Deoksu Palace-Seoul

Im Sangbin (b. 1976)’s work starts with the “urban city” and “people” living there. He also focuses on meetings, relations, and collisions in the city between human and urban, nature and artificiality, past and present, East and West, reality and imagination, and desire and restraint. These form the layered semantic network, making non-linear connections with each other.
Before depicting the Seoul cityscape, he photographed Manhattan scenery in New York. In Seoul, the tradition and modern coexist, and nature and artificiality harmonize with each other. Forested mountains lie behind the traditional ornate palaces, and skyscrapers stand everywhere. In comparison to Seoul, Manhattan, with its short history, hardly has any old historic landmarks, and Central Park placed in the middle of the city was also artificially established in the modern period.
This work is the scenery captured from inside of Deoksugung Palace. The skyscrapers loom over the palace, but the antique palace remains tranquil.