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CONTEMPORARY KOREAN PHOTOGRAPHY + ARCHISCULPTURE

ARCHISCULPTURE was featured in the book [CONTEMPORARY KOREAN PHOTOGRAPHY].

Article about the ARCHISCULPTURE & BEOMSIK WON from the book
[CONTEMPORARY KOREAN PHOTOGRAPHY]
by ILWOO Foundation and HATJE CANTZ

Beomsik WON takes photographs of urban buildings from different times and spaces, breaks them down into segments using digital techniques, and constructs collages to create familiar-looking, yet imaginary buildings. To make these “Archisculptures” as it is called, he carefully combines the segments taking into consideration the architectural size, space, and formative elements; he then places them against simple backgrounds, and lastly adds people or birds for the viewers to guess the size of the building. Although these strange buildings are products of the artist’s imagination, they show various styles of architectures throughout history.

In the Archisculpture series, WON collaged the images of politically or socially important buildings in order to present a new interpretation of a city that operates like an enormous organism. He shows not only the history of the city but also the history of its people by revealing the surface of buildings that have been damaged due to natural weathering or historical incidents and then subsequently repaired. The Archisculpture, essentially a collage of history and people, is how the artist collects, classifies, and preserves the collective memory.

Beomsik WON studied metalwork and jewelry at Kookmin University (B.F.A., 1998), photography at Hongik University (M.F.A., 2008), and fine art media at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL University (M.F.A., 2012). He has been awarded The AOP Student Award (The Association of Photographers, 2012), the Gallery Lux Emerging Artists Award (Gallery Lux, 2013), the American Aperture Award (AX3, 2013), and the ILWOO Photography Prize (ILWOO Foundation, 2013).