Photographer Koo Bohnchang gives life to the seemingly mundane in 'The Look of Things'

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Photographer Koo Bohnchang gives life to the seemingly mundane in 'The Look of Things'

Published: 09 Feb. 2025, 07:00

SHIN MIN-HEE
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Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

Installation view of Koo Bohnchang's latest photography exhibition ″The Look of Things″ at the Asia Culture Center in Gwangju [KOO BOHNCHANG]

Photographer Koo Bohnchang’s latest exhibition, “The Look of Things,” is on view until March 30 at the Asia Culture Center’s Spaces 3 and 4 in Gwangju. It takes place just a year after his large-scale retrospective “Koo Bohnchang’s Voyage” at the Seoul Museum of Art in central Seoul.

As evident from the exhibition’s title, this is a show about “things.” The word “look” is usually used in the context of living beings, but Koo here refers to inanimate objects. It’s an opportunity for Koo to give these things life and delve into their hidden stories.

A photograph of a gobdol (a type of smooth mineral with an oily gloss used to make ceramics) kettle taken by Koo Bohnchang [KOO BOHNCHANG]

For the Seoul exhibition, some 500 photographs were displayed, including his “Self-Portrait” series, which he continuously shot while studying abroad, and his “In the Beginning” series, as well as his fashion photo shoots and film posters. But the works that remain in people’s hearts are his “Vessel,” “Gold” and “Soap” series. That’s why this exhibition spotlights objects through series like “Gobdol,” “Chasse-Roue” and “Object.”

“I discovered gobdol [a type of smooth mineral with an oily gloss used to make ceramics] while photographing white porcelain at the Japanese Folk Crafts Museum,” Koo said. “If white porcelain is an earthenware vessel, then gopdol ceramics are stone-hewn vessels. It’s said that it has been used as a medicine kettle since the Silla Dynasty [57 B.C. to A.D. 935] and Goryeo Dynasty [918-1392]. The material is cheap since it’s stone but challenging to process, so the shapes tend to be simple.

“Back in 2007, when I first began photographing gobdol ceramics, a small bowl cost around 500,000 [$341] to 600,000 won, but now the asking price can range across 3 million to 10 million won.”

″Chasse-Roue 54″ (2003) by Koo Bohnchang [KOO BOHNCHANG]

His “Chasse-Roue” series was shot during Koo’s three-month stay in Paris in 2003. Chasse-roue, which translates to guard-stones in English, are small obstacles placed at the corners of buildings to prevent damage by horse-drawn carriage wheels. Interestingly, their shapes all differ.

“To me, they exhibited a more affectionate impression than their practicality,” Koo said. “It’s like the divine powers that we endow upon figures like jangseung [traditional Korean totem pole] that you find in the countryside or dolhareubang [a type of stone statue often found on Jeju Island].”

Since then, every time Koo visited Paris, he took pictures of chasse-roues of all shapes and sizes, and 12 of those images were soon acquired by the Musée Carnavalet in Paris in 2012. The city of Paris was reportedly “surprised and grateful” that a Korean photographer had taken notice of an old artifact that had long become forgotten in the contemporary age.

″Object 05″ (2004) by Koo Bohnchang [KOO BOHNCHANG]

Koo’s “Collections” series takes note of small objects that he has always been interested in.

“They’re small items that no one really noticed but conveyed certain messages to me,” Koo said.

For example, Koo captured the tangled roots of a dead tree after pulling it out of its small pot because “it appeared like a cruel yet beautiful sculpture made by nature” or a fishing net because he felt “a strange feeling of how it is open on both sides.”

The red cup shown on the exhibition’s poster best exemplifies the curiosity and compassion of a photographer keenly interested in objects. The red marks on the transparent glass were not, in fact, the remnants of tomato juice.

“It was a glass cup that was on a cafe counter in Japan,” Koo said. “The server kept their red pencil in it to use when they wrote orders. I imagined that the clerk must have thrown the colored pencil into the cup dozens or hundreds of times, and that itself probably left nonchalant traces on the cup. It was so beautiful, like Park Seo-bo’s ‘Myobeob’ [a monochrome painting series emphasizing repetition and asceticism], that I begged them to give me the cup.” Koo laughed.

A photograph of a red cup taken by Koo Bohnchang [KOO BOHNCHANG]

A photograph of a white porcelain kettle taken by Koo Bohnchang [KOO BOHNCHANG]

Koo says he “listens to the stories of traces that have accumulated in time.”

“The act of collecting insignificant and trivial objects that have survived the times and conversing with them defines a large pillar of my photography,” he explained. His experiences shaped his work — as a child, he would stay home and play with everyday objects rather than go outside.

“The Look of Things” was remindful of Koo’s special interest in the unnoticed, his compassion toward objects that might be minor yet still fulfill a purpose, and the sincerity of the photographer’s shutter-clicking. Koo’s photography elicits the question, “Have we ever paid this much attention to — or had this much love for — our surroundings?” In a world where everyone is obsessed with voicing their opinions, Koo’s work suggests that we take a step back, focus on the small things around us and listen to their quiet stories of comfort.

Koo’s renowned “Vessel” and “Gold” series were installed in a dramatic environment inside the exhibition. His “Vessel” series was hung as scrolls from the 10-meter (32.8-feet) high ceiling, comprising images of Korean white porcelain that Koo had captured from his visits to 16 museums abroad. The “Gold” series was depicted on large light boxes, giving the impression that they were excavated as tomb relics. The priceless golden artifacts, such as crowns and ornaments from the Silla Kingdom, were magnified in Koo’s photographs more than 10 times, allowing the audience to view minuscule details of the relics that were otherwise unable to be seen in actual museums.

BY SEO JEONG-MIN [[email protected]]