Vessels and Interiors

photographs by
Bohnchang Koo

Bohnchang Koo creates wonderfully quiet, elegant photographs in these two related series, Vessel and Interiors.

In the Vessel photographs, rare white porcelain ceramics of the Korean Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) are isolated or arranged in groups on white textured Japanese rice paper, and illuminated with an overall soft white light. The focus is soft, too, with a very narrow depth of field. Koo uses a 4 x 5 film camera to make these long exposure images, and then prints them with just whispers of pigment on white Japanese paper, resulting in nearly weightless white-on-white prints that are lovely — and worthy of meditative contemplation.

These objects that he chooses to photograph represent a long, peaceful history of Korea’s centuries-old Confucian culture — austere, not flashy, but appreciated for their simple, unadorned beauty.

A similar philosophy underpins the Interiors, which are photographs of empty white rooms or boxes, bathed in soft, even light. Empty, but not quite empty — open to interpretations and dreams and appreciation for even the light layers of dust that collect in a corner of a room.

— Jim Casper

These images and more are exhibited at Galerie Camera Obscura in Paris, through 10 October 2009.