© Jaime Permuth, 2025
Olin and Luca. Still just kids. Happy to chase insects all day and improvise make shift cages out of any old thing that is at hand. But occasionally, when I look into their faces, I get a glimpse of the men they will become some day. And I feel a rush of pride.
Next week they turn seven!
On the last day of Seoul Publishers Table, I had a chance to meet poet Son Junsu. We were standing in line to order coffee and struck up a conversation.
Later on, back at the book fair, I found him seated at his table behind a vintage typewriter. I asked him to compose a short poem for HRM, whom he had yet to meet. He asked me to provide him three words that he could use as prompts. I mentioned her “soft puffy eyelids” (there’s a special expression for that in Korean: 눈 두 덩이); “New York” and finally “In-between”.
Oddly enough, I felt like I was asking Chat GPT to write a poem for me. But then Junsu paused for a beat, fed a single sheet of hand-made paper through the carrier and started typing the lines of his poem, smoothly and with effortless grace. And the poem itself is ever so disarmingly simple, so charming and tender.
What a gift and what a highlight from the book fair.
And our Gwanghapdan table sold out of just about everything we had 🍻
See you next year!
Water because of the lateness of the hour;
water because words are the only
intoxication
I want right now.
***
“Xavier does not live just one single life that runs from birth to death like a long gray thread. No, he does not live his life — he sleeps it, and in that sleep-life skips from dream to dream. He dreams and in the middle of the dream falls asleep and dreams another dream, so that his sleep is like a series of boxes, one inside another”.
Often, people tell me that my nocturnal photographs from Havana remind them of Edward Hopper.
The truth is Hopper is a photographer’s painter - and one of my favorite artists. I find unending inspiration in his use of light, not simply to illuminate, but to set a mood and imbue seemingly ordinary moments with existential and emotional gravitas.
So yes, indeed, he is never too far from my thoughts when I loose myself in the darkness of midnight streets.
Thank you iseurrat Art Room for showcasing my Cuban series “Before the Eclipse” at this year’s SWAB Barcelona Art Fair. And for finding this photograph a new home in that city.
Back in elementary school, one of the first equations I wanted to solve for myself was how old I would be in the millennium. I did the math and the answer was 32 years old. The number seemed so enormous and distant I filed it away under the category of things that would never come to pass.
I graduated high school in 1985, a few months ahead of the rest of my class, so that I could travel to Jerusalem and begin my college studies at the Hebrew University. When I completed my studies in Psychology and English Literature, the graduation ceremony rolled around. This time, I was away, traveling in Europe.
A few years later, in New York City, I graduated from MFA Photo and Related Media at the School of Visual Arts. Me and a few other friends skipped the ceremony and just played guitar and drank all day in an East Village apartment.
The only graduation I ever attended was for my second Masters degree, in Digital Photography, also from the School of Visual Arts. I thought about skipping that as well, but I knew HRM would be there too. So I donned my cap and gown an sat one row behind her at Radio City Music Hall.
Yesterday in Antigua Guatemala, my High School class celebrated a 40th year reunion. I haven’t seen 90% of my childhood friends since I left Guatemala in 1985. And although some of their faces are immediately recognizable to me from this photo, I would have needed name tags to help me identify the rest.
Work kept me from traveling for the reunion. But for once, I really wish I could have been there.
A man is tuning a piano in our living room. The same piano that long ago used to claim pride of place in the home of Luca and Olin’s great grandmother.
The tuner’s hand is insistent at times, sounding and probing a note over and over again. But then the notes come in a quick flurry and for a few brief moments you feel that the instrument is about to burst into song.
Fatherhood can feel like that as well: searching, listening, observing, teaching and reminding so that over time you might inspire and help your children to become.
And then one day you look back and the enormity of the journey clouds your eyes and makes you hold your breath.
***
A glimpse of our family in Jeju island,
five years ago,
today.
How much has happened since then ~
After the rain, clearing skies, a sweetness to the morning breeze and a sparkling city that seemed reborn. A new day starting and full of promise.
We moved to Korea from NYC in Spring of 2021. The world was still in the throes of Covid and my physical health was at an all time low.
Before leaving Manhattan, I bought a cycling jersey and shorts. This was the humble promise I made to myself that I would get back in shape.
Things were so chaotic then that it was hard to find a bike, new or used. But when I finally did, my newly adoptive city began to open up to me in unexpected ways. I traced my own maps and found places that spoke and belonged to me alone.
Biking has meant so many things to me: strength and balance, freedom, adventure, belonging. I have nothing really to prove to myself, just a road of days that I want to follow and enjoy.
Our boys are identical twins and they share just about everything and every moment of life.
But they do have very distinct personalities.
Here Luca is clearly fascinated by the surfers in Hajodae and waiting for a chance to make new friends.
Olin is just walking away ~
Always the last ones to leave ~
Olin and Luca standing, transfixed, outside the local GS 25, while HRM pays for coffee ~
***
After a full day of hunting for crabs, fishing in the surf, digging out clams and chasing waves we had grilled meat for dinner from our favorite restaurant in Hajodae, which is owned by a butcher.
When we were done we walked over to the convenience store for a quick coffee.
The boys still had one last - insatiable - urge: finding praying mantes wherever they might be.
Such were the simple pleasures of our very busy summer season.
Keep only the perfect prints;
tear up the rest ~
One of my street photographs from Havana has a found its home at the new headquarters of the stellar architectural firm 100A.
We collaborated with 100A on the design and construction of Jaime Stay and will always be deeply grateful for their inspired, beautiful work.
Gwanghapdan x GallerytheC
“Love Letter and Library”
8/7 thru 8/30
A collaborative exhibition of Artist Books and Zines with over 25 participating artists!
GallerytheC
서울특별시 용산구 임정로 35 2층
2nd floor, 35, Imjeong-ro yongsangu, seoul
Opening Hours
Tue - Sat : 11AM to 5PM
***
“광합단과 갤러리더씨가 함께 만드는
8월의 특별한 도서관”
누군가에게 닿기를 기다리는 마음들,
그 조용한 기록들이 책의 형태로 놓인 곳.
8월 한 달간 열리는 작은 도서관에
다양한 작가들의 손길로 엮인
아트북, 더미북, zine 등 60여 권이 모였습니다.
책마다 고유의 청구기호가 있으며,
누구든 짧은 러브레터를 남길 수 있습니다.
페이지 속 누군가의 마음을 열람하는
‘수신인’이 되어 주세요.
📚러브레터와 도서관 • Love Letter and Library
광합단 x 갤러리더씨
2025.8.7 — 8.30
💌 장소: 갤러리더씨(서울시 마포구 임정로 35, 2층)
🌻 시간: 화–토 12:00–18:00 (일·월 휴관)
🔖 광합단 북토크 (플레이리스트 여름호)
2025. 8.21 (목) 오후 5시
🔖 아티스트 개더링
2025. 8.30 (토) 오후 4시
A fun and busy day installing our upcoming GallerytheC x Gwanghapdan exhibition of artist books and zines entitled “Love Letter and Library”.
After lunch, we also edited and assembled our soon to be released Fall Playlist ~
A beautifully realized catalogue is a great way to bring together the scope of a photo festival. That is surely the case for this year’s edition of the DongGang International Photo Festival ~
Yesterday, Olin woke up early, a full hour and a half before his usual time. I tried to help him get back to sleep. It was úseless. So instead, I proposed we go out for a walk together.
Olin was of course on the lookout for insects but instead we found a deer crouching in a neighbor’s field. As we got closer, the deer jumped out and tried to get away. But the poor thing was badly tangled in a mesh fence. I got closer and it allowed me to pry one of its hind hooves loose. But the rest of the legs were hopelessly caught in the mesh. Every time it jumped forward the rope cut deeper into its skin.
We ran back home so I could grab my pocket knife. We returned to the field and I carefully cut it loose. The deer took a few steps and pitched forward on the ground, badly hurt.
I then contacted the Town Hall. They said they would send someone over. What I didn’t know is that the town sees these deer as a problem for farmers and more often than not, they simply put them down where they find them.
The whole experience made an impression on me: the animal’s delicate head and beautiful coloring, its panic at feeling trapped, its grudging trust in me, the welts and open gashes on its skin, its feeble attempts to regain its footing.
I wish the ending could have been different.
Sometime in 2009, Qiana Mestrich reached out to me asking if I’d be interested in being interviewed for her blog “Dodge & Burn”. The interview, which appeared in September of that year is now featured in print together with an update of several follow-up questions from 2023.
Qiana’s blog zeroed in on individual artistic practices vis-a-vis an art world that was reluctant to embrace the vision of immigrants and artists of color. Reading Qiana’s posts one immediately felt a strong and unapologetic sense of advocacy, insisting on decolonizing the gaze of gatekeepers and fighting for greater diversity, equality and inclusion.
My interview from 15 years ago feels like a time capsule and I decided to keep it without alterations. Looking back, I feel that I’m often over-confident and naive and hungry like only young artists can be. I hope my postscript balances things out a bit better with the perspective and clarity of a long artistic career.
At any rate, dear Qiana, I salute your talent and tireless work. And I celebrate this publication with you. Its pages tell it like it is and are full of insight and inspiration. I am humbled and honored to be included in it alongside so many friends and colleagues I cherish and admire.
In the mid 90s, when I completed my MFA studies at the School of Visual Arts in New York, I went to work as a personal printer for some of the photographers I admired most at the time.
First for Patrick Demarchelier, working on his fine art exhibitions. Then I printed books and exhibitions for Lois Greenfield and subsequently for Gilles Peress. Soon after I had stopped working for Gilles - to focus on my own personal work - I got a call from him.
He explained that Rosalind Solomon had just returned from Johannesburg and needed help printing a portfolio. I confessed I didn’t know her work. Gilles said it might be an interesting experience for me to work on her images.
That was an understatement. To step into her world, to become intimate with her work, to spend time with the artist, it was all a revelation.
Rosalind came to photography later in life but she left an indelible mark on the medium. She was a true visionary and one of the most uncompromising artists I’ve ever met. She held herself - and all those she collaborated with - to the highest standards.
When the portfolio was done, we still kept in touch. Sometimes, if I was passing by her Astor Place studio I would ring her doorbell and come up to see her for a bit. Other times, I would bring a bottle of wine and settle in for a longer conversation.
In her later years, Rosalind became more and more interested in the human voice. She embraced both writing and performance as part of her practice.
What a legacy she leaves behind. And how sorely she will be missed.
Thrilled to be a Finalist for this year’s DongGang International Photo Festival ~
Por supuesto, los libros cuentan las historias que llevan impresas en sus páginas. Pero muy a menudo recuerdan los pasos de sus dueños también.
En el 2009, viajé a Madrid para supervisar la impresión del libro “Julio Zadik, un fotógrafo moderno en Guatemala” en Gráficas Palermo. Llevaba conmigo “Travesuras de la niña mala” de Vargas Llosa, y al abrirlo aún conserva parte del boleto de Iberia que utilizaba de seña. Dieciséis años más tarde lo volví a leer en Corea y recordé tantas experiencias vividas en España, donde coincidentemente termina sus días el protagonista del libro.
Mi copia de “El hijo de casa” de Dante Liano contiene un recibo muy simple escrito a mano. El libro lo compré en Guatemala poco antes de viajar por primera vez a Cuba. Y leí su tenebroso relato en la Calle Neptuno en Centro Habana.
El recibo indica el costo de la estadía de siete noches en Casa Miriam y Sinaí, y está escrito de la mano de Miriam. No solo figura el costo de mi habitación sino la de varios de mis estudiantes que me acompañaban en el taller que impartí en esa ocasión.
Once años más tarde lo vuelvo a leer una vez más. Mis memorias de Cuba en ese primer viaje, se mezclan con el aire muy puro y las noches tranquilas del campo en Corea.
