Ra Inseok: Touching the Photograph, and a Ballpoint Pen That Bends

Ra Inseok calls photography a tactile medium. In his frames a ballpoint pen bends like a bow. A close look at his three works at the Seed Art Festival.

Ra Inseok, From Seoul Tower, 2019, pigment-based inkjet on touched paper, 107.5×77.5 cm

Ra Inseok says this about himself.

"I prayed to gain a superpower, and ended up with the ability to capture a bent and curving world. Because of that, artist Ra Inseok sees even a straight line as a curve. Call it 'straight curves.' A straight line captured by the camera is a bent world."

Half joke, half truth. But after seeing his photographs, the ratio of joke keeps shrinking. Seoul Tower, Lotte World Tower, even a Monami ballpoint — all bend in his frame. He insists he has discovered it.

A Photographer Who Touches the Print

Ra Inseok's practice begins in pure photography and extends into visual art with photography as medium. To convey the tactility of a subject, he scratches the print paper so ink seeps through. Where photography is usually called record, he pulls it toward touch.

His solo titles summarize the posture.

2019 TOUCH (Gallery Bresson)
2019 Photography Touches the World (Photographers Gallery Korea)
2019 From the Event, From (Gallery Gupi)
2021 From the Bent World (Gallery Bresson)

The declaration that photography touches the world redefines looking as touching. Earlier trajectory: 2018 Return of the Image (Space Thein), 2015 CONTACT (Photographers Gallery Korea), 2012 IMAGE2IMAGE (Gallery Yuki, Seoul), and 2013 IMAGE2IMAGE 2 at Gallery Yuki, Tokyo.

Photography Read as a Book

In 2019 two photo books appeared together. TOUCH (Namib) and On Photography (Noonbit). Photography not only as wall image but also a place on the shelf. Making photography an object again.

Bent Seoul

Ra Inseok, From the Trajectory of Curvilinear Motion: Lotte World Tower 230817, 2023, pigment-based inkjet on matte paper, 50×30 cm

From the Trajectory of Curvilinear Motion: Lotte World Tower 230817 — Seoul on August 17, 2023

Ra Inseok's SAF contributions bend city icons. Two symbols of straightness — tall towers — become curves before his lens. A structure thought to stand long, unshaken, straight, turns out to rest on a bent world.

He handles everyday objects the same way.

Ra Inseok, From the Curved World — Monami Ballpoint 1, 2015, pigment-based inkjet on matte paper, 42×58 cm

From the Curved World — Monami Ballpoint 1 — a moment when the most common tool becomes evidence of a twisted world

One Monami ballpoint. An object nearly every Korean has held. Even this most-straight-looking tool bends inside Ra Inseok's lens. For evidence that the world is bent, he chose the most everyday thing.

Three SAF Works

Ra Inseok contributes three works to SAF.

84.9% of Korean artists are excluded from institutional finance. Sales of works by SAF-exhibiting artists cycle into a mutual-aid fund, returning as low-interest loans to fellow artists.

Though the world looks straight, at many points it is bent. Same for the fact that many artists stand daily on a bent line of finance. The straight curve Ra Inseok reveals through photography points to the exact structure the 84.9% number names.

Touching Photography, Making Solidarity

If photography were only a medium of record, the piece would end here. But Ra Inseok's photography touches the world. And touching causes transformation.

When one of his works hangs on someone's wall, that wall is no longer the same. And when part of the sale transfers to a peer artist's rent, the next day of that artist is not the same. Two transformations. As photography bends a straight line into a curve, SAF refracts one painting into one person's recovery.