In the previous chapter, the Marta Ortega Foundation showed how the brilliant Helmut Newton dedicated his last years to portraying his favorite places. Perhaps the name of the Korean Kim Jungman (1954-2022) does not sound familiar to you, but just like the gunman Newton reached the throne of commercial photography (in Asia), to end up capturing nature.
Rocky, desert landscapes, in black and white or in color that take your breath away. For the first time in 40 years, Jungman, who died a year ago, exhibits his work at the innovative Kulturstiftung B H Geiger (KBH.G) in Basel, one of the world's art capitals that displays its charms not only at Art Basel but throughout year.
“When we started, the promoter, Sibylle Piermattei-Geiger, told me that the foundation had to be open to everyone, that it should travel a lot and not organize boring exhibitions,” recalls Raphael Suter, the director, during Magazine's visit. The Foundation itself has a wrinkle: it is installed in an old factory of small electric motors of which there is still a giant scale at the entrance.
The space, remodeled and open-plan, but with relatively low ceilings, is not ideal for exhibiting large-format works, which is why it is of great merit that some of Jungman's images take up as much space as possible. They are so large that the walls become horizons, misty, rocky, steep, poetic and wild places. The visitor seems immersed in them, hanging from a cliff or with his feet in a river of hot water whose stones sweat fog.
The exhibition is hypnotic and the photos on display, all in black and white, look like drawings, paintings or engravings on snowy paper with a strange texture, full of imperfections that give it an artisanal appearance that is hardly seen in Europe. The inauguration a few days ago (the exhibition can be seen until February 28) was quite an event with the presence of Neo Kim, the artist's son, who died on December 31, 2022.
There are many more in the catalogue, in color, which is a testament to the artist from Korea, the Gobi desert or the sea to the world. His work is the perfect natural tourist guide that no one has written or photographed until now. There is a special section in the photographer's compendium that is the rocks in full boiling, metamorphosis, contortion...
Some of the stones are not at all original, but they become sacred and magical in the artist's lens. Meditation and silence reign in the rooms and isolate them from the world. Others are so extraordinary that they seem like material for a travel guide to impossible worlds, which are there, but do not seem to exist. The exhibition with the title And yet, we saw the same star is a range of landscapes that seem created in the digital world. But nature, true nature, is invincible.
“After a few years living abroad, in the late 70s, Kim returned to Korea becoming an enigma, due to his clothes, piercings and tattoos. Something that no one had there at that time, those were different times. He made his way into commercial and fashion photography. He had a lot of energy, he said that the camera stuck to his hand and that there was no difference between his life and what he saw through the lens,” describes Rebecca Eigen, director of exhibitions at the KBH.G. .
Kim's biography, raw energy, Rastafarian hair, earrings, is fascinating. “When he was very young, his father, a doctor, settled in Africa and sent him to study in Paris. He stayed there, then went to Nice to study painting and that was key to seeing how his photographs have many layers of analog and digital shots and, some are printed concentrated in several layers and on a special paper of traditional Korean crafts with imperfections that are called hangi, made from the bark of the mulberry tree and which requires a long treatment,” says Eigen.
Nobody remembers that Jungman was one of the first young photographers awarded at Les Rencontres d'Arles, it was in 1977. In Korea, he broke the mold and later freed himself from everything, he became obsessed with trees, the snow nestled in their crowns. and the birds in its branches.
“You can think that the trees he photographs are in remote places and are on the highway he traveled from home to the studio. The trees are portrayed as people and he - Suter points out - identified himself with the bird that took flight...". It is fun to see him, in the video shown at the beginning of the exhibition, get out of the car and leave it on the side of the road, the trees around him have nothing special and he turns them into immortals.
The Korean photographer was an outsider, just as the KBH.G foundation has tried to be from day one, according to its director. "Kim is not a well-known artist in Europe, but we are not looking for big names, nor thousands of visitors, but those who can show something different and a lot of quality."
"We," adds Suter, "are not the Fondation Beyeler, which I like a lot, I love its collections and the Renzo Piano building, but we are committed to originality and breaking all rules as much as possible." Basel is an art jungle and each institution is looking for its place.
