Publisher/IANN

Google翻訳
Cosmetic Girls is a collection of works by Korean photographer Hein-Keun Oh. Working across the fields of fashion and portraiture, Oh has consistently explored the relationship between gaze, desire, and representation, questioning how globalized standards of beauty are imprinted on the individual body. In this work, Oh captures young women after plastic surgery head-on, quietly juxtaposing their near-expressionless gazes with homogenized facial features. The photographs eschew critical commentary or emotional direction, instead maintaining an extremely flat distance between the subject and the camera, leaving the decision to the viewer. What emerges here is an ambiguous point where "beauty" as a personal choice intersects with "beauty" as a social pressure. Resonating with the lineage of stereotypical portraits and conceptual practices surrounding the body in photography history, the work highlights the relationship between ideals created by consumer society and self-identity. Without condemning or defending the subjects, this book quietly questions our own gaze.