Photo artist Song to hold first solo exhibit

Photos from Song Jung-keun’s “Winter,” “Cloud,” and “Ocean” series, from top to bottom. / Courtesy of Song Jung-keun

By Kim Tong-hyung

A series of stunning water images will form Song Jung-keun’s first solo photography exhibition at Gallery KONG in Samcheong-dong, Seoul.

The exhibit, entitled “Polarity,” scheduled to show from June 4 through 6, reflects Song’s perspective on what he describes as “emotional” and “societal” polarity, blending personal experiences with social commentary. Using water as a subject, Song produced dramatic shapes in water and the dramatic changes it under different conditions.

The exhibit, which celebrates Song’s 20-year career as a professional photographer, contains three in a series: “Winter,” “Cloud” and “Ocean.” “Winter” is comprised of photos of frozen rivers, “Cloud” captures floods and “Ocean” portrays sublime aspects of the ocean.

Song said he intended to present a novel visual experience by using nature as an object and employing photographic methods that maximize the “verticality” and “horizontality” of the images, giving the photos power and depth.

“I used nature and forms of water to reflect images of the emotional bipolar states of an individual, and of societal bipolar phenomena, going back to profound questions about human beings. Water is changed into extreme shapes by temperature, wind and location, and I wanted to show one side of bipolarity through water,” Song said.

“‘Winter’ shows the emotional state of withdrawal through frozen rivers. ‘Cloud’ expresses a dead point, where movement becomes zero, through flooding water, during which the withdrawn emotion is gradually heightened. ‘Ocean’ depicts a state of emotional climax among the waves of the deep Pacific Ocean, ‘imported’ for contemporary society’s condition. It implies a disconnection between classes and generations, which aren’t fused but only becoming increasingly different.”

The 44-year-old worked as a stringer for the Reuters news agency and as a photojournalist for Sisa Press before becoming a full-time freelance photographer, undertaking several projects for newspapers, magazines, television and television commercials.

He worked as a special coordinator for the “Magnum Korea” project to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Hankyoreh newspaper in 2007, which involved 20 Magnum photographers, and has since engaged in a variety of collaborative projects with such institutions as Ewha Womans University, Hyundai Card and Jeju Olle.