HAN YOUNGSOO

The title of both the exhibition and publication, And Life Goes On, was inspired by People in Times of Recovery, a short piece Han included in Korean Lives After the War 1956-1960, a monograph he published during his lifetime.

• “With those harrowing memories etched in my mind, I was discharged from my military service and returned to a life marred by the soot of war. And yet, what surprised and astonished me the most was this utterly simple and obvious fact: ‘People still lived on.’” Han Youngsoo

According to Han Sunjung, the director of the Han Youngsoo Foundation, Han’s signature framing has already been showcased in previous photobooks, but the works chosen for this monograph are especially theatrical and intense, almost evoking cinematic qualities.

On the first floor, the exhibition focuses on urban landscapes (buildings, streets, and plazas) as they appear alongside the people who inhabited them, highlighting Han’s poignant eye for the traces of everyday life during a postwar period of reconstruction and recovery. These works allow viewers to experience the temporality of the time and space in which the Korean people lived. On the second floor, Han’s lens moves closer to the more intimate details of individuals’ lives. The resulting imagery is more emotionally vivid, distilling moments from dramatic scenes that capture the day-to-day means of carrying on with life.

Han Youngsoo’s works invite us to reflect on the lives of ordinary people who lived through this era, and on the warmth that sustained the Korean people’s resilience. This exhibition offers a chance to confront the records of time left by the artist’s gaze, and to take a closer look at his genuine aspiration to capture life’s romance and optimism even amidst the harsh urban landscapes following the Korean War. As Han’s photographs show, life continues to flow and, still indeed, goes on today.