Koo Bohnchang
Born in Seoul, Korea, Koo Bohnchang attended Yonsei University majoring in Business Administration and later studied photography in Hamburg, Germany. He was a professor at Kaywon School of Art and Design, Chung Ang University, Seoul Institute of the Arts and a visiting professor in London Saint Martin College.
His works have been exhibited in over 30 solo exhibitions including Samsung Rodin Gallery, Seoul (2001), Peabody Essex Museum, Massachusetts (2002), Camera Obscura, Paris (2004), Kukje Gallery, Seoul and Kahitsukan Kyoto Museum of Contemporary Art (2006), Goeun Museum of Photography, Busan (2007), Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia (2010) among many others.
His works are included in the collections of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Fine art, Houston, Kahitsukan Kyoto Museum of Contemporary Art, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea, Leeum and the Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul.Premonition of a Germination by Yoshitomo Kajikawa
Contemporary Asian art is drawing world attention now. Koo Bohnchang is a pioneer in contemporary Korean photography. He has been playing a pivotal role in its large centripetal force.
"Can you meet the Korean photographer Koo Bohnchang and look at his works?," an acquaintance asked me a few years ago. I agreed and met him at the Kahitsukan Museum. He brought twelve photographs to show me. They were scenes of whitish landscapes printed on thick, off-white, nicely textured paper. Stains and blurs on the walls suggested the passage of time, interior views of boxes, pine needles on melting snow, an irregular pattern of cracks on some plaster wall. I studied these images. Different from his previous works, these were quite impressive and made me feel the sprouting of a new kind of photography. Just like a mild ray of light, excellent monochrome photos give a gentle sensation to my eyes, similar to the feeling I get when I look at a masterpiece of painting. Seeing him frequently afterwards, the history of his photographic expression became clearer to me. I was also impressed by his warm personality. I decided to add his artwork to the Kahitsukan collection and hold an exhibition for it.
The decisive transition in his photography was made during the time when he was taking care of his father on his deathbed. The Breath series directly addresses the issue of human life and death. With its straightforward theme and dynamic close-up compositions, this series made a clear distinction from his previous works. It shows no mere story; his inner struggle with his own existence, and the way reality presents itself, took shape in the time and space of photographic dimensions. For Koo, it was the moment of grasping the bare bones of his thoughts, which arise from daily life, as well as a new realization of a universal art form. He continued to shoot the Nature and Interior series, seemingly ordinary scenes, as if he were looking for something substantial, a place where he could be himself. In their spirituality and poetic quality, these works reveal the same direction as Kagaku Murakami, the distinguished Japanese painter I admire most, aspired to. Koo Bohnchang’s work impresses us with its simple, yet profound and exquisite sense of space and time. Presently, he is taking pictures of Yi Dynasty white porcelain vases. With the camera lens as a part of his body, he is trying to revive the creativity of the Yi Dynasty, to capture the life force concealed in them, calling them "soul-embodying vessels." He is able to accomplish this thanks to the drastic revision of his sense of modern identity which took place in the face of his father’s death, as well as the keen sense of vision honed in his subsequent photography. It is his own karma, his Korean heritage, and his basic desires as a human being that drive him to do so. Through his pictures, Koo Bohnchang seems to be asking what photography is and who he himself is.
Director, Kahitsukan-Kyoto Museum of Contemporary Art
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Works
JM-GD 34
Photo on Archival Pigment Print Paper
76cm x 97cm
Edition: 2/7
2007
AM 07 BW
Photo on Archival Pigment Print Paper
60cm x 90cm
Edition: 1/10
2006
JM-GD 18
Photo on Archival Pigment Print Paper
97cm x 76cm
Edition: 2/7
2007
JM-GD 10-2 PL
Photo on Archival Pigment Print Paper
76cm x 97cm
Edition: 3/7
2007
HA 04-2 BW PL
Photo on Archival Pigment Print Paper
106cm x 85cm
Edition: 2/10
2006
