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In the world of art, there's a saying that an artist doesn't merely observe but penetrates through. This suggests that beyond the visual, one must capture insights as an observer. To portray a world beyond the static reality in a photograph, to share the artist’s perspective and thoughts with the audience: this is the role and raison d'être of an artist. Mom & I met with photographer Kwon Bo-jun, who graduated with a Master's degree in Digital Photography from the School of Visual Arts and continues his freelance work while balancing lectures with commercial and magazine projects. Currently, he is absorbed in a documentary project recording the traces of young fellow artists in his Brooklyn Red Hook studio.
In spite of the flood of people that inhabit the city, I am often struck by the difficulty of finding happiness and making real connections with others. I’m interested in the neurosis that the modern city has generated; my blurry images of people explore what I see as the nature of a city and our existence within it.
This work, expressing the isolation and indifference felt by people in modern society, captures the city crowd in its dual position of presence and absence. The mechanisms of disconnection, helplessness, and eventual indifference to others, felt in a massive group, slowly strip away their expressions day by day.
“Where are they now, the lonely ones? In every artist's work, they live in all who see that work.” Like Olivia Laing's description, Kwon has immortalized them in his Urbanite.
Four years ago, I found a studio workspace in Red Hook, Brooklyn, called Hot Wood Arts. Here, eighteen artists with unique ideas and unique traits communicate with each other and work freely. They spend hours on end towards their art after their day jobs, or during the weekends, and need to persistently apply to exhibitions and contests as they try to seize an opportunity to showcase their artwork to the public. I’ve realized that the creative life of an artist is not always long, so I wanted to make a record of all my fellow artists; who knows when and why they may disappear or be forgotten? I hope it will be a source of encouragement to my fellow artists, whom I’ve watched from afar.
"The greatest trend of the 21st century is making money!" This statement appeared in New York Magazine, New Yorker.
Is that true? Is money equally important to artists who are free from conventions?
Four years ago, Kwon was drawn to Brooklyn Red Hook's Hot Wood Arts Studio due to the affordable rent. This space, a converted 167-year-old warehouse, allows struggling, unknown young artists to create. However, the lifespan of artists, threatened by survival, is not long. Kwon began documenting the quiet disappearance of the artists he shared space with. "Records govern memory," they say. Though fading in pursuit of the 21st-century trend, Kwon knows this time is their "brightest."
I was captivated by a manual camera in the closet when I was young. In high school, taking photos and processing them revealed a new communication method with the world, and I spent three years in the school darkroom. I continue photography because of this communication method I learned then.
Commercial photography is practical with clear objectives, while fine art photography is viewed and expressed from a subjective standpoint. I believe both fall under artistic photography. The difference lies in creating a perfect photograph through shared thoughts among experts and expressing individual creativity by a single artist.
Recently, I am interested in exploring documentary photography as fine art, reinterpreting and expressing my observations of the Brooklyn Red Hook studio environment and its transient people from my viewpoint.
I aim to leave works grounded in fact. Post-processing is part of photography, whether it's film selection, filter use, picture style settings, or Photoshop after work—it all falls within post-processing, akin to a darkroom in the past. I often see cases where this extends beyond correction to modification, which I tend to avoid, focusing on maintaining the subject's essence.
Kwon Bo-jun, Photographer
Kwon studied Fine and Advertising Photography at Kyungil University's Department of Photography and Imaging, and obtained a Master's degree in Digital Photography from New York City’s School of Visual Arts. He has accolades from the Sappi/Magno Intensity Photographic Competition, Epson International Photographic Awards, and Photographer’s Forum Contest and currently works as a freelancer.
