Jeonju Seohakdong Photo Art Museum to host Oh Tae-pung's solo exhibition 'Regarding 'Welcome' and 'Illusion of Welcome''
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Lee ByungJae(2025-10-28 18:51:14)
Starting from the 28th, the Jeonju Seohakdong Photo Art Museum will host a solo exhibition by photographer Oh Tae-pung titled 'Regarding Welcome and Phantom Welcome' until November 9. This exhibition is a photo project that gazes at human desires and traces of the times through the remnants of the city left behind by rapid development and growth.
In this exhibition, Oh Tae-pung captures the reality where spaces once symbolized by the phrase 'Welcome' have transformed into 'Phantom Welcome' as time passes, documenting the disappeared fantasies through photographs.
He explained, "The spaces of development that we once believed to be welcoming have ultimately vanished into phantoms. This work is not merely expanding the list of ruins but an act of capturing time, recalling forgotten memories, and recording to prevent repetition."
The exhibition features landscapes of ruins represented by condominiums, resorts, industrial complexes, and more. What the promises of glamorous development have left behind is not prosperity but emptiness, and only hollow structures. Oh Tae-pung views these traces not as mere symbols of failure but as a natural part of the cycle created by human desires. He added, "My attitude facing these landscapes cannot linger in pity or criticism. Since I was not a direct participant in them, I only consider it an obligation to record."
The artist's camera functions as a device that recalls the voices of vanished spaces. To him, photography is a medium that proves death while bestowing new life. His gaze upon abandoned spaces may seem cold, but he revives the time and memories accumulated within them, giving them new meaning.
Oh Tae-pung defines the collective desires formed in the compressed growth of Korean modern and contemporary history and the real estate frenzy as 'evidence left by the unintentional intentions of our era.' He says, "Looking at these remnants through the eyes of the generation that grew during the economic recovery and development frenzy after the IMF era, I also feel like an accomplice not free from this outcome."
