“New photography in Korea” the title of a book published by the Paris Beijing gallery, embodies the aspirations of the next generation who are grabbing the medium to go along with the transformations of a society torn between tradition and frantic modernity.
Between spirituality, relationship with nature, globalisation and digital techno-futurism, the panorama is of a great imitation and even more affordable prices.
Bae Bien-U (RX Gallery), epitomises this quest for harmony with nature. His residence at Chambord, which opened the France-Korea Year, presented the opportunity to encounter his series on his country’s sacred trees with a remarkable look at the prestigious French estate. Using a panoramic format, he is only focused on the details, overwhelming the viewer of his tree portraits.
The imaginary landscapes of Won-Seoung Won (Paris Beijing) are drawn from his personal memories and put together digitally. Nostalgia for a rural Korea where he spent his childhood before waking up one morning to find his bedroom flooded with water! “My age of seven” is a series that hides, under an apparent tenderness, a mordant criticism of the changes happening in the Korean countryside with galloping urbanisation.
In residence at the Mac Val as part of the France-Korea Year, Kyungwoo Chun (Andres Thalmann Gallery) developed a project of performance and installation with the public, around the human being and its emotions. So he asked 49 garbage collectors from Vitry to close their eyes and picture the person they missed the most during their working day. With “A Day in Seoul”, he asked people he didn’t know to pose in his studio and let daylight do its work on their faces. An ode to time that passes and gives individuality to these faces lost in the crowd.
Joon Kim, (Park Ryu Sook Gallery). Saturated colours and unbridled imagination overlaid by the king of tattooing, a real phenomenon and a rising star. For him the skin is an extension of the canvas and the tattooing, still a cultural taboo in his country, a way of externalising objects of the drift towards consumerism.
FAIR
Art Paris Art Fair
From March 31st to April 3rd, 2016
Grand Palais
75008 Paris
France
http://artparis.com
