LIMB EUNG-SIK: HISTORY THROUGH THE LENS
This exhibition features a selection of 20 photos by Limb Eung-Sik from the collection of The Museum of Photography, Seoul, starting in the 1930s, when, influenced by pictorialism, he experimented with style using his first camera, a middle school entrance gift, to his war photography of the early 1950s and his post-war photography that attempted to provide objective representations of social phenomena and the momentariness of everyday existence. His portraits of Koreans of the times, exhausted by social circumstances but striving to earn a crust, is well evidenced in one of Limb's most iconic images, Job Hunting (1953), while the survivors from the heavy shelling of the war are represented by a single bare tree in his Naked Trees (1953).
REINVENTING OUR TIME
This exhibition shows the work of five of the most prominent photographers of the post war generation, who began work while a succession of military regimes ruled the largely agrarian country. They were the first generation of Korean artists who studied abroad and brought new ideas back to their country. Nevertheless, many of them remained attached to Korean landscapes and traditions while embracing new aesthetic ideas. Many photographers from this generation depicted the extraordinarily beautiful nature and landscapes of Korea, a country surrounded by the ocean and mostly covered by mountains and forests, and its religious and spiritual practices that are primarily tied to nature.
SAME SEASONS, DIFFERENT MEMORIES
Most of us experience a variety of seasons in our lifetime. Though they may come and go in cycles every year, each season has its distinct color, temperature, and fragrance, as well as moments perceived differently depending on individual experience that are consequently remembered independently. We fill these seasons with our daily routine and livelihood without any special occasion; only to later realize that countless memories were being created and connected by the environment around us.
While trying to elevate their status as photographers, they also turned their lens into their hometown, re-examining the land, which is surrounded by oceans and covered with mountains and forests, as well as their own standing on this land.