thrill of Collecting, Uovo Open Office, Basel, CH
Performance / Readings / Screenings
Bristol Diving School, Bristol, UK; The Common Guild, Glasgow, UK; Photographers Gallery, London, UK; Jupiter Woods, London, UK; X Marks the Bökship, London, UK; HKW Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, DE; Space, London, UK; Institute of Contemporary Arts ICA, London, UK; MUDAM, Luxembourg; Wysing Arts Center, UK; Kunsthalle Basel, CH; ISCP, New York; Institut Kunst, Basel, CH; Réunion, Zürich, CH; Horse Hospital for The White Review, London, UK; Southbank Centre, London, UK; Almanac, London, UK; Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, CH; David Roberts Art Foundation as part of Frieze Academy, London, UK; CalArts, US; Cabaret Voltaire, CH; JOAN LA, US; South London Gallery, London, UK;
Publications of writing in
_Seen from Here, ed. Tim Etchells and Vlatka Horvath
_On Care, ed. Rebecca Jagoe and Sharon Kivland, Ma Bibliothèque
_The Happy Hypocrite, ed. Maria Fusco and Lizzie Homersham, Bookworks
_Konzentration, ed. Ingo Nierman, Fiktion.cc
_Intertitles, ed. Lynton Talbot and Hana Noorali, Prototype Press
_Producing My Credentials, Partisan Hotel
_PALE Journal
_Journal of Visual Arts Practice, Intellect
_Hoax Publication
_Paperwork Magazine I & II
_lasso
_Looking at Painting
_Brooklin Rail
Teaching / Lectures / Tutorials
_Yale School of Art
_CalArts LA
_ZHdK Zürich
_Goldsmiths, University of London
_RCA - Royal College of Art, London
_Institut Kunst, FHNW, Basel
_Hyperwerk, Basel
_Christies Education, London
_Critique et Essais - Écriture de l’art contemporain” Strasbourg's University
_Malmö Art Academy
_Central Saint Martins, London
_Fine Art, the Art & Design Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam University
_RA - Royal Academy, London
_The Slade School of Fine Art, UCL
_Akademie der Bildenden Künste. Karlsruhe
Education
2015 ISCP New York
2015 MFA Fine Art, Goldsmiths, University of London
2011 BFA Fine Art, Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam
2009 BFA Photography / New Media ZHdK, Zürich