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Read My Desire:The Department Series [KOO, SUNG SOO]
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Koo, Sung-Soo, “Read My Desire”: The Department Series
May 14-June 24, 2009
 
Koo, Sungsoo is one of the established photographers of his generation in Korea with his starkly crafted execution of fine prints. In our era where digitalization consistently questions the art of straight photography and camera technique, he is rare feat who can knows how to take the images—either portrait or landscape—without the aid of post production. At the same time, he deeply immersed himself into the serious ontological questions about photography. What is photography? How photography differs from other media? What is the quintessential relationship between photography and time? His most recent series “Read My Desire” deals with the vacant Department Stores that have been shut down. Considering the economic downturn on a global scale that we are witnessing now, Koo, Sung-Soo’s Department Series can be considered as a new type of realism drawn upon the familiar format of vacant and huge spaces by German photographers during the 1980s and 1990s. Koo’s work currently belongs to the collection of the Getty Center Art Museum in Los Angeles. 

KOO, SUNG SOO (Art Criticism)
Dong-Yeon Koh
 
Koo, Sung Soo, “Read My Desire”: The Department Series
May 14-June 24, 2009, Art 2021, Seoul, Korea
 
The interior of the department store, as captured in Koo’s new photographic series “Read My Desire,” is extremely clean--except for vacant closets and a few naked mannequins scattered around the floor. The scene looks unmistakably normal, never reminding the viewer that the department store has gone out of business. Mirrors and other reflective materials, which create prominent textural effects of the images, are common to the interiors of department stores, where they are designed to incessantly stimulate the customer’s urge to shop.
 
Koo takes a neutral viewpoint, never adding to or subtracting from the scene that he captures with a kind of emotional distance. With the lack of the controlled effects of lighting and reflection, the viewer can become confused, and thanks to such confusion, the depth of space is vaguely defined. The interior of the changing room, for instance, appears to be flattened, contrary to its actual structure, which protrudes toward the foreground. In a manner typical of Koo’s photography, the landscape is unfolded horizontally, with the photographer expressing a willingness to take a certain distance from his object—the same distance that can be found in his famous series “Han-al High School,” taken a year after the building’s closure.
 
Koo may share with the major German photographers a kind of distanced and self-effacing voyeurism and perpetual returns to various types of classified objects and spaces. From the New Objectivity to the Renaissance of German photography during the 1970s and 1980s, photographers such as Hilla Beche and Andrea Gursky have continued to offer a cold, reserved, and less compassionate perspective, portraying objects with relatively little emotion. Yet in the case of Koo, such distance takes another turn. In his work, not only objects and space, but also time are important. Most of the objects and themes in his work are related to things that have perished or will perish—like a store going out of business due to lack of visitors or a high school after its closure due to lack of students. If Hilla Beche hopes to capture her country on its way to rapid industrialization and modernization during the postwar years in Germany, Koo’s photography conveys nostalgia to the viewer. (Of course, in keeping with the definition of nostalgia, his photography might remind the viewer of the artist’s failure to give up his obsession and confront its loss.)
 
His new series “Read My Desire,” part of his Goodbye Collection, thus arouses a feeling of futility, yet this feeling is distinguishable from the mocking sense of futility that is often seen in Gursky’s spectacular photography, which is filled with an overabundance of people and things. Koo’s photography returns us to the classical theory of photography—it is no less than the result of human obsession with the past and vain attempts to defy time, best captured in Sontag’s work.
 
Isn’t the department store one of the ultimate sites of the human obsession with time, namely bygone youth and beauty? Looking at Koo’s photograph reminds the viewer of our desire and nostalgia, which are crucial to the nature of photography and the purpose of taking photographs.
 
 
 
KOO, SUNG SOO (b. 1970)
 
2004      Ph D Candidate, Department of Photography, Graduate School of Hongik University, Seoul
2002      MA, Department of Photo Design, Graduate School of Keimyung University,Daegu
1998      MA, Department of Photography. Graduate School of Chung Ang University, Ansung
1993      BA, Department of Photography & Image. Kyung il University, Kyungsan
 
SOLO EXHIBITION
2009      Read My Desire: Koo, Sung-Soo, Art2021, Seoul
2006      Magical Reality, Kumho Museum of Art, Seoul
2001      From Wife, Amoon Art Center, Daegu
My Wife Thirty Years, KugJae Museum, Daegu
2000      Induscape, Daegu Culture Art Center, Daegu
1997      Magical Reality, Sarah Lee artworks & projects, Los Angeles
 
GROUP EXHIBITION
2007       Peppermint Candy: Contemporary Art from Korea Museo de Arte Contemporanea, Santiago, Chile & Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Landscape of Korean contemporary photography, Seoul Museum of Art
2006      Bellive it or not, Ilmin Museum of Art, Seoul
Saemaeul, Ilmin Museum of Art, Seoul
Humanity of Angle, Kwangju Metropolitan Museum, Kwangju
Western Style Courtesy of Space, Daelim Contemporary Art Museum, Seoul
2005      Fast Forward, Frankfurt, Germany
Picturing Korean Vision & Visuality, Ie-young Contemporary Art Museum
Home, Sweet Home, Daegu Culture Art Center, Daegu
Landscape, Shinsaegae Gallery, Kwangju
Site to Sight, Samsung Gallery, Daegu
2004      Document, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul
Visiting Museum, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Kwachon
2003      Photography, Historical Memory, Insa Art Center, Seoul
Landscape, Youngkwang Gallery, Pusan      
Art Expo, Exco, Daegu
2002      Horizon of Contemporary Korean Photography, The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama & Sendai Mediatheque, Sendai, Japan  
Photography from Landscape, Landscape from Photography, The Korean Culture &Arts Gallery, Seoul
2001      Photography & Portraiture, Shinsegae Gallery, Inchun & Kwangju
Jury Exhibition Sajinbipyung, Baekyoungduk Gallery, Seoul
Bomulchanggo, Hwan Gallery, Daegu
2001 Young Photographers, Daegu Culture Art Center, Daegu
2000      Sexual Sociality and Access to the Body, Daegu Culture Art Center, Daegu
 
PUBLIC COLLECTION
2007      Ocean technology Seoul / Oedo-Botania, Geoje
2005      National Museum of Contemporary Art Korea & Ilmin museum of art, Seoul
2004      Hwan Gallery, Daegu
2002      Photography Museum of Dong-gang, Yongwol
2000      Daegu Culture Art Center, Daegu
 
AWARD
2005      Daum Prize Geonhi Art Foundation Seoul
2001      Best Photographs of 2001 Submitted to Juried Competition Curated by Sajinbipyung, Seoul
2000      Young Artist Grant Daegu Culture Art Center, Deagu
1999      Young Photographer Curated by The Society of Modern Photography &video, Seoul 
1998      1st Young Photographer Solo Exhibition Monthly Sajinyesulsa, Seoul
 
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