The Weight
Kyungwoo Chun
Museum Hanmi
Van Zoetendaal Publishers, Amsterdam
Korean/English
Essay by Park Ju Seok.
Softcover with Korean binding
88 pages with Korean folding
286 mm x 271mm
2020
ISBN 9789072532503
Chun’s blurry images created by continuous long exposure, are his unique style and a methodology to condense time. A fashion monograph commissioned by The Museum of Photography, Seoul in collaboration with Van Zoetendaal Publishers.
(Source: http://www.vanzoetendaal.com/books/kyungwoo-chun-the-weight/)
About the Artist
Kyungwoo Chun (born 1969 in Seoul) has for many years been working on photography projects and initiating performances in which the audience is actively involved. Chun attained international recognition through his portraits, many of which have a characteristic blurriness in their movements-the consequence of extended exposure times. As diverse as the artistic approaches seem at a first glance, Chun considers both the performances and the photographs to be in equal measure “visible manifestations of that which is not visible.”
Ever since early 2000s, he has created performance works in parallel to the photography. These are temporally limited processes, carried out individually and in groups. As author and initiator, Kyungwoo Chun withdraws to a large extent into the background. He establishes a framework in which the participants can act independently. They often have the possibility of leaving behind something of their own. Sometimes it is a personal object, a photograph, or just the answer to a question. In other instances, their physical presence is already sufficient.
The sensitisation to an altered perception of time and the intensification of a dialogue with oneself and with others are essential aspects of this artistic practice.
Hs work has been presented in many solo and group exhibitions in Europe and Korea, with public participatory performances in cities including Barcelona, Seoul, Berlin, Liverpool, Zurich, Mumbai, Bremen and New York. The artist’s work is represented in major museum collections including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), Huis Marseille, Museum voor Fotografie in Amsterdam, The Musseum of Photography Seoul and the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Korea (MMCA).
About the Publisher
Song Young-Sook’s interest in photography began during her college years, where she found her passion as a photographer. Her enthusiasm for photography ultimately led her to become a passionate collector and a founder of the very first fine art photography specialized museum in Korea.
Museum Hanmi (former Museum of Photography) was founded by photographer Song Young-Sook in 2003 in Seoul, where she presents not only her own collection but also runs exhibition programs. More than 130 exhibitions have been held in the museum in the last 20 years and two museum-affiliated publishers have published numerous catalogues of Korean and international fine art photographers and theoretical books on photography.
Her efforts for establishing a fine art photography museum in Korea was acknowledged by receiving the Order of Culture and Arts Merit, the Chevalier, from the French government in 2017 and she also received Okgwan, the Order of Cultural Merit by the Korean government in 2023.
Song Young-Sook collects the photography of Korean artists, as well as the fine art photography of international artists.
independent-collectors.com/cities/seoul/museum-hanmi
(source: https://independent-collectors.com/cities/seoul/museum-hanmi)
Willem van Zoetendaal (born The Hague, 1950) is a graphic designer who has been producing photography books since the early nineties. In 1994 he started publishing his own books, first under the name of Basalt (in collaboration with Frido Troost) and then under the name of Van Zoetendaal Publishers.
In the same period, Van Zoetendaal curated photography exhibitions in the Netherlands (the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, FOAM) and in France (L’institut Neérlandais, Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris in collaboration with Elisabeth Nora), in Japan (Luis Vuitton Tokyo) in collaboration with Elisabeth Nora, and in Korea (Kumho Museum, Seoul) in collaboration with Kim Song Min.
Additionally, Van Zoetendaal has been active as a gallery owner for contemporary photography from 2000 until 2014. February 2014 he changed his gallery space into a studio to develop his own art projects, art books and installations. In 2008 the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag acquired his photography collection (consisting of more than 1200 photos) that he had built up during his period as lecturer at the photography department of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in the nineties. The collection included early works from now renowned Dutch photographers/artists such as Céline van Balen, Koos Breukel, Rineke Dijkstra, Paul Kooiker, Esther Kroon, Harold Strak, as well as striking photos from anonymous photographers (found footage). Together with Noshka van der Lely, Van Zoetendaal manages the estate of the filmmaker/photographer Johan van der Keuken.
Van Zoetendaal considers his books as spacious constructions and he has been extremely influential in terms of the selection and montage of the content of the books, enabling a rhythmic melody to be formed in unison with the design.
Van Zoetendaal considers that photography in print must be optimally lithographed and printed so that it ‘becomes a new form of vintage.’ For him, the photo book is an art form in its own right.
His oeuvre includes high-profile books such as Murder in Rotterdam 1994 (Duo Duo Publishers), To Sang Photo Studio 1995, Hyde 1996 (with Koos Breukel), Die Berliner Zeit 1999 (with Rineke Dijkstra), Johan van der Keuken – Quatorze Juillet 2010, Harold Strak/ Arthropoda 2010, Paul Kooiker / Heaven 2012 and Diana Scherer/ Nurture Studies 2011.
vanzoetendaal.com
(source: http://www.vanzoetendaal.com/)
