Seung woo back biography for kids
Home / Celebrity Biographies / Seung woo back biography for kids
The participants arranged their eight photographs in their own way, and came up with a story and title for their selected images. Works in London and Seoul. For Memento, Back purchased and distributed the slides, but the exhibited works represented the choices and stories of his participants. His photographic works are characterized by various striking features that make them indelible.
To discuss the uniqueness of Back’s photography, it helps to revisit the dictionary definition of “photography.” The word “photography,” which is credited as having been coined by Sir John F.W.
Herschel in 1839, is defined as “the process of producing images by the action of radiant energy and especially light on a sensitive surface.” The word “photography” derives from the Greek words “φώς” (phos) meaning “light” and “γραφίς” (graphis) meaning a “pen, stylus, or paintbrush,” which in turn comes from “γραφή” (graphê) meaning “to draw.” Here, it becomes clear that the original conception of photography was to “draw with light.” To create photography, all one needs is light, an object or objects, and an apparatus to capture the light (i.e., a camera).
In addition, he endlessly experiments the possibility of multiple significance and expression of ‘photography’ beyond limit by transforming high-resolution photographs distributed by North Korea for propaganda and adding new interpretations on collected photographs of an individual’s memory. For example, he installed small photos, which can only be properly examined up close, at a great height, distant from the viewers’ eyes.
Thus, for Moon, the word “picture” can refer to any image generated by hand or machine. All the same, the role of an artist is always open to interpretation, and these works can raise viewers’ awareness of their own unconscious ideas about this issue. in Photography, ChungAng University, Seoul, Korea
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2019100% Comments, Sindoh art place, Seoul, Korea
2017I’m a Picture-Grapher: Photos of this Era, POST, Tokyo, Japan
2016Korea Artist Prize 2016, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea
2015Cross Vancouver, Cross Gaze, 2014-2016 Vancouver Biennale, Canada
2015WALKING ON THE LINE, Centre A, Vancouver, Canada
2015Eloquence Magazine Artist Series 3, Untitled, Window Gallery Granze, Seoul, Korea
2015Photographs 2001-2015 by Seung Woo Back, Goeun Museum of Photography, Busan, Korea
2012Gaps, Unrealistic Generals, Gana Art Center, Seoul, Korea
2012Memento, Doosan Gallery, New York, U.S.A.
2011Deferred Judgement, Art Sonje Center, Seoul, Korea
2011Blow Up, MISA SHIN GALLERY, Tokyo, Japan
2010Ilwoo Phtography Award Exhibition, Seoul, Korea
2009Revised Ideal, Gana Art New York, New York, U.S.A.
Selected Group Exhibitions
2020Spring of Democracy, Art Sonje Center, Seoul, Korea
2020Believing is Seeing, Gana Art Nineone, Seoul, Korea
2019Matt Black X Gana Art: Reflections, Gana Art Center, Seoul, Korea
2019Negotiating Borders, Korean Cultural Center UK, London, United Kingdom
2018Imagined Borders, Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju Biennale Exhibition Hall, Asia Culture Center, Select Locations in Gwangju Metropolitan City
2018Photographies, La Capitale Galerie, Paris, France
2018Group Show 2, MISA SHIN GALLERY, Tokyo
2017What Does the Image Stand For?, Galerie de l’UQAM, Université du Québec, Montreal, Canada
2017BORDER 155, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea
2017Postmodern Real, Museum of Art Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea
2017Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal 2017, Momenta Biennale, Montreal, Canada
2017Media Study: Tension and Relaxation, Daegu Art Museum, Daegu, Korea
2017CRACKS in the Concrete from the MMCA Collection, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, Gwacheon, Korea
2017Romantic City: Through the Practice of Aesthetic Criticism Today, Inside-Out Art Museum, Beijing, China
2017Real DMZ project – TIMESHARE, Arhus Museum, Arhus, Denmark
2017Far Games – Venice Architecture Biennale Homecoming Exhibition, Arko Museum, Seoul, Korea
2016Korea Artist Prize 2016, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, Seoul, Korea
2016Cross Vancouver,Vancouver, Canada
2015Dislocation/Urban Experience Contemporary Photographs From East Asia, Smith Collage Museum of Art, MA, U.S.A
2015North Korean Perspectives, Museum of Contemporary Photography,Columbia College Chicago, Illinois, USA
2015Lies of Lies: on Photography, Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea
2014Birth of a Museum: The MMCA Construction Archive Project, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea
2014Photography and Media 4:00AM, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea
2014Five Views of the Korean Peninsula, Noorderlicht Gallery, Groningen, The Netherlands
2013More Real?
in Fine Art and Theory, Middlesex University, London, U.K.
2005Research Fine Art and Theory (PHD), Middlesex University, London, U.K.
2002M.F.A. In his article “Out of Pictures, Out of the Archives” (included in the background materials for 2016 Korea Artist Prize exhibition), Moon Youngmin uses the words “picture” and “archive” to discuss the works of Back Seung Woo.
Notably, rather than using the Korean translation of the word “picture,” Moon uses the Hangeul transliteration of the English word. Minimizing the creative intervention of the artist, he enacts a process in which random images produce clues that elicit various memories and stories in each individual viewer. Instead of shooting his own photos, Back collected negatives of about 50,000 photos taken by anonymous people.
While the physical results may in fact be photography, they can only be grasped by considering the surrounding conditions. Four years later, he sent these sixty-four photographs to eight people with different professions (e.g., medical doctor, lawyer, art critic, curator, actor, engineer, etc.). Back’s work begins from this question.
He certainly inspires us to anticipate the new possibilities that he might divulge in his future attempts and works.
Critic 2
Photography That Questions Photography Through Photography
Shin Boseul (Curator, Total Museum of Contemporary Art)
Back Seung Woo is a photographer, but there is something very different about his photographs.
Seeing these works, viewers accustomed to pristine, well-shot photographs might feel a bit of shock or embarrassment. Photography’s inherent value of ‘instant’ and the aura of ‘truth’ of art history have long been engraved on the gravestone. As such, the viewers cannot hear the artist’s voice in the images, an effect that he has also achieved through different methods in Betweenless, Utopia, and Re-Establishing Shot.
As such, the audience is encouraged to consider the possibility of close intervention between each individual viewer and the artist’s creative work.
I initially raised the question of Back’s strategy with regards to the limitations of the medium of photography, which emerge from the gaps between reality and the photo.
Issues related to this duality have persistently dogged photographers from the beginning. But Back takes a different approach by focusing on peripheral figures who accidentally appear in the background of his photographs. On the other hand, his work Memento (2011) consists entirely of photos from various archives, the sources of which are either unidentified or no longer relevant.