State of Emergency

Korean photographer NOH Suntag (*1971 in Seoul), who works in both North and South Korea, is interested in the ambivalences and breaches within and between these two societies: their mirroring relationship, the military presence and ideological extremes on both sides, the relationship between the individual and the masses, and violent situations that penetrate everyday life in the South as well as the North, which are as subtle as they are open.
This ambivalence finds its counterpart in NOH’s unconventional photographic aesthetics, which combines the documentary with the fictional, the snapshot with strict composition. His series of black-and-white as well as color photographs, which are usually developed over a number of years, scrutinize the conflict situations in contemporary Korean society. The image of Korea NOH develops in the process is one of a permanent state of emergency. This publication shows works produced between 2000 and 2007.