Vision and Justice Tribute: BYUN Soonchoel | 5 - 14 May 2021

BYUN Soonchoel

Interracial Couple, 2001

"Photographs by BYUN Soonchoel take the audiences by surprise not only because the looks or social status of the people in the images are awkward and unfamiliar… the international couples and gay families in BYUN's photographs are in general considered as social outsiders and categorized as someone "different from myself” and "odd". Yet these photographs do not exhibit the subject by confirming such prejudices. Based on those general stereotypes, those people would have recoiled in front of the camera but instead they "amiably and ingenuously” pose and look ahead, making our biased minds recoil instead."

"Black and white, Caucasian and Asian, lesbians, and gays. Different couples and families featured in BYUN Soonchoel's "Interracial Couple” series are more than enough to stimulate (...) visual curiosity. People featured within the same frame draw our attention by setting strong contrasts with their skin colors and looks. In addition, the prints are bigger than life-size, exposing the freckles, pores, hairs and every single details of their skin that provide visual pleasures. Even so, the images do not allow these people to become a spectacle, thanks to the photographic format of active frontality and firm framework which stubbornly returns the looks they've received. First of all, the faces in the photographs are all looking straight forward. Whether they are couples of families, they do not look at each other but only face the camera … More than anything, from inside the photograph they gaze beyond the image as if they are not already aware of the presence looking at them and we simply cannot peep any more in secret. Regarding such frontality, "in the normal rhetoric of the photographic portrait, facing the camera signifies solemnity, frankness, the disclosure of the subject's essence.” At the same time, it proves the models have actively cooperated in the course of shooting."

- "Tight, Loose, Askew, the Space in between Faces – Tight: Interracial Couple”, Jisoo Park (Editor in Chief of VOSTOK Magazine)

BYUN Soonchoel

Interracial Couple, 2002

"The “Interracial Couple” series began in the late 1990s while I was studying in New York. I decided to photograph an interracial couple and family who I came across by chance in the city one day. This series was not merely a manifestation of curiosity. The portrait of society as an extension of the individual is expressed through photography as a medium. The works, featuring interracial couples, explore the connotations of “being a different race” in the context of New York as a multicultural society from the alienating eyes of discrimination, embedded in the subconscious. A Caucasian woman, an Asian man, and their biracial daughter are positioned to reflect a traditional family portrait. The photograph reveals that the discrimination they must have experienced as a family due to their physical differences (skin and eye color, facial structure) is overcome. In that sense, we come to accept the diverse forms of family through these works."

- BYUN Soonchoel

BYUN Soonchoel

Eternal Family. Kwon Yeonggyun and His Brother, 2015

"In the Korean context, 'the displaced' refers to those who left their home in North Korea and came to the South as war refugees. The literal meaning of the word implies the complete loss of home, but the contextual reference gestures to war-torn diaspora. Statistics vary, but certain records suggest that there are over 8 million displaced including second and third generations, while other documentation offers smaller numbers. The key issue at stake, however, is not the exact count of displaced people but the political circumstances surrounding the transplantation; the impossibility of reconnecting with family back home, unless through rare and special occasions arranged by the government."

- Critic, KANG Hong Gu on "Eternal Family"

BYUN Soonchoel

Eternal Family. Yun Byeongguk, 2015

"As you may already know, Korea is the only remaining divided nation in the world. The memories of displaced people, who have been separated from their families by the war, fade. What remains in place of memories, are usually photographs. Carrying a photograph in hand, the displaced people have had to move southward. They come to my studio in the hopes of being reunited with their families. I photograph a stand-in and 3D scan the faces of their family members onto the stand-in bodies through advanced technology available to us in the 21st century. Despite the opposing ideologies of North and South, which have forced families apart, the families hope of being reunited one day. Even if it is by the means of a single photograph. It is, quite literally, an idyllic photo of their dreams. Through these photographs, I wanted to ask what it means to be a family and recreate the eternal family living in the hearts of these people."

- BYUN Soonchoel

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Vision and Justice Tribute: BYUN Soonchoel: Frieze New York 2021

BYUN Soonchoel

BYUN Soonchoel

BYUN Soonchoel

BYUN Soonchoel

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