HYUN-DOO PARK

Hyun-doo Park majored in Photography in Chungang University, Korea and School of Visual Arts, New York. Through various solo and group exhibitions, Park consecutively presented Goodbye Stranger 1, 2, 3 series. For this exhibition at Arario Gallery Cheongdam, Park presents Goodbye Stranger 2, in which the artist photographed ordinary people, such as boxers, office workers and housewives in popular entertainment spaces like broadcasting studios and concert halls in the period of 5 years. The artist’s work demonstrates the idea that while spaces of popular media give information and pleasure to the mass, the individual cannot enter the media itself. Park stages office workers with unrealized childhood dreams and depressed boxers who long for the spotlight and audience cheers in splendid Star Craft or Quiz Show sets, casting a stark contrast between inescapable reality and unrealized dreams. By juxtaposing elements of reality and unreality and fact and fabrication, Park focuses on the communication rupture between the individual and spaces of mass media which dominates mass communication in contemporary society.