John Zerunge Young
Encyclopedia
Biography
Born in Hong Kong in 1956, John Young Zerunge moved to Australia in 1967 during China’s Cultural RevolutionCultural Revolution
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, commonly known as the Cultural Revolution , was a socio-political movement that took place in the People's Republic of China from 1966 through 1976...
. He read philosophy of science and aesthetics at the University of Sydney
University of Sydney
The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...
, then studied sculpture and painting at Sydney College of the Arts
Sydney College of the Arts
The Sydney College of the Arts in Rozelle, Sydney, Australia is the visual arts faculty of the University of Sydney. It is housed in the Kirkbride complex, a cluster of sandstone buildings designed by James Barnet, the government architect in the late 19th century...
. In 1981, he left Australia for Europe on a pilgrimage; whilst there, he received the Power Foundation Scholarship from the University of Sydney, enabling him to live in London and Paris.
Young’s first solo exhibition was a one minute show held in a hamlet in the fishing village of Rosroe, Connemara, on the west coast of Ireland. Since the mid-1980s, Young has produced three major cycles of work, the Silhouette Paintings (1986-89), the Polychrome Paintings (1989-93) and the Double Ground Paintings (1993-present), which explore the relationship between Euramerican models of culture and experience and other modes of visuality, being and the cultural object. More recently, Young has produced two series of abstract paintings, Naïve and Sentimental Paintings and The Day After Tomorrow. Since 2008, Young’s projects have focussed on transcultural humanitarianism, culminating in the projects Bonhoeffer in Harlem (Berlin, 2009) and Safety Zone (Melbourne, 2010; Brisbane 2011).
A survey exhibition covering 27 years of works was held at the TarraWarra Museum of Art, Victoria in 2005-2006. He was also seminal in establishing in 1995 the Asian Australian Artists’ Association (Gallery 4A), now the 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, a centre for the promotion of Asian philanthropy and the nurturing of Australasian artists and curators.
Selected Exhibitions
- 1982 The Second Mirage, Rosroe, Connemara, Ireland
- 1995 Antipodean Currents, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The John F. Kennedy Centre, Washington DC, curated by Julia Robinson
- Transcultural Painting, Ian Potter Museum of Art, The University of Melbourne, Taichung Museum of Art, Taichung; Tamsui Centre for Art and Culture, Taipei, Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre, Hong Kong,Guangzhou Institute of Fine Arts, Guangzhou; Song He Tan Gallery, Beijing, curated by Francis Lindsay and Merryn Gates
- 1996 Systems End, Oxy Gallery, Osaka; Hakone Open Air Museum, Hakone; Dong An Gallery, Seoul; Kaoshung Museum of Art, Kaoshiung, curated by William Wright and Takeshi Kanazawa
- 2005-2006 Orient/Occident: John Young – a survey of works, 1978-2005, TarraWarra Museum of Art, Victoria, curated by Maudie Palmer
- 2009 Bonhoeffer in Harlem, Installation at St. Matthaus Church, Berlin (in conjunction with Alexander Ochs Galleries, Berlin/Beijing)
- 2010-2011 Safety Zone, Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne; University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane
Publications
- John Young, Carolyn Barnes & William Wright, John Young, Craftsman House, Thames & Hudsons, Australia, 2005
- Alexander Ochs, Christhard-Georg Neubert, Kevin Rudd, Sylvia Volz, Wolfgang Huber, John Young / Bonhoeffer in Harlem, Edition St. Matthäus-Kirche Berlin, 2009
- John Clark & Pamela Kember, John Young: Three Propositions, Prüss & Ochs Gallery, Berlin, 2003
- Brian Castro & M.A. Greenstein, John Young: Pine's Edge, Black Inc., Melbourne, 2001
- Graham Coulter-Smith, Christina Davidson & Graham Forsyth, with a foreword by Leon Parossian, John Young: Silhouettes and Polychromes, Schwartz City Publications, Melbourne, 1993
- Peter Hutchings & John Clark, with foreword by Frances Lindsay and an introduction by Melissa Chiu, John Young: The Double Ground Paintings, Australian Art Promotions, Sydney, 1995
- John Young & Terry Blake, 'On Some Alternatives to the Code in the Age of Hyperreality, the Hermit and the City Dweller', Art & Text #2, Winter issue, 1981