The Game of Places
9 September - 10 October 2008
Kinam Kim
Soonkwan Kwon
Eunjong Lee
Hosang Park
Eunkyung Shin
Curated by Eunjong Lee
Roland Barthes commented that the true understanding of a city is achieved not by scrutinizing maps, but by experiencing and feeling the place. A city is not merely an architectural space. Rather, it exists as a text to be read.
The Game of Places presents the work of five Korean photographers each investigating their relationship with their urban surrounds.
Several of the works in the exhibition portray Seoul, a densely populated metropolis of over 10 million residents, as almost devoid of people. These sparsely populated cityscapes act to highlight the almost universal urban spaces we inhabit and what they reveal about ourselves.
Through the magnificent, still, crystalline vistas in Isolated from the Territory, Soonkwan Kwon evokes a sense of wonder at the capabilities of human enterprise and, at the same time, a critique of urban utopia.
Hosang Park in A square - the scenery of a small park, presents tender, disquieting bird's-eye views of empty local parks which recall childhood board-games, exploring the "local" as a means to unpack the so-called "global".
Eunjong Lee's studio images, Kinam Kim's documentation of (the almost universal) Ikea store in The affordable solution for better living and Eunkyung Shin's A photo studio share the tracing of human aspiration. The depiction of real and simulated interiors in The Game of Places - be it in artist studios, photographer's backdrops or retail stores - reveals the underlying internal landscape of our hopes and paradoxically our fears.
Exhibition opened by Judy Annear, Senior Curator, Photography, Art Gallery of New South Wales
Accompanying free public events
Artist and curator talks in the gallery
were held on Tuesday 9 September
UTS: Trans/forming Cultures
Annual Public Lecture - was held on 17 September
Presented by Prof. Christopher Pinney (University College London), "Photography and the Transformation of Culture" Preceeded by The Game of Places viewing and refreshments at UTS Gallery
The Game of Places supported by
UTS: INTERNATIONAL
The Game of Places Images (from top):
1. Kinam Kim 11227, 2008, digital c-print,
2. Hosang Park, Howon Dong, 2004
3. Soonkwan Kwon, Isolated from the Territory - A woman with a red clutch who is watching a man who is taking a photograph on top of round manhole, 2005 digital lambda print,
4. Eunkyung Shin, photo studio-chair iii, 2007 digital c-print
5. Eunjong Lee, A studio 18B, 2006, c-print
