Lee Kang So in All That Photography Group Exhibition at Photography Seoul Museum of Art
Lee Kang So presents a seminal work in All That Photography, the third special inaugural exhibition at Photography Seoul Museum of Art until March 1, 2026. His Liquitex—76122 (1976), created by layering a silkscreened image of a paint tube with unraveled canvas threads and strokes of real pigment, suspends viewers at the threshold between image and material. In this quiet tension—where representation and physical presence briefly coexist—the work expands painting into a space of renewed inquiry, revealing how photographic processes can open unexpected pathways in abstraction.
All That Photography unfolds across the entire museum, bringing together over 300 works and archival materials by 36 pioneering Korean artists who have used photography or photographic imagery as a generative medium since the late 1950s. Rather than treating photography as a document, the exhibition follows its movement across painting, printmaking, sculpture, installation, and video—tracing how it became a catalyst for new artistic languages in the wake of Korea’s rapidly shifting postwar landscape.
Emerging from a period of intense experimentation—from the avant-garde collectives of the 1960s to the boundary-breaking practices of the 1970s and 1980s—the exhibition highlights how artists embraced photography to rethink form, space, and perception. Their works echo the sensibilities of each era, revealing how photographic thinking offered a way to sense what persists even as it transforms, and to envision art as a field that absorbs both material intuition and conceptual rigor.
Through the distinct vocabularies of these artists, All That Photography invites viewers into a layered history of Korean contemporary art—one shaped by image, reflection, and experiment. As the museum’s first exhibition to span its entire space, it also gestures toward the institution’s future direction, where photography continues to open new routes of inquiry and imagination.
