Nosuntak Photo Exhibition 'Black Feathers'
Series of 19 Works, Black-and-White Shots in Backlight
Expressing Contradictory Nature Through Black Subjects
At Hakgojae Gallery, Samcheong-dong Until the 17th Next Month
Black Feathers, 2020, Inkjet pigment print for long-term preservation, 81x54cm, Nampung-ri. Photo by Hakgojae Gallery
[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Heeyoon] “If the hair on my body were feathers, would I become lighter? I wish they were feathers, but even if not, I tell myself not to be sad. Because all living things will eventually scatter, becoming lighter.”
A solo exhibition by documentary photographer No Suntak, who has captured ideological conflicts and political themes in Korean society through his lens, titled Shades of Furs, is being held at Hakgojae in Samcheong-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul, until July 17.
Black Feathers, 2016, Inkjet pigment print for long-term preservation, 162x108cm, O Soeri. Photo by Hakgojae Gallery
In this exhibition, the artist presents 19 works from the Shades of Furs series created between 2015 and 2020. All the works are backlit photographs, where details are trapped within black silhouettes, and the extreme contrast of light and dark delivers a painterly impact to the viewers.
Backlighting is generally considered a condition to avoid in photography because the subject’s details tend to be lost in darkness. However, the artist fully embraces backlighting, a clich? technique of extremists, while projecting the social realities of the current era within it.
Good Murder, 2009, Long-term Preservation Inkjet Pigment Print, 62x108cm, Seoul. F15 Eagle. Photo by Hakgojae Gallery
The artist’s proposal to gauge the weight of details trapped within silhouettes presents a new challenge to the audience. In his artist’s note, he asks, “Just because feathers (details) are trapped within a silhouette, does their weight change? By what do we measure weight?”
No Suntak actively adopts the ‘silhouette’ style, which has become a clich? in backlit photography. The term silhouette originates from ?tienne de Silhouette, an 18th-century French finance minister who implemented harsh austerity and tax policies to fill the war-depleted treasury. His absurd rhetoric led to the term becoming synonymous with “all things bad, cheap and worthless.”
In photography, silhouette refers to backlit images. Discovering the paradoxical nature of backlit photos?showing and hiding something simultaneously?the artist names this the “rhetoric of extremists” and uses it to channel the extremist rhetoric prevalent in Korean society.
Black Feathers, 2017, Inkjet pigment print for long-term preservation, 162x108cm, Seoul. Photo by Hakgojae Gallery
The ambiguity between good and evil, the refusal to allow gray between black and white?this extremist rhetoric welcomed in today’s society is fully embodied in the artist’s extreme backlit landscapes with almost no gradation.
Upon entering the exhibition space, only black and white greet the viewer. The subjects are depicted solely by their outlines. Yet, upon closer approach, ambiguous grays that are hard to call simply black or white emerge. Just as clear life becomes ambiguous and vague upon closer inspection, the artist emphasizes through silhouettes that even the details of seemingly clear conflicts and violence contain dizzying shades of gray. Being trapped in an outline or buried in darkness does not mean something that existed ceases to exist.
The artist said, “After finishing the installation and looking around carefully, I realized this work is about the relationship between outline and detail, and the gray caught between black and white, but rather it is a collection of scenes of ‘breaking apart.’ I have been pondering whether it is possible to show less but in more detail, and I hope this exhibition becomes a space where visitors can have many conversations.”
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