A centennial exhibition for Lee Kyung-mo, born in 1926, is now open on floors 3 to 5 of the gallery at KT&G Sangsang Madang (Hongdae) in Seoul. Titled 《The Weight of Ordinary Days》, it opened Oct. 8 and runs through Nov. 22. Photographs and cameras held by Dongshin University’s Lee Kyung-mo Camera Museum in Naju have been moved to Seoul. According to KT&G’s press release, the show includes about 100 photographs, about 100 cameras, and personal effects such as handwritten notes and film.

Lee Kyung-mo is usually remembered first for his pictures of the Yeosu–Suncheon October 19 incident and the Korean War. This show hangs school sports days, family and neighborhood scenes beside them, and the title comes from that pairing. The organizers explain that the days he photographed historic moments and the days he spent with his family run on in one life with the same weight.

The Camera He Picked Up Instead of a Brush

Lee was born in 1926 in Gwangyang, South Jeolla Province. According to Dongshin University’s press release, he began photography in 1939, when his grandfather gave him a Minolta Vest as he entered Gwangju Higher Common School. He had originally wanted to be a painter. KT&G Sangsang Madang says that when his family stood in the way of art school, he took up a camera in place of a brush.

In 1946, at twenty, he became head of the photography department at the Honam Shinmun, now the Kwangju Ilbo. The exhibition singles out this period as “Lee Kyung-mo, Young Artist.” It shows what a young man who dreamed of painting chose to photograph before he became known as a documentary photographer.

Yeosu and Suncheon in 1948, the Front Line in 1950

In 1948 he was on the scene of the Yeosu–Suncheon October 19 incident as a Honam Shinmun staff photographer. According to Dongshin, the camera he carried then was the Kodak Special Bantam. During the Korean War he followed the troops and recorded the front, this time with a Leica IIIb. The exhibition also shows the reporter’s notebook he kept during the war and a diary that had not been made public before.

Black-and-white photograph. A young man in a steel helmet, tie and heavy overcoat stands with an armband on his sleeve and a small camera hanging at his chest. Factory chimneys and tiled roofs show behind him.
Lee Kyung-mo covering the Yeosu–Suncheon October 19 incident, 1948. He wears a helmet and armband, with a small camera hanging at the chest of his overcoat.Courtesy of Dongshin University’s Lee Kyung-mo Camera Museum. Source: The Hankyoreh (2023)
Black-and-white photograph. A U.S. Air Force rescue helicopter settles in swirling dust, with a U.S. Army jeep driving in front of it. A signpost reading KAESONG stands at right, and soldiers cover their faces against the dust.
The Korean War, Paju, Gyeonggi Province, 1951. A “KAESONG” signpost stands in the dust kicked up by a rescue helicopter.© Lee Kyung-mo · Courtesy of Dongshin University’s Lee Kyung-mo Camera Museum. Source: Monthly Photo Art

Sports Days, Iljumun Gate, and Panmunjom

The other half of the show is everyday life. Dongshin says the exhibition widens a body of work long seen through the turbulence of modern history to include the lives of ordinary citizens and the upper class in the industrializing 1960s. The cotton candy photograph at the top was taken at a school sports day in Seoul in 1955, two years after the armistice.

The exhibition hall. On the left wall, a framed black-and-white group photograph hangs below a short handwritten-style text; on the far wall are four small color prints and another short text. The floor is gray concrete.
The exhibition at KT&G Sangsang Madang (Hongdae). Beside a group portrait, the left wall carries a diary entry dated July 30: on his way to Gwangyang he met his father, who wept at the sight of him. Small color prints hang on the far wall.Photo: KT&G Sangsang Madang Instagram
Black-and-white photograph. A single tiled-roof Iljumun gate stands on a grassy rise, with two small figures beneath it. Clouds spread across the sky.
Iljumun Gate of Bongeunsa Temple, Seoul, 1954. The two people under the gate give a sense of its size.© Lee Kyung-mo · Courtesy of Dongshin University’s Lee Kyung-mo Camera Museum. Source: Dongshin University
Color photograph. Visitors in suits and dresses walk along a road between conference buildings, with a bus parked behind them. Soldiers stand along the road and beside the buildings.
Panmunjom, Paju, Gyeonggi Province, 1961. Visitors who have stepped off a bus walk between the conference buildings. Some pictures from this period are in color.© Lee Kyung-mo · Courtesy of Dongshin University’s Lee Kyung-mo Camera Museum. Source: Monthly Photo Art

Seeing a war and a sports day photographed by the same person side by side in one gallery, which feels heavier? The exhibition title answers in advance: both weigh the same.

The Photographer Who Donated More Than 1,400 Cameras

Lee donated the more than 1,400 cameras he collected over a lifetime, along with his photographs, to Dongshin University. The university opened a camera museum with them in 1996, which KT&G Sangsang Madang describes as the first camera museum in Korea. This is the first time the collection has been shown in Seoul.

The cameras named in Dongshin’s press release are these: analog cameras from the 1890s to the 1990s, the Minolta Vest he used himself just after Korea’s liberation, the Kodak Special Bantam from the Yeosu–Suncheon incident, the Leica IIIb from his time with the troops in the Korean War, early Polaroids, miniature spy cameras, press cameras used by reporters, and even cameras from the former Communist bloc.

Inside a glass case, three gold-bodied cameras and a gold camera covered in red leather sit behind a silver rangefinder camera. Yellow and red film boxes are visible at the back.
A camera case in the exhibition. A silver rangefinder sits in front of gold-bodied cameras, with film boxes behind them.Photo: KT&G Sangsang Madang Instagram
Inside a glass case are a press camera with a round reflector flash, a bellows camera and several compact cameras. A poster reading 100 Years of Camera History hangs on the wall behind.
A press camera fitted with a flash, and several compact cameras. The poster on the wall behind reads “100 Years of Camera History.”Photo: KT&G Sangsang Madang Instagram

Eight Frames to a Roll

If you shoot film, the Kodak Special Bantam is worth a pause. Released in 1936, it was designed by industrial designer Walter Dorwin Teague and is also in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It used Kodak’s 828 film: 35mm wide, with a single perforation per frame instead of two rows, giving eight 28×40mm exposures per roll (Mike Eckman).

It also means the 1948 scenes from Yeosu and Suncheon were shot on a camera that took eight frames per roll. Used as we are to 36-exposure rolls, what would we keep if we had only eight?

Details

Exhibition poster. Red lettering near the top of a white ground spells the title, and in the center, children and adults stand on a wooden lookout in a black-and-white photograph. At right, 2026 10.8 Thu and 11.22 Sun are printed.
Poster for 《The Weight of Ordinary Days》.Source: Dongshin University
  • Exhibition Lee Kyung-mo centennial exhibition 《The Weight of Ordinary Days》
  • Dates Oct. 8 (Thu.) – Nov. 22 (Sun.), 2026. Closed Mondays
  • Venue KT&G Sangsang Madang (Hongdae) Gallery, floors 3–5, 65 Eoullimadang-ro, Mapo-gu, Seoul
  • Hours 11:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m. (last admission 6:30 p.m.)
  • Admission Free
  • Organizers KT&G Sangsang Madang, Dongshin University, Asia Culture Center (ACC)
  • Publication Two Gazes of Lee Kyung-mo (『이경모, 두 개의 시선』)
  • Tour Asia Culture Center (ACC), Gwangju, Mar. 2 – Apr. 23, 2027, then GoEun Museum of Photography, Busan
  • More KT&G Sangsang Madang exhibition page ↗

Hours and closing days follow the KT&G Sangsang Madang exhibition notice (checked Nov. 5, 2026). We recommend checking once more before you go.