Seoul eye: The city’s red room

If writers reveal a part of themselves in their characters, perhaps that’s what photographers do when they take photos of others. Twenty-four years ago, the then-graduate student Koo Sung-soo started to photograph Seoulites. Years later it seems, he did more than that: He managed to unravel a part of himself and maybe, capture the ever-weary nature of humanity.

It’s never a pleasant task to serve as the hands and feet of a person in need, especially if he or she is a full-grown adult. In spite of this fact, artist Ji Yeo posted an ad on multiple plastic surgery community sites. She reached out to women who’d just had plastic surgery and, out of her own pocket, paid for their food and accommodations.

When Happy Together (1997), Wong Kar-wai’s film about a turbulent romance, was playing in Seoul theaters, photographer Kim Ok-sun was exhibiting her photo series “Happy Together” (2002) at an art gallery in Jongno. In 2002, the local papers had a lot to say about interracial marriages in Korea and Kim, who married her German husband in 1994, was there to observe it all.

There’s an artificial quality to Jung Yeon-doo’s work that you can’t quite figure out. Despite the ever-so-slightly awkward smiles and staged poses, the people in these photos aren’t hired models. These are real families that live in the same apartment complex.

Pyongyang is poverty-stricken and repressed, but here in Seoul, people are quite stylish and happy with an awesome selection of food to choose from. Stereotypical as it is, this is the most general image that many have of the North and South. Unlike the South Korean locals who make these claims without experiencing the North, German architect and photographer Dieter Leistner, who has been to both countries, argues that the conjured image is a cliché.