- Artist Seung Woo Back
A-#001 (Jeff, London, 1972)
2011 Digital print 16.5 x 11.7 in
MEMENTO
Seung Woo Back
June 14 – July 14, 2012
Opening Reception: Thursday, June 14, 6-8pm
DOOSAN Gallery New York is pleased to introduce ‘Memento,’ a solo exhibition of Seung Woo Back, from June 14 to July 14, 2012. The exhibition features eight series of his latest works which created by sixty-four photographs.
The exhibition presents Memento series, which accompanied the photographs he bought at the flea markets during his visit to the United States. Back deliberately made first selection among his collection of 50,000 photographs then seven of his colleagues made final selection and named them after their personal tastes and individual’s memories. In this manner, eight people imbued new significant to the non-attributable photographs, thus its original intention has vanished and distorted by fallacy.
Back’s passion for ingenious method extends towards the communication with viewers. He presents posters as complimentary and asks them to create the image captions as his colleagues did. Among the interaction, viewers obtain a chance to participate in next Memento series.
Throughout the all process, Back focuses on the essential of photography via rejecting its general acceptation. His restricted action questions the viewers about originality of photograph and its creator. Back has sought to expand the scope of photography as a medium by questioning its nature and function inside out of his practice. He intends to emphasize on its documentational method via pursuing the definition and aspect of photography in contemporary art.
Seung Woo Back was born in 1973 in Daejon, Korea. He received B.F.A. and M.F.A. in photography from Chung-Ang University in Seoul, Korea, M.F.A. in Fine Art and Theory from Middlesex University in London, U.K. He has had solo exhibitions at Artsonje Center (2011, Seoul, Korea), Misashin Gallery (2011, Tokyo, Japan), Ilwoo Space (2010, Seoul, Korea), Gana Art New York (2009, New York, USA), and Foil Gallery (2007, Tokyo, Japan). His works has also been included in group exhibitions at Santa Barbara Museum of Art (2010, Santa Barbara, USA), CU Art Museum (2010, Colorado, USA), National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (2010, Taiwan, China), The Museum of Fine Arts (2009, Houston, USA), National Museum of Contemporary Art (2009, Gwacheon, Korea), Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art (2009, Kagawa, Japan) and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2009, San Francisco, USA).