REINVENTING OUR TIME: KIM JUNGMAN, KOO BOHNCHANG, LEE GAP-CHUL, MIN BYUNG-HUN AND PARK KI HO

REINVENTING OUR TIME

KIM JUNGMAN, KOO BOHNCHANG, LEE GAP-CHUL, MIN BYUNG-HUN AND PARK KI HO

CO-CURATED BY KIM SUNYOUNG AND SEOK JAE-HYUN

Between 1910 to 1945, Japan annexed Korea and attempted to eradicate Korean culture and identity, for example, by banning Korean literature and language from schools. Only six years after World War II, the country was devastated by the Korean War. This exhibition shows the work of five of the most prominent photographers of the post war generation, who began work while a succession of military regimes ruled the largely agrarian country. They were the first generation of Korean artists who studied abroad and brought new ideas back to their country. Nevertheless, many of them remained attached to Korean landscapes and traditions while embracing new aesthetic ideas. Many photographers from this generation depicted the extraordinarily beautiful nature and landscapes of Korea, a country surrounded by the ocean and mostly covered by mountains and forests, and its religious and spiritual practices that are primarily tied to nature. Reinventing Our Time investigates what it means to be Korean after this disruptive history, from the viewpoint of five photographers born in post-war Korea: Kim Jungman, Koo Bohnchang, Lee Gap-Chul, Min Byung-Hun and Park Ki Ho.

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE MUSEUM OF PHOTOGRAPHY, SEOUL.

Photographer

KIM JUNGMAN

Born 1954, Cheolwon, South Korea. Lives and works in Seoul.

As a teenager, Kim Jungman left Korea for Burkina Faso, Africa. Leaving his homeland marked the beginning of a long philosophical journey that eventually took him to Europe to study painting. He discovered his passion for photography while attending École Nationale Supérieure d’Art at Villa Arson in Nice, France in 1974-77. In 1979, Kim won the prestigious Best Young Photographer Award at Rencontres d’Arles. The same year, he was named one of Today’s 80 Photographers in France, the youngest on the list. He moved back to Korea and found his way into commercial and fashion photography in the 1980’s and 90’s. Recently, he has battled to overcome a limitation in Korea that suggests photographers are either artistic or commercial, but not both. In leaving his flourishing career as a commercial photographer in 2006, he stopped photographing Korea’s most famous celebrities, instead turning his lens to the countryside of his native land.

www.kpcreativeagency.com/management/kim-jungman/

LEE GAP-CHUL

Born 1959, Jinju, South Korea. Lives and works in Seoul, South Korea.

Lee Gap-Chul has travelled to various corners of Korea and photographed images that portray the joy and sorrow of his ancestors, their cheerful nature and persistent vitality. A graduate in Fine Art & Photography from the University of Shingu, he has participated in many solo and group exhibitions at prestigious venues in Korea such as the Lux gallery in Seoul, the Daegu photo biennale (2006, 2014), the Kumho Art Museum, The Museum of Photography, Seoul (2002), the GoEun museum of photography (2012) and the Gwacheon contemporary art museum (2008). He was invited to participate in international fairs and festivals such as FOTOFEST 2000 in Houston, U.S.A., the Photographie Contemporaine Coréenne in 2002, in Montpellier, France, or Paris Photo in 2005, France.

MIN BYUNG-HUN

Born 1955, Seoul, South Korea. Lives and works in Gunsan, South Korea.

Min Byung-Hun was a student in electronic engineering before shifting to photography in the early 1980s and studying at the Soon-tai Hong studio in Korea. In 1984 he was awarded the silver medal of the Dong-A Salon with his work 25th hour. For over 30 years, Min Byung-Hun has represented nature and human bodies through black and white gelatin silver prints. From the moment he laid his eyes on the object through the viewfinder until the images are printed onto traditional paper and dried, Min makes sure no one interferes with the creative process. What is important for Min is not just the traditional photographic process or the virtue of handicraft but his autonomy to lead the entire operation. Min’s stubborn perfectionism and delicate sensitivity are best expressed in series such as Not Much of a Landscape, Weed, Sky, Deep Fog, Tree, Snow Land, Waterfall, and Nude, which have established a world distinctive to the artist.

Min's work has been widely exhibited and collected by institutions including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); Brookings Institution, Washington, DC; Centre National des Arts Plastiques, Paris; Seoul Art Center; Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris; and National Museum of Contemporary Art, Gwachon, Korea.

PARK KI HO

Born 1960, Seoul, South Korea. Lives and works in Seoul, South Korea.

Park Ki Ho moved to U.S. as a child and studied photography at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 1986. After returning to Korea in 1987, Park worked for various international magazines including Time, Business Week, Fortune and Forbes. In 2007, he had his first solo exhibition called Photography & Texture which was a combination of large photographic prints with three dimensional objects. Then, he went back to RISD to earn his master’s degree. After coming back to Seoul, with his newly attained sensibility of empty storefronts, he began documenting deserted old towns that were about to be demolished to build new townhouse projects while teaching at Yonsei University Songdo International Campus and Graduate School.Min's work has been widely exhibited and collected by institutions including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); Brookings Institution, Washington, DC; Centre National des Arts Plastiques, Paris; Seoul Art Center; Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris; and National Museum of Contemporary Art, Gwachon, Korea.

SEOK JAE-HYUN

Born 1970, Daegu, South Korea. Lives in Daegu and works globally.

Seok Jae-Hyun, a graduate of Ohio University majoring in Visual Communication, is a curator, educator and photographer whose work has been published by The New York Times, International Herald Tribune and Korean GEO.

Seok has co-organized the Daegu Photo Biennale (South Korea) in 2006, and has curated many international exhibitions including Imaging Asia in Documents (2006) and Women in War (2014) for Daegu Photo Biennale, Imaging Korea (Budapest, Berlin, Warsaw, Brussels, Madrid, Astana and Rome, 2016-2017), ON KOREA (Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey, 2013). He has been involved in Dali International Photo Biennale (DIPE, China, 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2017) and Foto Istanbul (since 2015) as a foreign curator. Seok received the Best Curator Award twice from DIPE in China, in 2015 and 2017. He has participated as a portfolio reviewer in FotoFest in Houston, Kyotography, Festival de la Luz in Buenos Aires, to name a few. After profiling thirty established photographers from other countries on VON photography magazine, he currently works as an associate editor for Photo Dot magazine in Korea.

curator

Kim sun young

THE MUSEUM OF PHOTOGRAPHY, SEOUL

MoPS is the first exclusive photography museum in Korea, established by Ga-Hyeon Foundation of Culture in 2003. MOPS realizes its mission through a variety of activities – exhibition curating, educational programs, publication, collecting and researching early, modern and contemporary photographs. It exists to encourage and inspire photographers by ways of playing a role as a stable platform for photographic exchange while building networks with important overseas museum and foundation.

The purpose of MoPS collection is to establish a significant composition following the history and trends of Western and domestic photography. Large portion of the collection constitutes of vintage archives of early Korean photography from about 1880s through the 1940s, which is the very early group of the collection. The works are regularly shared with the public and the professionals via different dialogues such as exhibition, publication and symposium.

MoPS presented two exhibitions as part of Jimei x Arles' 'Greetings from Korea' program in 2018.

www.photomuseum.or.kr