In Between Layers

photographs by
Han Sungpil

Diverse, affluent cultures around the world have recently embraced a mash-up of photography, trompe-l’oeil imagery, conceptual art and super-large-scale digital printing, to cloak the temporary “ugliness” of construction scaffolding with building-size outdoor art displays.

Photographer Han Sungpil has documented this trend worldwide, with an obsession for making large-format photos of these huge temporary installations from ideal viewing locations — precisely at the times of day when the light is perfect to make the illusions appear almost seamless.

More recently, Han’s process of meta-photography has encouraged him to create some trippy building-size installations of his own conceptual art ("The Ivy Space"). His photographs of these photo-based public artworks are part of a current gallery show in his hometown of Seoul Korea.

Among other things, the work questions ideals of beauty, visual identity, reality, public art, and the current compulsive desire to leave no part of the urban canvas unfinished. This is especially intriguing when the illusion is created to conceal other, longer-lasting cosmetic improvements in process.

— Jim Casper

See earlier work by Han Sungpil in this 2006 feature article from the Lens Culture archives.

This current series is on display at Gallery Zandari in Seoul.