RMA Institute presents

‘Political Landscape’

Photography Exhibition by Yong Hwan Lee

The exhibition on 6th August - 30th September 2017

6:00pm - 10:00pm

(Free Entry)

A type of propaganda that was a political compromise to improve the aesthetic features of a city rather than a careful consideration for the citizens who lack a green urban environment. What is the masked idea, namely the ideology, concealed behind such superficial landscapes? What is the “idea” that goes beyond all of them? Lee’s new body of work Political Landscape was motivated by this experience.

The images one captures with photography are not directly the virtual but are, in a sense, the representational. They can even be said to be the real as they are realistic depictions of an object. Such images can be referred to as the virtual only when they work like objects themselves, moving beyond the role of signs and creating confusion in our perception. The irony is that we come to feel more of a thirst for the real and truthful when our world is filled with more virtual images; this is the message that Lee’s expression earnestly conveys. Whenever Lee discovered such scenes not only in Seoul but also in local cities and places overseas, he recorded their locations and later revisited them to take pictures.

As he comes to develop a more extensive point of view, Lee addresses the controlled real, going beyond the virtual which has been politically exploited. This may be something more serious in nature since the virtual has no soul while the real does. In his latest work Controlled Nature Lee deals with natural objects that have been brought to some place from their original habitats. With images of a flower pot placed on a corner and a tree imprisoned in a concrete building he suggests viewers think about where they come from rather than putting out his own definition on their nature. Where does our nature come from? Where does it exist nowadays? Do we feel harmony in a state of enlightenment, or feel inconvenient in being controlled? These are questions that are asked to all of us as prisoners who believe the cave to be the entire world.

A photographer leaves and returns to show and share his experiences. That is, the photographer makes photographs to share what he or she views, feels, and thinks with others. Yong Hwan Lee is one such person. When viewing his works based on the lecture he delivered at his solo exhibition at the request of a group of media artists from Düsseldorf, Germany in December 2014, we come to recognize how he points out the phenomena of two conflicting natures being juxtaposed at the same space and time. Considering how he introduces himself as someone who attended college in a period of upheaval during the nation’s process of democratization, a sense of inconvenience caused by a forced or regulated harmony seems to dwell in his subconscious. Thus, his photographs can be seen as a visualization of his meditative experience triggered by the objects and landscapes he has come across in his daily life.

for more information :

02-663-0809 (RMA Institute)

082-458-4455 (Krittathat)

081-490-4085 (Muangthai)

*limited carpark