In his latest body of work, the Korean-French photographer Oan Kim has brought his piercing photographic style to a decadent, overexposed scene: the music night club. But unlike other photographers who revel in the typical nightclub debauchery, Kim has elevated the club scene in his photographs. In Fanfare 27, Kim, with the multiple exposures, has inundated us in the frenetic, exciting energy of the nightclub, spurred on by the musicians just out of the frame. He has taken part in the scene, but he maintains a certain distance. This is part of Kim’s mystique; he presents us with the scene, but also manages to preserve a voyeuristic overtone.

He shows the drinking, the smoking, the dancing, but his subjects retain certain enigmatic qualities. They’re mysterious creatures that Kim studies with his piercing eye. He catches them in private moments, in public moments and everything in between, all the while maintaining a certain distance.

Working strictly in black and white, as he has with most of his past work, Kim manages to break into the profundity underlying a crowded, sweaty nightclub scene. In Fanfare 21, the female face breaks out against the blackness of the surrounding crowd. She’s somewhat blurry due to Kim’s use of the long exposure. Kim presents us with this beautiful, mysterious subject amidst the undoubtedly sweaty, noisy crowd.

Oan was born in France and graduated from the college of Beaux-Arts de Paris. His photographs have been shown all over the world such as Paris, Seoul, Macau, and Brazil and are included among collections in the Fond National d’Art Contemporain in France as well as the Macau Museum of Art. His photographic style has been described as concise, penetrating the unconscious cores of people and cities. This will be his first solo show in Los Angeles.