"All that Photography" is on display at the Photography Seoul Museum of Art in Dobong District, northern Seoul, during a press preview on Nov. 25. [PHOTO SEMA]
The Photography Seoul Museum of Art (Photo SeMA) will open a new exhibition on Wednesday, examining the role photography pla
바다이야기5만 yed in shaping Korea’s avant-garde contemporary art scene.
Titled “All that Photography,” the exhibition runs through March 1 and features some 200 photography or photography-based artworks
바다신2다운로드 as well as around 100 archival documents created between the 1960s and 2010s by 36 Korean artists. All works are sourced from Photo SeMA’s own holdings, the Seoul Museum of Art and the participating
모바일릴게임 artists.
Photo SeMA ? Korea’s only public museum dedicated exclusively to photography ? opened in late May in Dobong District, northern Seoul. Since then, it has welcomed approximately 180,
릴게임 000 visitors, according to the institution.
"All that Photography" is on display at the Photography Seoul Museum of Art in Dobong District, northern Seo
황금성릴게임 ul, during a press preview on Nov. 25. [PHOTO SEMA][PHOTO SEMA]
Now unveiling its third fixed-term exhibition, the museum revisits the trajectory of Korean contemporary art through the lens of photography.
“Photography played a crucial role in transforming Korea’s contemporary art scene throughout the 1960s and 1970s,” Photo SeMA General Director Choi Eun-ju said during a press preview on Tuesday. “Many contemporary artists of the time picked up cameras and experimented with photography as a medium ? pushing boundaries and pioneering new directions for Korean art.”
Curator Han Hee-jean gives an overview of Photo SeMA's new exhibit to reporters on Nov. 25, at the museum in Dobong District, northern Seoul. [PHOTO SEMA]
Organized chronologically across four exhibition halls, the show explores diverse photographic approaches including photomontage, photogravure, photo serigraphy (silkscreen printing) and photo essay.
“Alongside dansaekhwa ? or conceptual monochrome abstraction ? a more radical avant-garde movement emerged,” said curator Han Hee-jean. “Artists challenged the established generation, confronted political and social realities and sought new experimental forms. Photography became a crucial tool of critique as much as a mode of expression.”
A central theme of the exhibition is how Korean artists absorbed international art movements yet ultimately developed uniquely Korean visual languages reflecting the country’s turbulent sociopolitical environment.
One of the most striking works is Chung Dong-suk’s six-frame black-and-white gelatin silver print series “At Seoul” (1982), revealed publicly for the first time. The photographs document government propaganda billboards around Gwanghwamun during the early 1980s.
"At Seoul" (1982) by Chung Dong-suk [LEE JIAN]
The boards list cities and provinces across Korea ? from Gangwon to Jeju ? yet every display surface below remains blank. The emptiness suggests erased messaging and restrained public discourse, symbolizing the enforced silence under the military regime. In one frame, a police officer walks in front of a board marked South Jeolla, an image that evokes the trauma of the May 18 Gwangju Democratic Uprising. The series visualizes the pervasive fear and psychological burden borne by citizens who were forced into silence.
The work was originally slated for exhibition in 1983, but due to severe state censorship, it was never shown. Mass media ? particularly newspapers ? also served as a critical source for many artists featured in the show, through which the artists questioned authority, information and truth.
In Kim Geon-hee’s “Eol-deol-deol-deol” (1980), for instance, the artist overlays a woman from an ice-cream advertisement onto a newspaper report covering the fabricated trial ruling against pro-democracy leader Kim Dae-jung. The repeated onomatopoeic phrase ? meaning “trembling” ? becomes a visual metaphor for fear and numbness under authoritarian control.
"Hanging Bowl" (1962) by Lee Seung-taek [LEE JIAN]
The exhibition traces the early history of art photography in Korea as well. One example is Lee Seung-taek’s early photomontage “Hanging Bowl” (1962), in which the artist affixes a photograph of a red clay bowl atop a landscape print and rephotographs the composition. The bowl appears suspended in the sky, destabilizing the boundary between documentation and imagination.
“Photo SeMA will continue to explore photography not only as a fine-art medium but also as a cultural, social and historical document,” Choi said. “The visual languages developed by Korean artists from the 1960s to today ? as seen in this exhibition ? will serve as a foundation for future research, programming and exhibitions.”
BY LEE JIAN [lee.jian@joongang.co.kr]
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