Kang Hong-Goo was born on an island in Sinan, Jeollanam-do. He graduated from Mokpo National University of Education. He taught at an elementary school on an island for six years before returning to school to study painting at Hongik University, where he also completed his graduate degree. He currently lives in Seoul and has served as the director of the Goeun Museum of Photography.
The
city we once knew has already disappeared; it no longer exists. The modes and
conditions of that disappearance now appear as symptoms of the various problems
confronting the city in which we currently live.
The
city has long been one of the most frequently addressed subjects in
contemporary art, and its relationship with photography has been particularly
intimate. This may be because photography’s traditional quality as a
documentary medium, combined with the fragmentary and illusory nature of
digital images, provides a formal foundation well suited to capturing the
chaotic landscapes of cities in constant flux.
Among the countless photographs
that take the city as their subject, this exhibition focuses specifically on
images that address the exceptional circumstances of disaster and
redevelopment. With the exception of war, disaster and redevelopment are the
phenomena that most overwhelmingly and rapidly enact disappearance.
What
is it that disappears little by little each day, or vanishes overnight all at
once, in the city? What remains in its place? What does it mean to record such
disappearance and its remnants through photographic images? Amid incessant
changes in the landscape and continuous experiences of loss, in what ways does
anxiety infiltrate our everyday lives? These are the questions this exhibition
seeks to raise.
To
engage more deeply with these themes, the exhibition places focused attention
on two artists who have worked with the subject of the city for over a decade.
Kang Hong-Goo and Area Park have each long maintained an interest in the
city—Kang in the city as a residential environment, and Park in the city as a
social system—and are introduced here through the keywords of redevelopment and
disaster.
The
artists’ working methods form a striking contrast: Kang Hong-Goo primarily
employs digitally composited photography, while Area Park has largely adhered
to the tradition of documentary photography through analog processes. Yet
despite these differences, both artists share a common focus on the remnants
left behind after disappearance.
Through
the perspectives of these two artists, the exhibition offers viewers an
opportunity to reflect on the cities in which we live, as well as on
photography as a medium that records and remembers the urban condition.
