12 - Park Chan-wook - On a clam morning

Jul 6, 2026 – Oct 4, 2026

As part of its temporary summer program and the celebrations marking 140 years of French-Korean diplomacy, Lee Ufan Arles is delighted to present, for the first time in France, the photographic work of internationally renowned Korean director Park Chan-wook. Park Chan-wook, director of 17 films, a man in a hurry who checks his phone between questions, a perfectionist who creates storyboards before every shoot—is a different man entirely when he picks up a camera. Park Chan-wook, as a photographer, is the contemplative version of this hyperactive man, and makes the most of his moments of calm and freedom to take photographs with no specific goal in mind: whatever catches his experienced eye, whatever charms, surprises, or amuses him. A natural motif that resembles a body. A cat that reminds us that human beings are just one species among many. Action gnaws at him, just as it gnaws at his heroes—and his antiheroes—in his devastatingly effective screenplays, often laced with dark humor, and imbued with a caustic philosophy on human beings confronted with the moral dilemma of living among others. His photographs, however, are anchored in a long, silent, suspended moment. They are freeze frames that provide the material for his reflections, the breathing space of a man who lets go of control for a moment. This is the first time his photographs have been exhibited in Europe, at the Lee Ufan Foundation.