Photograph, c-print on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
Portfolio
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/rene-burri-22358" aria-label="More by René Burri" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">René Burri</a>
South Korea 1987
Presented by Pierre Brahm 2015
adults
architecture
blur
cities, towns, villages (non-UK)
countries and continents
documentary
emotions, concepts and ideas
fine arts and music
formal qualities
Korea, South
objects
people
photographic
places
public and municipal
relief
Seoul - non-specific
signage
townscapes / man-made features
underground station
woman
<p><span>South Korea, 1987</span> 1987, printed 2014, is a colour photograph by the Swiss photographer René Burri. In it, figures move around three octagonal columns under a ‘Way Out’ sign in a Seoul subway station. The space’s rear wall is decorated with a well-lit frieze of equestrian figures, while the pediment-like area above the roof of the main space (which dominates the upper portion of the photograph) contains a blossoming branch flanked by storks. The long shutter speed used by Burrí blurs the figures’ heads and bodies to a greater or lesser extent depending on how quickly they are moving – a woman wearing a blue dress appears as little more than a wisp in high heels while the figure in a checked shirt on the left is almost in focus.</p>
paper print photograph c-print
South Korea, 1987
image: 345 × 510 mm
Presented by Pierre Brahm 2015
<div class="text">
<p>
<i>South Korea, 1987</i> 1987, printed 2014, is a colour photograph by the Swiss photographer René Burri. In it, figures move around three octagonal columns under a ‘Way Out’ sign in a Seoul subway station. The space’s rear wall is decorated with a well-lit frieze of equestrian figures, while the pediment-like area above the roof of the main space (which dominates the upper portion of the photograph) contains a blossoming branch flanked by storks. The long shutter speed used by Burrí blurs the figures’ heads and bodies to a greater or lesser extent depending on how quickly they are moving – a woman wearing a blue dress appears as little more than a wisp in high heels while the figure in a checked shirt on the left is almost in focus.</p>
<p>This image is part of a portfolio of twenty-seven prints (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/burri-inauguration-of-the-chapel-of-notre-dame-du-haut-france-1955-p14301" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P14301</span></a>–<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/burri-poster-of-che-guevara-1993-p14327" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P14327</span></a>), selected and compiled by Burri as a cohesive group shortly before his death in 2014. The selection spans his sixty-year career and includes a number of his best known black and white works, as well as a group of lesser-known colour works. The portfolio was printed by Burri in 2014 and this copy is number three in an edition of five plus one artist’s proof. It contains fourteen black and white gelatin silver prints and thirteen colour C-prints, highlighting Burri’s diverse use of light and shadow alongside his experimental use of colour. Although predominantly known for shooting in black and white, Burri often travelled with two cameras, switching between them to capture images in both colour and greyscale. This was a progressive approach at the time, when colour photography was generally only used in advertising or for commercial practices. Burri revisited his archive of colour images later in his career and published the monograph <i>René Burri: Impossible Reminiscences</i> in 2013 as a decisive examination of this work.</p>
<p>Burri is most famous for his work as a member of the photojournalism agency Magnum Photos and the portfolio includes images produced in this context from projects in Brazil, Egypt, Lebanon, East Germany, China and South Korea, as well as an iconic image of Cuban revolutionary leader Che Guevara taken in Havana in 1963. The young Burri was introduced to Magnum by fellow Swiss photographer Werner Bischof and began working with the agency first as an associate in 1955, before becoming a full member in 1959. His extensive career encompassed a wide variety of photographic practices, including documentary, reportage, street photography and the photo-essay, as well as portraiture, architecture and landscape. He often worked on press assignments and personal projects simultaneously, building a varied portfolio of work in both black and white and colour. Burri’s use of both bird’s eye and worm’s eye views and his attention to the effects of light and shadow created by architectural forms are reminiscent of techniques used by modernist photographers in the early twentieth century.</p>
<p>
<b>Further reading</b>
<br/>Hans-Michael Koetzle, <i>René Burri Photographs</i>, London 2003.<br/>Hans-Michael Koetzle, <i>René Burri: Impossible Reminiscences</i>, London 2013.</p>
<p>Shoair Mavlian<br/>January 2015<br/>Arthur Goodwin<br/>October 2018</p>
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Summary
2019-01-18T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
adults architecture blur cities, towns, villages (non-UK) countries and continents documentary emotions, concepts and ideas fine arts and music formal qualities Korea, South objects people photographic places public and municipal relief Seoul - non-specific signage townscapes / man-made features underground station woman