전시소개
[re]connect전은 미국 Purdue 대학교 예술대학에 재직 중인 Min kim park 교수가 퍼듀 대학의 기획공모 지원금을 받아 개최한 「Postmodern Documentary Photography」심포지움과 작품전 기획에 의해 이루어진 전시이다. 이 전시는 지난 9-10월 미국 Patti and Rusty Rueff gallery의 전시를 마치고 11월 한국의 syo gallery를 거쳐 싱가포르 Nanyang대학교의 ADM gallery에 순회 전시된다.
미국에서 전시된 [re]connect 전에는 미국에서 컨템퍼러리 사진가로 왕성한 활동을 하고 있는 Nate Larson & Marni Shindelman, Billie Mandle, Joe Johnson, Regina Mamou, Julia Cybularz, Min Kim Park, Lynn Lee와 싱가포르의 Oh Soon-Hwa, Jesvin Yeo, 한국의 Lee Dong Jun이 참여하였다. 한국 순회전에는 기존의 해외 작가들과 한국의 이주형, 김성훈, 쉰스터, 장용근 작가가 참여한다.
발명과 동시에 최고의 재현 수단으로 인식되어온 사진은 기술적 진보와 함께 디지털 사진의 등장으로 인한 이미지 조작 가능성으로 더 이상 그 지위를 담보할 수 없게 된다. 사진은 탄생과 함께 누렸던 사실성 혹은 명증성의 신화와 Eugène Atget로부터 시작된 다큐멘터리 사진의 객관성의 의미는 약화되고 사진가의 주관적 관점이 강조 되었다. 모던시대의 주관적 관점에 의한 작가주의적 다큐멘터리 경향조차도 디지털기술의 발전과 포스트모던을 거치면서 새로운 향방과 출구를 모색할 수밖에 없는 상황에 있다.
디지털 미디어의 발달로 대다수의 지구인은 카메라를 소유하게 되었으며, 통신술의 발달로 세계는 경계를 초월한 사진이미지로 넘쳐나고 있다. 현대사회는 대량생산된 이미지에 갇혀있다. 역사 속에 등장했던 선각자들과 미국의 뉴토포그래픽스와 독일의 뒤셀도르프학파 등의 사진가들이 시대적 상황에서 사진이 나아가야할 좌표를 제시했던 것처럼 오늘날의 컨템퍼러리 사진예술가들도 형식과 내용에 있어서 사진의 새로운 방향을 모색하고 있다.
그들은 사진의 존재론적 의미 변화에 주목하여 대상을 재현하기보다 해석한다. 주관적 해석을 위해 고정된 의미에서의 시간과 공간을 해체하여 재구성 하고 감각적 경험을 차용한다. 대상의 구체적 형태를 파괴하기도 한다. 그들은 역사, 정치, 사회, 문화, 종교, 인종, 자연, 성 등에 관해 주관을 근거로 고유한 창조적 개념을 탐색한다. 대상에 집중하기 보다는 대상을 향한 자신만의 독창적인 개념적 의식에 집중하여 그것을 이미지로 보여주고 있는 것이다. 이러한 태도는 Post Photography를 고민하는 작가들의 창작행위에서 드러난다.
아직 Post Photography를 하나의 이념이나 운동 혹은 흐름으로 규정지울 수는 없다. 그 양상은 매우 다양하며 개별적이며 순간적인 형태로 나타난다. 따라서 그 진화의 한계를 가늠하기도 어렵다. 분명한 점은 그들은 무한한 사진의 우주에서 지금까지 드러나지 않았던 새로운 가능성을 탐색하고 있다는 것이다. [re]connect 전은 사진이 직면한 시대적 상황을 극복하고 Post Photography를 모색하는 컨템퍼러리 사진가들의 고심을 보여주는 작품전이다.
2014. 10.
syo gallery 이 동 준(Lee Dong Jun)
Artists
is a contemporary artist working with photographic media, artist books and digital video. My projects have been widely shown across the US and internationally as well as featured in numerous publications and media outlets, including Wired Magazine, The Picture Show from NPR, Hyperallergic, Gizmodo, Vice Magazine, the New York Times, Utne Reader, Hotshoe Magazine, Flavorwire, the BBC News Viewfinder, Frieze Magazine, the British Journal of Photography, Marketplace Tech Report, The Washington Post, and Art Papers. My artwork is included in the collections of the Orlando Museum of Art, Portland Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Cleveland Institute of Arts, the Center for Photography at Woodstock, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago. I hold a full-time academic appointment in the photography department at Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore and will chair the 2014 national conference of the Society for Photographic Education.
photographs the intersection of people, their environments and beliefs – focusing on the spaces where communities and ideas coalesce. She received her MFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2008 and majored in biology and English at Williams College. She is a 2010 NYFA Fellow in photography, a Brooklyn Arts Council Individual Grant Recipient and was a finalist at the 25th Hyères Photography Festival. She is an assistant professor at Hampshire College.
earned an MFA from the Massachusetts College Art and a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. His work has been reviewed and/or published in Art in America, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Esquire Magazine Russia, and YVI Magazine in the Netherlands. Johnson was a runner up for the 2008 Aperture Portfolio Prize and was nominated for SF Camerawork's 2010 Baum Award and the 2011 Santa Fe Prize.
In 2008 he received an individual artist grant from the Ohio Arts Council. He has participated in exhibitions at the Cleveland Art Museum, The DeCordova Museum, MassMoCA, Bonni Benrubi Gallery in NY, Flatfile Gallery in Chicago, and Gallery Kayafas in Boston. Johnson's photographs are included within the permanent collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln MA, and the Beach Art Museum.
He has lectured at Carnegie Mellon University, Indiana University, MassArt, Rhode Island College, the DeCordova Museum, and the Beach Museum of Art. He is currently head of the art photography program at the University of Missouri-Columbia
is a Chicago- and Los Angeles-based visual artist who engages in a researcher's process that is tied to the aesthetics of place and the search for unconventional aspects of locations. She is the recipient of a Fulbright fellowship to Amman, Jordan, and has exhibited her work nationally and internationally. Her first solo exhibition, presented at the Historic Water Tower Gallery in Chicago, Illinois (2013–14), was selected as an Artforum.com's Critic's Pick. Mamou holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design.
explores issues surrounding gender, ethnicity and identity using performance, video, photography, sound and video installation. Park's work has been exhibited nationally and internationally since 2007. She has numerous solo and group shows at venues including New Mexico Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe, Site Santa Fe, Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art, Arizona State University, University of Houston, University of California, Santa Barbara, Emory University, and Syo Gallery in South Korea. In 2012, Park's video work, Zummarella was screened at White Box, New York, Columbus International Film and Video festival, CologneOFF and Videoholica. Park has been an artist in residence at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art and the recipient of a Rosenquist artist in residency at North Dakota State University. She received a MFA degree in Photography from the University of New Mexico in 2007. She has taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Northwestern University in Chicago. Currently she is an assistant professor and the area representative of phorography in the department of Art and Design at Purdue University.
holds a B.S. degree in Photography from Drexel University and earned her MFA from The School of Visual Arts. Julia's work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. She has received numerous awards for her photography and video work including an Aaron Siskind Memorial Scholarship as well as The School of Visual Arts' alumni scholarship. In addition to her graduate studies, Julia has studied under notable photographers Mary Ellen Mark and Tina Barney. Her work has recently been selected for publication in American Photo 23, PDN and Critical Mass. Julia Cybularz lives and works in Philadelphia where she teaches at Drexel University.
Lynn Lee
holds a MA in photography from Purdue University. A non-traditional path towards developing personal work took her through several years of commercial photography. Recently, Lynn has started developing new, conceptual bodies of work which reflects both the love of analog process and the freedom of digital manipulation and printing. She has a published paper titled "Dreaming in Analog: The marriage of vintage photographic process and the contemporary world" and was a recipient of the Stephan Sprague Award in photography while an undergraduate. Lynn Lee teaches photography and photographic history at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.
is a photographer, curator, and lecturer in the photography and digital imaging program at the School of Art, Design & Media. She holds an MFA from School of Visual Arts and a doctorate degree (EdD) from Columbia University in New York.
She has participated near 60 exhibitions internationally, to name a few, the Noorderlicht Photo Festival in the Netherlands, the Lucca Photo Festival in Italy, the Pingyao International Photo Festival in China, the National Portrait Gallery in London, the Midlands Arts Centre in Birmingham, the Houston FotoFest, the Pochon biennale, the Ssamzi Art Space in Korea, the Asian American Art Center, the Society for Contemporary Photography, the Korean Cultural Centre in Los Angeles, the Palm Spring Desert Museum, and the Sotheby's Young International Art Program. Her curatorial works include exhibitions at the National Museum of Singapore and the Pingyao International Phtography Festival.
She is a recipient of Ohio Arts Council Fellowship, Korea Arts Council Fellowship, Aaron Siskind Memorial Scholarship and UNESCO-Aschberg Bursaries. She is a member of several academic associations and an editorial board member & reviewer for the Photographies Journal, Routledge, UK. Her teaching courses include Contemporary Issues in Photography, Documentary Projects, Narrative Portraits, Traditional wet darkroom as well as Digital darkroom.
Jesvin Yeo,
who trained at Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design in London, is a Singapore-based multidisciplinary designer and an assistant professor at the School of Art, Design & Media of Nanyang Technological University. Her research interests are focused on historical and contemporary cultural changes, particularly related to Asian cultures, Asian studies and material culture. As the foundation of her research, Jesvin employ design, photograph and technology as a means for understanding, examining and critiquing the world around her. Jesvin's works has been published at renowned international conferences, journals and design magazines including International Design Alliance (IDA) Congress, AIGA design educators conference, International Journal of Design Creativity & Innovation (Taylor & Francis) and Applied Typography 22. Her works has also been exhibited at 798 Art District in Beijing, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Washington D.C., and has won international awards such as Red Dot Award (Communication Design), A' Design Award, How International Design Awards, iF Communication Design Award, to name but a few.
이 주 형 Lee Joo Hyung
한양대학교 인문대학 졸업 후 홍익대학교 대학원에서 사진디자인을 뉴욕대학교 대학원에서 사진미디어를 전공했다. 예술사진과 매체이론을 강의하면서 사진작업과 글쓰기를 병행해왔으며, 이를 바탕으로 숭실대학교에서 ‘포스트-포토그래피; 실재와 재현의 관계’ 연구로 미디어학 박사학위를 취득했다. 저서로 ‘디지털사진의 이해’와 역서로 ‘예술사진의 현재’가 있고 ‘격자풍경’(갤러리 인덱스, 2014) 외 8회의 개인전과 ‘네오산수’(대구미술관, 2014) 등 다수의 기획전에 참가했으며 예술의전당, 영월사진박물관, 선재미술관 등에 작품이 소장돼 있다. 현재 계명대학교 사진미디어과 교수로 재직 중이다.
김성훈 Kim Sung Hoon
경일대학교 사진영상학과에서 석사 학위를 취득 후 숭실대학교 미디어학과 박사과정에서 미디어아트를 전공하였다. 2008년도 문화예술진흥 공모사업으로 젊은 예술가 창작활동 지원을 받았으며, 2010년도에는 올해의 청년작가로 선정되었다. <채워진 공간 Ⅱ - 박물관>시리즈에서 그는 현재와 과거, 기억과 망각, 흔적과 상상의 경계에 위치한 기억-오브제와 박제된 공간을 추적하는 사진적 행위(acte photographique)로 시간성의 뒤틀림과 지속 공간의 단절을 표현하고 있다. 최근 그는 2012대구사진비엔날레 특별전 등 다수의 전시를 기획하였으며 다양한 시도의 사진 작업을 하고 있다.
쉰스터 Schinster
독학으로 사진을 공부하여 총 3개의 시리즈를 영구적으로 진행하고 있으며 그 중 세 번째 시리즈인 '스트리트 드라마'로 영국에서 열린 포맷국제사진대회 실험사진부문 우승, 제33회 중앙미술대전 대상 수상을 하였다. 언제나 우연히 발견한 형식으로부터 시작하여 내용을 채워나가는 방식을 준수함으로써 직관적인 예술작업방식에 중점을 두고 있다. 또한 작품을 불특정다수에게 어떻게 전달하는가에 대해서 작업의 최종 완성도를 기울여 전시장에서 관객들이 작품과 상호작용할 수 있는 감상의 장을 만들고 있다.
장용근 Jang Yong Geun
영남대학교에서 사진석사를 취득하고 현재 경북대학교 디지털미디어아트학과에서 수학하고 있다. 2008년 올해의 청년작가(대구문화예술회관), 2010년 신진작가전시지원 프로그램선정(서울시립미술관), 2013년 상하이현대미술관 레지던스, 2014년 하정웅청년작가에(광주시립미술관) 선정되었다. 〈수많은 ‘나’들-겹쳐진 증명〉시리즈는 증명사진을 중첩시킴으로서 획일화된 집단의 정체성을 보여주는 작업이다. 정치, 권력, 사회제도 안에서 개인의 정체성은 지워지고 스트레오타입화된 우리의 초상을 보여준다. 공장FacStory, 도시채집 등의 작업을 진행하고 있다. 개인전 도시채집(진선갤러리)과 도시탐색(서울시립미술관), 시대의 초상, 초상의 시대(서울시립미술관), 격물치지(일민미술관) 등의 기획전에 참여하였다.
PAULA KATZ
Independent Curator and Consultant
Former Director of Herron Galleries, Herron School of Art and Design
Photography is the most pervasive language in the world. Whether one is viewing a daguerreotype or an image on a computer screen, pictures transcend cultural and ideological boundaries. Photography as art has always been a contentious issue, however. Determining which photography merits placement in contemporary art museums and which does not is extremely divisive and subjective. No other artistic media has this degree of identity crisis. A painting, however poor in quality, never has its intentions questioned in the same way a photograph does. This phenomenon is partially due to the practical nature of the invention of photography. Documentation was its impetus; the medium offers a faster technique for copying reality than paint, charcoal, marble or bronze. Aesthetics did not come into play until the technology of quickly affixing an image to a substrate was achieved.
Photography has transcended its roots, simultaneously owing a debt to and fueling contemporary culture. While a considerable portion of the 20th century was dominated by the silver gelatin print, it is the mastery of color printing processes that helped to transport photography into the realm of postmodernism. Through technological advances in image making and editing and the corresponding emboldening of photographers, the medium closed the door on modernism and revealed a previously untapped conceptual potential. This is not to say the traditional notion of documentary photography is not prevalent today, because it very much is—rendering the distinction between art and documentation even less clear. Additionally, the inherent “truthfulness” of images, once the hallmark of photography, is directly called into question in the postmodern era.
Contemporary documentary photography completely upsets previous notions of the deserving document, becoming less about the picture and more about the philosophy of making photographs. It uplifts the banal, demotes the monumental, explores the boundaries between the real and virtual, openly collaborates with the subject, discovers locations through intermediary mechanisms, and finds new ways to lead the viewer down the rabbit hole. The artists in (re)connect represent the wide variety of contemporary documentary photography.
While at a glance much of the work takes the form of large-scale color pictures, the processes and ideas behind the work are extraordinarily varied. At the same time, all of this work explores the qualities, beliefs, circumstances, and challenges that bind all of us together in the human condition.
Exploration of personal history through documentation is represented in the work of Billie Mandel and Julia Cybularz. Mandel’s Reconciliation photographs depict the space of confessionals in Catholic churches, something she is familiar with as she was raised as a practitioner. While some images are more abstract and others display the small enclosure clearly, each transports the viewer into the confined space where they can contemplate their own confession. Cybularz’s ongoing work, Breaking the Girl, follows the life of Hannah, a now
12-year old girl who has a severe curvature of the spine--a condition the photographer also suffers. Although these images explore the life of one person, it is impossible for the viewer not to substitute their own image as they consider the pain of such a condition. In contrast, Nate Larson’s collaborative project with Marni Shindelman, Geolocation, sources GPS coordinates from Twitter to find locations to document. This idiosyncratic way of using technology and chance to find subjects is a novel way of approaching documentary work. The inclusion of the original tweet along with the image adds weighty meaning to the potential interpretation of the location and meaning of the text.
Location is key to the explorations of Regina Mamou, Dong Jun Lee, and Joe Johnson. Mamou’s recent projects derive from her focus on a single location, a spiritualist camp in Chesterfield, Indiana. Since 2012 she has made frequent visits there to learn more about the belief system and activities of the practitioners, including use of photography to confirm spirit activity. Her non-traditional, altar-like display, All That Ever Happened is Present, contains what appears to be a nonrepresentational print, but in fact pressing sunflowers, a flower associated as a heraldic device in spiritualism, creates the form.
Lee has been traveling to India for two decades recording the changes he has seen in the country via human interaction with the natural environment. Lee’s attachment to India and his desire to show this beautiful and mysterious country are reflected in his images, where his observations show traditional ways of living clashing with a rapidly changing landscape and people. Along the same lines, Johnson makes his viewer a tourist in locations outside of the mainstream, with unexpected landscapes, a variety of characters, and attention to the unusual spaces that humans create and sometimes occupy.
Jesvin Yeo, Min Kim Park, Oh Soon Hwa, and Lynn Lee’s work address various aspects of womanhood in contemporary culture. In the series Disconnect, Yeo uses candid pictures to capture women working in urban environments. It remains unclear if the unidealized subjects are aware they are being documented. For Yeo, images ponder the contentment of these women in their expected societal roles. In comparison, Park’s work Zummarella depicts women in striking and unusual poses, satirizing the concept of the highly achieved woman who “has it all.” These mock super-ladies fly awkwardly through a black void in tragic portraits that undermine the status of these seemingly privileged women. The perfect female is also addressed in Lee’s work through the concept of the ideal body. In The Mannys, form is cataloged through the changing trends in mannequins. Her unique prints, which use metallic printed patterns to veil the models, also force the viewer to further objectify the body as they strain to discover it through a visual jungle. The strength of women is optimistically explored in the series Quiet Dream by Soon-Hwa. An expatriate herself, Soon-Hwa, relates to the challenges faced by the group of Vietnamese woman who relocate to South Korea in order to find husbands to wed and better their circumstances.
If one thing can be said from looking at the plethora of practices and techniques shown by the artists in the (re)connect exhibition, it is that postmodern documentary photography has boundless possibilities. The work tells us as much about the person who created it as it does about the post-global society we live in. While the camera is theoretically an objective tool, the photographer remains subjective. Nevertheless, photography remains the cornerstone of our attempt to create a record of the prosaic and sensational world around us. Much has changed since the invention of the camera, but if one thing is clear it is that photography has become indispensable through its integration with the postmodern era and its staying power in documentation.
Paula Katz is an independent curator and consultant. She previously served as the Director and Curator of the Herron Galleries at the Herron School of Art and Design in Indianapolis, Indiana, overseeing a diverse exhibition program in contemporary arts and related educational programming. With expertise in contemporary art in all media, she has particular knowledge in photographic history and techniques, community engaged art and collaborative practices. Before her tenure at Herron she worked as the Assistant Curator of Art at the Columbus Museum in Columbus, Georgia. While there she primarily curated and researched American Art and Design of the 19th and 20th centuries from the Museum’s permanent collection and oversaw the visiting contemporary art program. Since 2006, Katz has curated, administered and jurored nearly 200 exhibitions throughout the Midwest and Southeastern United States. Katz holds a BA in Art History from Tulane University, a MPhil in Modern and Contemporary Art and Design from the University of Glasgow and a MBA in Social Entrepreneurship from the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University.