This is an urgent warning for acrophobics. If you haven’t already up-chucked at the sight of our first image, navigate away now or you may have to be given oxygen and helped from the room. South Korean photographer Jun Ahn has certainly got a head for heights if her Self-Portrait collection is anything to go by; we are assured that the frankly horrifying images in this series are not manipulated in post-production, and that she really is living life on the edge. Only a well-hidden safety fastening stops the daredevil artist from passing the point of no return and completing the suicidal final phase of her gut-wrenching scenes, described as a performance without an audience.
Jun Ahn’s apparent fearlessness in perching atop skyscrapers and cliff edges gives her an almost superheroine quality, but it is married with an intense child-like vulnerability which creates an interesting conflict of emotion in the viewer. Receiving her higher education in America before returning to study for a PhD in Photography in her native South Korea, Jun Ahn is following in an established tradition of self-portraits by female photographers which became popular in the 1970s, and her dizzying take on the genre is being shown at Christophe Guye Galerie, Zürich, from 16 October to 21 November.
Jun Ahn (*1981, South Korea)
Self-Portrait (Hong Kong)
2011
Archival Pigment Print
sheet 101,6 x 76,2 cm ( 40 x 30 in. )
framed 114 x 90 cm ( 44 7/8 x 35 3/8 in. )
Edition of 5, plus 2 AP’s; Ed. no. 1/5
Jun Ahn (*1981, South Korea)
Self-Portrait (Australia)
2013
Archival Pigment Print
sheet 101,6 x 152,4 cm ( 40 x 60 in. )
framed 114 x 165 cm ( 44 7/8 x 65 in. )
Edition of 5, plus 2 AP’s; Ed. no. 3/5
Jun Ahn (*1981, South Korea)
Self-Portrait (New York)
2012
Archival Pigment Print
sheet 152,4 x 101,6 cm ( 60 x 40 in. )
framed 165 x 114 cm ( 65 x 44 7/8 in. )
Edition of 5, plus 2 AP’s; Ed. no. 1/5
Jun Ahn (*1981, South Korea)
Self-Portrait (Seoul)
2009
Archival Pigment Print
sheet 101,6 x 76,2 cm ( 40 x 30 in. )
framed 114 x 90 cm ( 44 7/8 x 35 3/8 in. )
Edition of 5, plus 2 AP’s; Ed. no. 1/5
