John Young (b.1956, Hong Kong) is a Melbourne-based artist whose practice is informed by formal philosophical and theoretical tenets. Young’s interest in examining and engaging with conceptual art and post-modernist concepts has him placed among the forefront of those involved in the critical assessment of contemporary art practice since the 1980s.
Arriving in Australia with his family in the late 1960s, Young later studied at the University of Sydney, graduating in 1977 (Philosophy of Science). The following year he returned to the university to attend the Sydney College of the Arts, completing his studies in 1980. Young’s work has been exhibited extensively both in Australia and abroad and continues to be curated in significant museum exhibitions.
In 1995, his work was curated in Antipodean Currents, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Later in 2002 he was shown in Site + Sight: translating cultures, Asian Civilisations Museum, Earl Lu Galleries, Singapore and the following year in Mannheim, Germany in Die Neue Kunsthalle II/Die Wirklichkeit des Individuums, Kunsthalle Mannheim. In 2011, his work was curated in Forever Young: 30 Years of the Heide Collection, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne and New Psychedelia, University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane. In 2013, a survey exhibition of the artist’s work John Young: The Bridge and the Fruit Tree was curated by the Drill Hall Gallery, ANU, Canberra. More recently, in 2018 Young’s work was shown in Infinite Conversations: Asian-Australian Artistic Exchange, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. The following year his work appeared in a number of group exhibitions including Der Funke Gottes! Schat + Wunderkammern at the Bamberger Diözesanmuseum, Diözesanmuseum, Bamberg, Germany; Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From, Aga Khan Museum, Toronto and Imago Mundhi, Gallerie delle Prigioni , Treviso, Italy; and Between Two Worlds, Newcastle Art Gallery, NSW.
John Young’s practice has been extensively written and published on. In 2017, the tri-lingual book Macau Days was published. With text by novelist Brian Castro and illustrated with Young’s artwork, the book examined the pair’s history and engagement with Macau.
Young is represented in numerous public art collections including QAGOMA, Brisbane; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; TarraWarra Museum of Art, Victoria; The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne; Nanjing Library, Nanjing, China; National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea; University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane; Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria; M+ Museum, Hong Kong; National Library of Australia, Canberra; and distinguished private collections.
Image: John Young, Shiva XII, 2021, oil on Belgian linen, 71 x 89.5cm
