Lot 40: KOO BOHNCHANG (b.1953)

KOO BOHNCHANG (b.1953)
In the Beginning #41, 1995
multiple gelatin silver prints sewn together with cotton thread, printed/assembled 2009
signed, dated and numbered 'AP1' in white pencil on recto
67½ x 50in. (172 x 125cm.) overall

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 15% on the buyer's premium
Koo, one of Korea's most influential photographers, captures a female nude in fetal position for his series In the Beginning. In the darkroom, he stitches together a number of overlapping photographic papers then exposes them -- with pieces of dangling thread -- to create a single oversized print. The concept of stitching the flesh is a metaphor for life's struggles and the use of thread symbolises the fragility of human ties. While this image was realised in an edition of six, each work is unique due to the process of sewing the prints.

His works have been shown internationally since the 1980s, including his first US retrospective at the Peabody Essex Museum (2002) and the forthcoming exhibition on contemporary Korean photography at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston/Santa Barbara Museum of Art (fig.1), and are held in such notable collections as the MFAH and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He has curated a number of pioneering exhibitions, notably The New Wave of Photography in Seoul (1988) and Contemporary Korean Photographers: A New Generation at FotoFest 2000 in Houston, the first major show of Korean photography in the US.

AP1 aside from the sold-out edition of 6.