Kim Yong-ho
Photographer
“Form is but the surface of essence; truth lies beyond.” Photographer Kim Yong-Ho has expanded photography beyond mere documentation into a language of thought.
Moving fluidly between commerce and art, he transforms memories and lived experience into surreal narratives that define his distinctive aesthetics. His presence across advertising, fashion, art, and lifestyle resonates widely, while reinterpreting cultural icons with daring originality.
Refusing to rest in formalist beauty, Kim pursues moments captured at the threshold of the unconscious, recording them with relentless intensity. This trajectory has positioned him not only as a photographer but as a thinker-artist, leaving an experimental path that continually redefines the meaning of the medium.
Beyond the Frame: The Photographic World of Kim Yong-Ho
Photographer Kim Yong-Ho’s exhibitions consistently transcend convention. <Masters of Korean Culture and Arts> (2003) recontextualized figures such as Nam June Paik, Park Jung-ja, and Chung Myung-Whun through installation, reviving their aura in a contemporary frame. <Beyond the Wall> presented portraits of Sumi Jo, Kang Sue-jin, and Kim Yong-geol, asserting Korea’s cultural stature on a global stage. <Body> (2007–2008) explored the human form in unsettling ways, gaining international resonance, while <Pian>, <Encounter(s)>, <Elegant Life>, and <Wings of Yi Sang> translated inner psyche and collective spirit through the dialogue of photography and video. In 2017, the monumental installation <blow blow blow> immersed viewers “into the image,” dissolving the frame into environment. Preserving photography’s virtues of gaze and record, Kim continually expands into video, installation, and text—breathing new vitality into still images and redefining the boundaries of vision.
Kim Yong-Ho
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NEWance: Transforming the Moment into a World
The project of Kim Yong-Ho and NEWance begins with a shared pursuit: to move beyond form toward essence, and to extend photography from record into a language of thought. His lotus-inspired series <Pian>, a meditation on the “other shore,” condenses his enduring inquiry that truth lies beyond what is visible. Through this initiative, <Pian> is reborn as digital media art. The still image escapes the frame, unfolding into an immersive landscape where viewers become small lifeforms beneath swaying lotus leaves. More than digitization, it transforms the photographic moment into an environment of sound, light, and movement. No longer a passive object of vision, the work becomes a realm to inhabit and reflect upon. For NEWance, it signifies a renewal of contemporary aesthetics through the fusion of traditional symbolism and advanced media; for Kim, it realizes a lifelong pursuit to awaken unseen perspectives.
