The print series “Die Herrschaft des Konkreten” (The Reign of the Concrete) by artist Soyon Jung (b. 1982 in South Korea, lives in Hamburg) consists of six motifs that refer to the architectural motifs of the current European banknotes. The bridges from the back sides of the bills, in Jung's heliogravures are left to decay in dystopian sceneries.

According to the European Central Bank, Euro banknotes are “a tangible, visible symbol of European unity”. The fictitious bridge motifs on the reverse stand for understanding between people in Europe and between Europe and the rest of the world. The windows and gates on the front sides symbolize the European spirit of openness and cooperation. None of the architectural motifs pictured on the bills exist in real life; rather, they are abstract variations of architectural styles from various eras of European history. But their time is running out, because on November 29, 2023 – exactly one year ago – the ECB Governing Council decided to start the process of redesigning the banknotes. Based on a study on the preferences of people in the eurozone, the topics “European Culture” and “Rivers and birds” have been proposed as possible themes for the future banknotes. The final decision of the Governing Council is expected for 2026. One of the objectives of the Eurosystem's cash strategy is to develop banknotes which are more “attractive, relatable and inclusive for all Europeans”.

In this context, the following questions arise: Are the central ideas of European cooperation in today's banknotes outdated and no longer in line with the latest state of identity-creating monetary policy? Does our society need concrete subjects that depict reality to ensure that European individuals identify with the community? Does the ability of abstract thinking even disappear during subject-oriented banknote development processes? As a visible sign of the neglicence of public infrastructure, deteriorated bridges have connected the population in northern and southern Europe since the disaster in Genoa in 2018 (Polcevera Viaduct) to the most recent collapse of the Carola Bridge in Dresden on September 11, 2024. In times of debates about intra-European borders, cohesion and solidarity among Europe's countries and citizens seem to crumble. All these considerations can be made and extended based on Soyon Jung's images of broken bridges. Like ancient relics the decadence of time, the power of imagination and the beauty of the rudimentary manifest themselves in the ruinous state of the bridge debris. In the form of fictitious projections, these highly refined and meticulously elaborated works on paper preserve fragmented ideals of a common European system of values and ideas.

All six works from the series “Die Herrschaft des Konkreten ” by Soyon Jung are exhibited at Kunsthaus Hamburg as part of the international group exhibition “Politics of Love”, curated by Dr. Belinda Gardner and Anna Nowak. The exhibition opens on Friday, November 29, 2024 – the anniversary of the ECB Governing Council’s decision to redesign the Euro banknotes.

All quotations after the website of the European Central Bank: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/banknotes/future_banknotes/html/ecb.faq_banknotes_redesign.en.html

Soyon Jung was born in 1982 in Gwangju, South Korea. After studying art at Ewha Woman's University in Seoul, she moved to Germany and studied at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg (HfbK) with Haegue Yang and Jutta Koether. In 2016 she was awarded the Marktplatz Printmaking Prize, in 2020 the Poolhaus Prize for Young Art and the scholarship for visual artists from the Stiftung Kunstfonds. In 2021, she received the Hamburger Zukunftsstipendium for Fine Arts and the Travel and Work Scholarship for Fine Arts of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. In her drawings, prints and video works, fantastic landscapes of ruins become utopian images of society. They project current social conflicts, representative buildings of large corporations or, most recently, banknotes into a future in which these have long since lost their power and are doomed to decay. In her work, Jung combines classic etchings with digital printing techniques, video and 3D photography. The artist lives in Hamburg.