Reykjavík Museum of Photography

For the last five years, the South-Korean artist Yunjoo Kwak has dealt with the confusions that she´s felt in the institutionalized society where the dichotomy of common values rules and decides what is normal and abnormal, able-bodied and disabled, and superior and inferior and the process to overcome them in her works. 

“Trying to get over the confusions within the personal and private boundaries, I experienced the feeling of estrangement resulted from collisions between the two different values and applied it to the recognition of institutional problems in this society. This became the inevitable target for me to criticize and to tide over and also acted as the basis for my art to change and advance into another dimension. My works started from the question on the 'outside' world beyond the dichotomous system of values and orders.” 

The documentation of 'traditional' Korean group dancing of young girls is speaking of the political distortion of Korean culture during the process of 'modernization'. Here, Yunjoo seeks to awaken forgotten memories buried in the looking complete institution by arranging the grotesque figures of young girls performing an instructional act. These young dancers always watch mirrors and correct their look and posture. They are willing to do the painful physical training striving to be light as the air. The essence of Korean traditional dance they are pursuing desperately like this is the so-called Korean emotion, “Han”. It is the spirit generated from Korean way of life and energy of the soil. It ripens in the dancer´s knees and sprout out towards the sky. Perhaps it can be said that it is the emotion of Korean dance to solve the problems inside and all alone not confronting them directly.

Yunjoo Kwak, (b. Seoul, S-Korea, 1977)

Yunjoo Kwak finished a B.F.A. from the Sang Myung University in Seoul in 2002 and a M.F.A. from Korea National University of Art, in Seoul in 2008. She currently lives and works in the Netherlands.


Yunjoo Kwak│Interlude no. 6

"Interlude no. 6" is the title of an exhibition by Yunjoo Kwak in exhibition space Skotið

Yun­joo Kwak│In­ter­lude no. 6

"Interlude no. 6" is the title of an exhibition by Yunjoo Kwak in exhibition space Skotið

Yunjoo Kwak│Interlude no. 6