Mr. & Mrs. is a project based on the photographs inherited from the paternal grandparents of Korean-Venezuelan artist Suwon Lee.
Lee photographed the family album, removing her grandparents’ faces from the images to create a timeline in which family history, the history of Korea, and the history of photography subtly intertwine.
Each image is accompanied by a text written by photography historian, curator, and photobook specialist Horacio Fernández. Succinct, mysterious, and at the same time revealing, the text unfolds as a continuous first-person narrative, recounting the life of each protagonist.
The book consists of two volumes in one, accessed from opposite ends: the front and back covers must be turned upside down to enter the other book. Both volumes conclude and converge in the central double-page spread, which features the only photograph of the two protagonists together: their wedding day, when they are pictured wearing traditional Korean wedding attire.
This book is co-published with Spanish publishing house Editorial RM.
About the Artist
Suwon Lee is a Korean-Venezuelan artist based in Madrid. Photography is the predominant medium in her practice, through which she explores themes such as collective memory, identity, social crises, the passage of time, nature, and the environment.
Her work has been exhibited in the United States, Brazil, Venezuela, Panama, Spain, Colombia, Chile, Korea, France, and other countries. Her works are held in the collections of MoMA, New York (USA); the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection (USA); CIFO Miami (USA); Colección Banco Mercantil (Venezuela); Museu de Arte Brasileira da Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado (Brazil); and various private collections.
2024
11.5 × 16.5 cm
Paperback with slipcase
376 pages
183 photographs
Weight: 360 g
