The Museum of Photography Seoul is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Ji Hyun Kwon who lives and works in Berlin.

The very sensitive searching for not only young artists resideing in Korea but also ones who hardly try to keep their feet on the ground while working in abroad is a vital procedure. It lets the Korean contemporary photography gets more enriched and comprehensive keeping pace with the international trend of interchange. For this time in her home ground, KWON presents her ‘The Guilty’ series, which she’ve already verified her talent with on the inter- national arena for the last 4~5 years. This time, the complete series will be shown intensively for the first time. The exhibition expects to have opportunity to work within context of the contemporary photography at home and abroad.

‘The Guilty’(2009~2013) is the portrait series which she has been working since 2009. This work started with feeling of social guilty for living as the ‘artist’, bring expectation away from her family and society. The series, which come from the artist who was in trouble with finding the answer for the underlying question; Why are you trying to be an artist?, become the larger scale project containing the deep and sincere inside of people across their genders and ages from the various cultural backgrounds consisting of more than 10 countries. Thanks to this brilliant work, she could step into the internataionl arena of contemporary art and photography attracting attention of leading museums and a heavyweight portfolio review programs abroad.

Total approx. 30 portraits are carefully selected for the show. Each print reflects entire procedure KWON has worked along. The time she communicates with the models sharing their insights and experiences of getting warm hearted connection. While such time and experiences get built up, the artist realizes that art is not, should not the self-centered object con- ducted by oneself. KWON’s portraits have intact her inner voice via protagonists’ faces.

Ji Hyun KWON received her bachelor’s degree in Law from University in Korea. While she was studying in Criminal Law at Korea University graduate school, she decided that she would become a photographer. She then entered fine art photography at Chung-Ang University. After graduation, she moved to Germany for studying abroad in 2009, studied the Faculty of Photography at Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences. She has completed her studies Media Art and Design course at Bauhaus University in 2013, now that she lives and works in Berlin. She was proved her excellence and potentiality in ‘The Guilty’ project as she got the winner of portfolio review in Bratislava during the 19th ‘Month of Photography’ in 2009. She was also awarded the Photographers of the year in 2010, the winner of portfolio review in Daegu Photo Biennale, Korea in 2012.

*image (left)
Ji Hyun Kwon
The Guilty_Maureen, 2011
pigment print, 120x100cm
courtesy of the artist