Nayoung
Kang, “A Sunday Outing”, Installation view of 《2025
KUMHO YOUNG ARTIST 2》 ©Kumho Museum of ArtThe Reference presents its first international
Asia photography exchange exhibition of 2025, titled 《So-real,
Surreal》, until June 15. This exhibition, hosted by the
Arts Council Korea and T3 Photo Festival Tokyo, features four artists from
Korea and Japan.
《So-real, Surreal》 looks
beneath images that appear real yet feel strangely unfamiliar, revealing the
cracks beneath their surface and the sensations that tremble within. Today,
photography is no longer just a tool for documentation—it has become a sensory
device that challenges how we perceive and question reality.
Together with four participating artists,
the exhibition reflects on these themes and explores the expanded language of
photography through digital manipulation, technological interventions, and
objects of memory. At the same time, it highlights the enduring “power of
documentation” inherent in traditional documentary photography.
《So-real, Surreal》 asks:
What does photography capture, and how does it exist? Through works that shake
and reconstruct the image, the exhibition invites viewers to shed the illusion
of photography as a mirror of truth, and instead experience a photographic
world where the surreal becomes the real—where belief and doubt collide.
Participating
Artists: Chiga
Kenji, Cho Moonhee, Song Sanghyun, Suzuki Nozomi
