ELLEN JONG

"... mind, memory, material and the world right where I am, it's the truest thing or at least it feels like it, I'm going with it - beautiful, commanding, intense and really scary too. There's always a risk! of being wrong, being bored, everything falling apart, getting lost. I don't know anything but I know everything and I am moving."  

NON/

FORM

LANGUAGE

FEMALENESS

PLACE

American, Queens NY 1976

Ellen Jong is a mixed media artist whose practice is rooted in conceptual interventions often employing methods/tools/objects of the vernacular and her own personal history. Marked by an upbringing in Queens NY as the third daughter of four girls to medical doctors of Indonesian and Taiwanese origins, she reclaimed her own sense of an already mixed up reality by way of her own lens.

Her practice began in photography as a high school student at Bronx High School of Science in NYC after which she dreamed to work as an artist. Her earliest published photographs of street reportage began on the subway while discovering her city. Her first two photographic monographs that deal largely with contemporary feminisms and self-discovery, urged her to expand her practice from being behind a camera lens to working with tactile materials in order to further her art, and self, while representing a voice of her generation.

New work in ink demonstrate her latest inquires in form, language and identity by revisiting a traditional Chinese material from her childhood. An unsettled quest and experimentation is at the crux of her desire to ‘break down the bathroom walls.’*

Jong lives and works in Los Angeles.

* Ellen Jong, Pees On Earth, powerHouse Books/Miss Rosen Edition 2006

EXHIBITIONS 

Solo Show

2015 Sea Bounds, Basement 6 Collective Space, Shanghai, China

2012 Invisible Line, Allegra LaViola Gallery NY

2000 I.C.U.P, Vice Magazine Flagship Store, NY

GROUP SHOW

2019 Whitney Houston/Every Woman Biennial, LaMaMa Galleria NY

2018 Current: Abortion curated by Barbara Zucker, A.I.R. Gallery NY

2016 The Female Gaze curated by Indira Cesarine, Untitled Space, NY

2015 I Never Could Talk To You, with Bazaar Teens, City Bird Gallery, NY

2014 XXX curated by Mathieu Borysevicz, Bank MABSociety Gallery, Shanghai, China

2011 Self-Publish Be Happy curated by Bruno Ceschel, Micamera Milan, Italy

2011 Art of Affection curated by Caroll Taveras, F.L.O.A.T. Gallery, NY

2009 The Vice Photo Show, Le Lieu Unique, Nantes, FR

2006 Toy Box with White Box, Robert Miller Gallery, NY

2006 Speed Limit, LMCC’s Redhead Gallery, NY

2005 Pretend Friendly curated by Alfredo Martinez, the:artist:network, NY

CURATIORIAL PROJECTS

2015 Daydream Freakout, Gallery Sensei NY

Artists: Andrea Mary Marshall, Christina Kruse, John Gordon Gauld, Nicole Wittenberg, Phil Knott, Sophie Sevigny, Tatyana Murray, Theresa Ortolani, Willy Somma

2005 Cinco! hosted by BlackBook Magazine in partnership with Dos Equis

Artists: Diego Teo, Pia Camil

2002 Signature Series - a permanent installation of 18 curated concept guest rooms, opening reception during Art Basel Miami Beach's inaurguration, The Creek South Beach Miami

Artists: Brendan Carney, Camella Ehlke, Devon Dikeou, Donald Hearn, Hillary Read, Hisako Ichiki, Howard Fonda, The Inkheads, Justin Luke, Justine Harari, Kate Ruth and Brooke Geahan, Kenzo Minami, Kiku and Che Jen, Level Design, Marina Zurkow, Oliver Lutz, Shepard Fairey, UNDO 

ART FAIR

2017 Milk and Night curated by Coco Dolle, Spring Break Art Fair NY

2016 Bizarre Teens, Spring Break Art Fair NY

2010 Empire State of Mind, Staldgade 38, Copenhagen Photo Festival, Copenhagen, DK

2009 ArtLog/Manish Vora presents, Pulse Art Fair, Miami, FL

2009 Scope Art Fair, Marketplace, Miami, FL

2008 The New York Photo Festival, DUMBO NY

2005 Experiments at Scope NY, Flatotel Hotel, NY

2005 Open Eat, Curator, Photo NY

SPECIAL PARTICIPATION

2013 The Watermill Center Summer Benefit, The Watermill Center, NY

2013 Whitney Art Party, The Whitney Museum of Contemporary Art, NY

2012 Book presentation, The Hole Gallery Bookshop, NY

2011 MiCamera Bookshop, Self Publish Be Naughty, Milan Italy

2010 Crone Benefit, Gavin Brown Enterprise, NY

REVIEWS

Carlo McCormick, Photograph Magazine July 2012

Vince Aletti, The New Yorker June 2012

Sean O’Hagan, On Photography, The Guardian July 25, 2012

Bruno Ceschel, Foam Magazine Issue #29 Oct 2011

Alec Soth’s Best Photo Books of 2010, 2010

PUBLISHED WORKS/SITATIONS

2015 Self Publish Be Happy by Bruno Ceschel, Aperture Books, NY

2012 Serpent on the Mount, Self-Published proof, NY

2011 Self Publish Be Naughty, Self-Publish Be Happy Publishing, London

2010 Getting To Know My Husband’s Cock, Self-Published, NY (monograph)

2009 Public Panics: Problematic Bodies in Social Places, Adam Eldridge, London UK

2007 Vice Photo Book, Vice Magazine Publishing, NY

2006 Pees On Earth, Miss Rosen Edition/powerHouse Books, NY (monograph)