Page 35 - PHOTODOT 2017년 7월호 VOL.44 Jul

The works of contemporary photographers tend to be big in scale.
Your works are also very large in scale. Is there any special reason?
Gehard Richter is the giant of contemporary art who created a
unique artistic form called the “Photographic Painting.” Declaring “I
will paint photographs”, he began a new artistic project. His works
are huge in scale. Therefore, even thought they are flat, you can feel
multi-dimensionality in them. Since then, artists noticed that just by
making their work big alone could produce the effect of dominat-
ing the work themselves or even absorbing them. I, too, began mak-
ing a big-scale work as a way of overcoming the limitation of flat
dimensionality of photographs. Also, I thought about if there were
other ways to maximize the power of communication to viewers.
That’s when I began using 8x10 inch large camera.
One of the interesting things about your photography works is
that they are the realism works that use ordinary people as model
and places important on the artistic representation of the photog-
rapher.
What is your philosophy on photography? What do you think is
most important in photography? It’s the honesty. An artist must be
honest. So, I try to be honest at least on my photography. When
I was studying abroad, I used to go to bookstore to read books
or visited exhibitions to see art works almost every day. And I
asked myself many questions. What is the most lasting photography
work? what is a good photograph? The answer that I came up with
at the time was that an artist must be honest. The reason is, it is
only through the honest that an artist can create his unique work.
I believe that a honest work can be produced only when I become
honest to the object of my photography as well as to myself. I
still believe that. Also, I believe that portrait photography should
be based on realism at a fundamental level, and then you can add
“conceptual” things. It doesn’t matter whether they are concrete
or abstract concepts. Conceptual images in photography with re-
alism excluded are empty. Creating pure art is, after all, telling your
own story.
전국노래자랑, 경북 봉화, 2014, 152X195cm, Achival Pigment Print

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