PARK Youngsook: Look, That Woman Sings and Dances: SOLO EXHIBITION

PARK Youngsook (1941–2025) was, from the very beginning, a woman with a camera. This fact encouraged women standing before her lens to gaze back boldly, empowering them to take control of their own images. Women, once objectified in the history of photography, are reborn as the architects of their own narratives and the subjects of their own voices. The power of the gaze is subverted, and the body is transformed into an agora of contemporary discourse. In the face of an androcentric society disguised under the veneer of reason and morality, PARK’s women choose instead to become the “Mad Women.” Without hesitation, they loosen their Hanbok and awaken the “Witch” within. Now, look at that woman—a soul blooming in madness.

 

The exhibition Look, That Woman Sings and Dances at ARARIO GALLERY SEOUL is the first solo exhibition of PARK following her passing, a figure who left an indelible mark on the development of Korean contemporary photography and feminist art. This exhibition was organized to retrace the trajectory of the artist’s thematic consciousness and to resurrect that spirit within today’s space and time. Women who have broken free from social oppression to reinvent themselves are summoned to the exhibition space. The works span a broad period of over forty years, from 1963 to 2005. The exhibition layout is envisioned as a journey that visits the heyday of the “Mad Woman” and the “Witch,” while also tracing their archetypes back through earlier black-and-white landscapes.

 

Excerpt from the curatorial essay "Look, That Woman Sings and Dances"  |  PARK Miran (Deputy Director at Arario Gallery)