Lee Gapchul was born in Hapcheon, Gyeongnam, and grew up in Jinju. Currently, he is represented by Galerie VU' in France.
MoPS Museum Hanmi Samcheong Annex presents Lee Gapchul’s new
exhibition 《Silent Mountains–City of
Symptoms》 as its inaugural exhibition. The show
consists of 26 urban photographs taken by Lee, who has established his identity
over the past thirty years as a subjective documentary photographer through
representative works such as ‘Land of Others’, ‘Conflict and Reaction’,
and ‘Energy’.
This exhibition commemorates the publication of Lee Gapchul’s
photobook, jointly published by the Italian publisher Damiani Editore and
Museum Hanmi. As with his earlier works, Lee’s distinctive photographic
grammar—off-frame compositions and defocused subjects—stands out in this urban
series.
Yet what draws the eye most is not the urban subjects filling the
frame, but the “dark margins” of the photograph. Lee refers to this
as yeoheuk, a space filled with invisible signs suggesting that something is
about to occur. As Lee has said, “I photograph light in order to see darkness.”
His work thus focuses on the city’s margins—spaces of darkness where light does
not reach.
For this exhibition, Lee printed film shot over more than ten
years in both natural and urban settings. He captured “stillness and
extinction” that transcend all noise within nature, and discerned “solitude and
silence” embedded even within the city’s chaotic clamor. For Lee, mountains are
a transcendent realm beyond the secular, and cities are a transcendent realm
within it. This is why he bound these seemingly opposing spaces under the
single title ‘Silent Mountains’. This exhibition presents the urban
component of the series, 《Silent
Mountains–City of Symptoms》.
It runs from November 8, 2019, to January 15, 2020. An opening
reception and publication celebration were held on November 15 at 5 p.m.,
followed by an artist talk and book signing on November 30 at noon. The artist
talk took the form of a conversation between Lee Gapchul and Song Sujeong, Head
of the Research, Planning, and Publishing Team at the National Museum of Modern
and Contemporary Art, who also contributed to the photobook.
