Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries

Neuer Berliner Kunstverein presents the first institutional solo exhibition in Germany of the Net Art pioneers Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, an art duo consisting of Young-hae Chang and Marc Voge (yhchang.com). The exhibition PLEASE MISTAKE ME FOR NOBODY brings together works from 2000 to 2020 that revolve around the theme of paranoia. Works such as OPERATION NUKOREA (2003) attain particular relevance in our times increasingly marked by wars and nuclear threats verging on reality. The work envisions a nuclear attack by North Korea on the South Korean capital of Seoul using vivid and disturbing language. Most of the works on display were translated specifically for this exhibition into German for the first time.

Since its inception in the late 1990s, YHCHI has developed a distinctive style through its negotiation of cultural identity, material inequalities, (police) violence, the confluence of fact and fiction, and geo-political realities, including the division of Korea. The works of the art duo are characterized by a high degree of abstraction that simultaneously constitutes its signature: YHCHI’s wide-ranging themes and interests are expressed almost exclusively through black writing on a white background. The text is synchronized to music that is often self-composed, building up sentence by sentence, word by word, or letter by letter.