During Hahn’s lifetime, he died in 1999, he was known primarily for his commercial work. In 1966, he founded Han’s Photo, one of the first studios specializing in advertising (cosmetics and electronics) as the consumer era entered South Korea. He occasionally showed his street art photographs, and published selections in a book in 1987 called “Korean Lives.” (삶). He wrote in the introduction to that text: “The camera’s eye opened my eyes to the human condition. . . . We have evolved with the nation in an era of rapid modernization.” After his death, his daughter Han Sunjong devoted herself to his archives, leading a project to sort through thousands of negatives and prints, trying to understand what she describes as “the puzzle of Han’s fragmented diaries, stuck in corners in the film files.” and photo captions Descriptions are published in catalogs. To date, four books of his photographs have been published, organized by subject, and exhibitions have been held in museums in Korea, France, Hungary, and the United States. I saw a selection of her latest book, When the Winds of Spring Blows, which focuses on images of women, at an exhibition last year in Manhattan.
Hahn practiced a literary genre that I would call naked truth. There is always the human figure on one side, and the lines and shapes on the other. According to the artist Emile Robineau, Hahn generally maintained a “constant physical distance” from his subjects; He worked at a distance sufficient to allow things to happen, in contrast to the close-up “dominant documentary aesthetic of the period.” With distance comes a lot of scenic detail and movement. Consider the suspense wrapped in what initially appears to be a still image. The place is an antique shop: there’s a glass-fronted cabinet, messily stuffed with random objects; Tile floors are stained and cracked. Woman wearing a traditional two-piece Hanbok Dress – dark Jejuri summit; Light, flowery Shima Skirt – with sleek, Hollywood-style hair, sits on a metal chair reading a broadsheet newspaper. But she doesn’t just sit. It folds itself so sharply that its face is barely visible. She puts all her focus into the newspaper. Her sucking pose is further enhanced by the outward splaying of her feet, wrapped around an elf toe beoseon Socks.
Myeongdong, Seoul, undated (1956-1963).
The formal composition in that image is most evident in Hahn’s aerial landscapes, shot from bridges and overhangs. In one, five women in white Hanbokcarrying bundles of white laundry on their heads, form a tight diagonal spiral (in response to gusts of wind?) against dark fields of grass and farmland. In another, overlooking the Han River marina, there are three interwoven layers: the water (most of the image), the hilly horizon, and, on the left, a scalloped edge of rowboats and storage sheds that draw your eye down. A small image of a man in a swimsuit, seen from behind, extending his arms in a ‘T’ shape. He is about to dive from a dilapidated river barge, but at this moment, his white body resembles an ornate cross.