Maden Pictures

The Korean word “sajin” means a ‘picture’ or ‘photograph’ in English. The ‘picture’, which also signifies a drawn or painted image, reflects the fact that the essence of both a photograph and a drawn or painted image is the ability to represents nature. However, a photograph shows the mechanical character in the medium in which light (photo) produces (graph) the image. This quality in the creation process of photography is what defines its clear distinction from that of a drawn or painted image. Precisely speaking, a photograph is what results from reproducing a subject through a machine called ‘camera.’ Nevertheless, a work of photography is similar to a drawn or painted image in that both are manifestation of the artist’s intended application and arrangement of light, composition and subject.

A century has passed since the invention of photography. Photography technology has developed from being analogue to being digital, which has contributed to the easy access to the camera and to the popularization of photography. Many people take their own pictures of their lives and share them with others through social media such as blogs. High performance cameras are no longer exclusive property of professional photographers, as many people now carry portable cameras to capture ‘decisive moments.’ The metaphor that linked the exquisite beauty of photographic art to the ‘beauty of the moment’ has now been disconnected and rejoined with the idea of ‘popularized beauty’; thus, photographers have begun to strive for new creativity that can transcend the focus on ‘beauty of the moment’ which roots from photography’s nature based on chance and documentation.

Some artists sublimate photography to mixed media works by introducing filmic or theatrical elements. They purposefully stage objects and figures that often appear in independent spaces like in a movie or theater, freely modifying the space and light in order to arrive at the qual¬ity of lighting and material desired. Other artists reflect on the essential meaning of photography as a medium on which to base a production of new works. The subject and the object are reversed, or sometimes the artist appears as the subject of his or her own work and plays the leading role. The photographed space-time transformed in such a way creates a new dimension of space, by merging with other space-time. Meanwhile, some artists unfold a tedious work of rearranging and recombining hundreds or thousands of photographs, while others become an explorer who travels to uninhabited islands to take his photographs. Through such myriad processes and methodologies, contemporary photographers are creating ‘MADEN PICTURES.” Through the contemplation on diverse works by six photographers in the exhibition MADEN PICTURES, the anticipation is for the audience to come to a more lucid understanding of contemporary photography.