Seunggu Kim has long captured fleeting moments in which the dissonant elements born of Korea’s social contradictions reach a momentary balance within the camera frame. Among his works, Better Days—which documents collective leisure activities of Koreans on the fringes of cities—is a representative series that captures the aesthetic of dissonance stemming from Korea’s thin cultural identity and urban imagery developed in the wake of rapid economic growth. The kitsch sensibility witnessed in both urban centers and outskirts can be interpreted through the pessimistic lens of neoliberalism and global capitalism. However, when one focuses on the myriad objects populating the frame, one begins to sense the breath and lives that lie beyond the glossy surfaces. This exhibition seeks to highlight the artist’s affectionate gaze toward humanity and his relational perspective on the world.

​

Better Days largely unfolds in two categories: landscape photographs of hybrid, artificial environments with unclear origins, and crowd scenes featuring anonymous individuals within those landscapes. The former evokes an uncanny familiarity, created by disjointed elements detached from their original contexts. Though assembled to appeal to popular taste, these ‘best of everything’ environments result in artificial, illusory scenes rather than authentic experiences. The addition of Korean local sentiment further distorts the original intention of these landscapes. A traditional restaurant decorated with wallpaper depicting European castles or a Korean BBQ joint with an artificial waterfall exemplifies hybrid imagery born from a desire to reach an ideal world, paired with a sense of urgency devoid of reflection. Kim does not collect these scenes to mock their cheapness or criticize hybridity. Rather, he draws parallels between these spectacles and our contemporary lives. His landscapes depict the reality in which we live—awkward, sometimes tacky, yet strangely comforting and even joyful. Perhaps they serve as gentle testaments to the times we inhabit.

​

Meanwhile, the crowd scenes—showing people enjoying leisure time in artificial nature—appear ordinary yet carry an uncanny atmosphere due to the tension between human figures and their backgrounds. The upper half of the frame, often occupied by sterile architecture and hazy skies, contrasts with the lower half teeming with the vivid presence of living beings. This contrast underscores the melancholic outcomes of decontextualized urban planning in hyper-industrialized nations while also evoking nostalgia through their familiarity. Typically, large crowd photographs suggest a unified presence within structured spaces, evoking the pathos of a society controlled by dominant paradigms. Kim’s crowds, however, diverge from this norm. The scenes of people enjoying a swim in a small riverside pool or exchanging photographs at a city flower festival remind us of what we often forget in our concrete jungles: we are not fully independent of one another, but intricately entangled in each other’s lives. Kim visualizes this entanglement—of human beings with their environment and with one another—through the medium of photography.

The exhibition title About This Life: For the Days We Live Here is borrowed from an essay by Barry Lopez, who explores the human experience through relationships with the surrounding world and weaves a broader understanding of existence. Kim’s photography adopts a similar stance, locating the human being within moments where conflicting ideas—individual and collective, human and environment, mainstream and marginal—intersect and intermingle. Why, then, is this notion of shared experience so vital? Because we are currently living through an era of profound loss. The recent pandemic has brought about a global, unequal crisis that has accelerated the isolation of individuals. In this reality, Kim discovers moments of convergence between all beings, not just humans. These moments, entangled with the artist’s gaze, are materialized through printed photographs. In turn, these prints intersect with the gaze of viewers, generating cracks in our fixed worldview. Ultimately, this layered contemplation of the world lays a foundation for a gentler tomorrow. Connection, in this sense, is inherently healing.

​

Through About This Life, Seunggu Kim’s solo exhibition, we hope you will discover yourselves within the spectacle of the city, and let the boundaries between self and world begin to tremble.

​

By Minyoung Kim, Independent Curator

​