London Korean Links

Covering things Korean in London and beyond since 2006

Exhibition visit: Night Break, at Mokspace

Work by Kim Shinwook - installation view
Work by Kim Shinwook – installation view

Night Break, the current show at Mokspace, compares two Korean photographers who work at night. One of Kim Shin-wook’s ghostly tree pictures, in which the tree is picked out in foreground brightness against a dark background, won him an award at this year’s Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. At Mokspace we are able to see a broader collection from this series. Lyndhurst has a tree illuminated by backlighting against a deep red sky, while New Forest could be a haunted wood from out of Tolkein’s Middle Earth.

Kim Shinwook: New Forest 2012
Kim Shinwook: New Forest 2012, 135x200cm, C-print

Meanwhile, Kim Taedong’s work is executed in urban settings in the small hours of the morning. The photographer approaches random passers-by and persuades them to pose for photographs. The unexpected encounter perhaps explains why the subjects look so stiff and uneasy in their settings, but each image is striking.

Kim Taedong: Day Break-018, 2011
Kim Taedong: Day Break-018, 2011, 150 x 190cm, digital pigment print courtesy of the artist

Well worth a visit.