REALTIART

[한글][ENG] COVID-19 DONATION ART EXHIBITION

There are many different shaped camaras lying here and there in artist Inmo Hwang’s studio. I see pinhole cameras that just look like wooden boxes to me but are made by him. I helped purchase something abroad for him before and he says ‘This is it’ and it was a big camera. Also there is another camera that he says he is working on it and it is way bigger than the other one as if it is for applying for a record-holder. In his two-door refrigerator, there are all kinds of film sheets and chemicals instead of food. He is excited talking to me who knows nothing about cameras about features of them with words, easy but still not understandable. Suddenly, the artist with close-cropped hair looks as Einstein would shaking his gray perm out loose.

I wonder. Why does it have to be big cameras and big film sheets to take photos  when we can just print them out big with a digital camera? The artist says a digital camera is to ‘consume’, a film camera is to ‘own’. Then, I come to think that taking photos itself seems just annoying sometimes since taking and deleting them anytime anywhere is possible with a cell phone camera and ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ doesn’t sound right anymore somehow. Also, he says the artistic value of photography has been attacked by painting. It is said that the larger the film, the closer it gets to the actual image that only pictures can make it possible so I can fully relate to his desire to take the largest original picture possible by using all sorts of methods as a way of expressing the artistic value of his photography. It is just that I smile and wonder how frustrating it would have been for him to see me with a puzzled face nodding to the difference between the clearness of the pictures taken with the large film and the small film.

Artist Inmo Hwang takes documentary photography a lot. His own longing for all aspects reveals through his fingertips as a work of documentary photography. Those he misses are: the eastbound wall of a castle long ago once situated in Dongseong-ro, which is downtown now and I didn’t know this despite living my whole life here, his hometown beach where he used to ride his bike alongside when he was young, grandmothers and grandfathers who have endured the turbulent times of Korea, a shaman that interests him or individual ramen with a different feature that a worker at a ramen company might not even know. In the meantime, it’s interesting that his longing comes to me as emptiness: Dongseong-ro now that reminds me of old houses and people surrounded by walls of castle, the pollack that used be the main star of people’s meals but is hardly seen now in Korea. the elderly who went through the rough times of Korea but not the privileged, a shaman who has long consoled people but has no religious status. ramen which has played a major role in helping the tired but treated as unhealthy food. The reason they all looked so hollow to me is maybe he misses them so much, not because they are black and white or they don’t smile.

Soon I realize what makes his photos become a work of art is not the old-fashioned cameras, the large film sheets but his philosophy of life. Artist Inmo Hwang meets the world that calls for longing and likes, loves and constantly recalls it. Looking at his photos, I can see how precious each process that takes all his heart and effort  might have been to him as long as he missed it and I feel like I know the meaning of documentary photography now. On the way out of his studio, he says he will take a photo for me. I don’t want to bother him but just look at him taking all of the equipment out and getting them ready. Finally, it’s all set to go. I feel like if I stare at the lens of the camera standing next to him I could never forget this moment. And so he captured our beautiful moment in a photo.

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Shinhae Kim