Comments on: Yoonki Kim

By: yaohong

yaohong — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 09:46:03 +0000

herve, I agree with your thought that perhaps Yoonki wanted us to think what could happen to the smiling kid in a few years’ time. This fabricated reality of happiness, is after all, fabricated. However, I still think that he was too heavy handed in including those last images, as Edward mentioned. And showing images from the same scene just seemed like a shortcut to show us the other reality.

An Xiao: Hi! Thanks for your support!

By: Viaggi avventura

Viaggi avventura — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 05:25:01 +0000

Really nice shots, genttle and full of poetry.
I believe that every photographer has to take position and you can see slums from different angles of view.

By: herve

herve — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 17:25:37 +0000

If it was just smiles, then Yoonki might as well be a slightly adventurous tourist, no? I think what he is doing is showing us his journey thru the slums, and maybe the problem is juxtaposition of things he may have seen on different days, and with different moods. I undrestand it is not so easy to go from smiling at kids, then shuddering at the sight of drug abuse. Was the idea fro Yooki to show us what a smiling kid could become, when you give him an extra 5 or 6 years in the slums? (and for a girl, maybe a brothel bed). We cannot just stop at a picture and a simple reaction, he asks us to encompass a whole reality, or rather a whole truth at slum life. IMO.

By: An Xiao

An Xiao — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 13:32:52 +0000

By the way - hello! I love your blog, and I’ve just added it to my blogrolls.

By: An Xiao

An Xiao — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 13:26:34 +0000

I think the photographer is asking us to step away from these smiles - it’s a bit patronizing and simplistic to think that people living in slums are always happy and always cheerful. Certainly, they do keep positive spirits, as demonstrated by these photos, but life is far from easy in the slums, and I think that’s what those “extra” pictures are meant to describe.

By: Edward Sanderson

Edward Sanderson — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 23:09:15 +0000

I agree about with your point about the last images, their inclusion seems a bit heavy-handed. If these darker pictures are presented by the artist as a counterpoint to the earlier, ’smily’ pictures, I think that the distinction between them is too great and in the process risks devaluing any message either has. However it could also be argued that this is a means to illicit a reaction in the viewer that the artist feels the context (the slums, the state of life in them) demands? If I wanted to get political about it, I think pictures like these force us to confront questions about what do we want from art and what do we think (our) art should be doing?

By: herve

herve — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 05:01:47 +0000

I think you have to look at it in context (Klong Toey are the slums of Bangkok, the only place that is deemed unsafe to wander in, as a foreigner), not as individual portraits. So that even the smiling shot with the fat man has its part of drama. We are meant to go beyond, behind the smiles, and see that drama. In that shot, the obesity of the man, which may very well spell unemployed, diabetic, or the likes. It’s a journey in the heart of Thailand, warts and all, including good spiritedness that every thai, even slummed, can impart on the visitor.

IMO.