© Kim In Sook.

New Photography in Korea II is now on view in Paris at Galerie Paris Beijing. The exhibition features works by a dozen young Koreans “on the cusp of international recognition,” according to the curators. “[Their work] represents principal currents in contemporary Korean photography: Urbanisation, globalisation, consumption, identity, culture, memory, family, sexuality, the fabric of society…” The exhibition closes October 29.

Above: In her series Saturday Night, Kim In Sook constructs the fantasy of every voyeur: The curtains are wide open in all 66 windows of a hotel, shamelessly exposing the occupants as they go about their business, some of it quite intimate.

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All photos © Chris Burkard.

“We hiked 12 miles to get to this remote beachbreak, (pictured above)” says California-based surf photographer Chris Burkard. “It was worth every step.”  A staff photographer for Surfer Magazine, Burkard spends most of his time traveling, and strives to document not only the action, but the in-between moments and the lifestyle of the sport.

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All photos © Jake Price

The six-month anniversary of the March 11 tsunami that struck northeastern Japan came and went with little attention in the Western press. But New York-based photographer Jake Price, who has spent a total of ten weeks in Tōhoku since March, believes the environmental devastation the disaster wrought will be a story for a long time to come. While the media has focused on nuclear contamination, he says, “Walking past overturned boats, cars, trucks, I realized that their oil, gas and other chemicals emptied into the soil and groundwater.” He photographed mounds made from the bulldozed debris of entire towns, which contain insulation, fiberglas and chemical contaminants.

The salt water and oil that washed into farms has made the land unusable for five years or more. ”Many elderly farmers will never see growth on their land again. Still they work diligently to hand it off to future generations, an issue that is filled with uncertainty because so many young people have left for the big cities.”

Price shot many still images, video and audio in the region, and the BBC showed some of his images in an audio slide show.

Of the limited press attention paid to the crisis, Price notes, “I think the perception … is that the Japanese have everything figured out because it is such an orderly society.  But that is simplistic at best.  People are still coping with enormous stress and loneliness after losing everything.”

Though assignments to cover the story are rare, Price is planning to return to the region soon. “The more I get to know about Tōhoku the more interested I become.” He wants to donate his images to libraries and community centers to help the region begin restoring the visual record lost in the tsunami.

All photos © Michael Wolf.

Michael Wolf’s upcoming exhibition “Life in Cities” includes works from his  series “Tokyo Compression”, “Architecture of Density” and introduces a new body of work, “Series of Unfortunate Events,” also know as “Google Street View,” which will be on view for the very first time in Switzerland at the Christophe Guye Galerie.

In a way distinctly his own, German-born photography artist Wolf manages with breathtaking visuals to capture modern life in all its aspects. Whether visualizing densely populated metropolitan cities with dramatic portraits of facades, capturing the confining crowdedness of their inhabitants, or commenting on the surveyed “private” space we share, Wolf’s works are both artistic and culturally investigative alike, touching on the nerve of time with his intimate yet indicative portrait of 21st century urban life. Life in Cities is synchronized with current group exhibitions at the Museum für Gestaltung, Zurich, showcasing works from Architecture of Density, and Tokyo Compression currently on view at the Noorderlicht Photofestival, Groningen, Netherlands.

-  courtesy Christophe Guye Galerie

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All photos © Monika Merva.

The City of Children is an extensive document of a government-run housing program for runaways and at-risk teens, located in Hungary. The program was founded in the 1950s, when the Hungarian social welfare system emphasized collective solutions to private problems. New York based photographer Monika Merva has worked on this documentary project for over 8 years. Her book The City of Children was published by Kehrer Verlag Heidelberg in 2010.

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