Atta Kim

His early works were black and white portraits of subjects including psychiatric patients, individuals designated as "cultural assets" by the Korean government, and his own family.

[2] His work during college was mostly abstract; dissatisfied with the results, he decided to explore the outside world and to photograph people from various backgrounds and stages of life.

[4] ON-AIR, his first solo exhibition in the United States, was shown in 2006 at the International Center of Photography in New York City to positive critical reviews.

[5] In contrast to his attempt at capturing permanence in The Museum Project, Kim now focused on transience in ON-AIR, with large-scale images created through very long or multiple exposures.

[5] He cites inspiration from the concept of interconnectedness in Zen Buddhism, the focus on temporal existence in the writings of German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889–1976), and the teachings of the Russian-Armenian mystic G. I. Gurdjieff (1872–1949) on transcendence.

"[10] Kim claims to have burned all 1,200 copies of the published collection, after the wife of a patron had to be hospitalized for a relapse of depression after seeing the book.

He met 150 individuals that had been so designated, which included elderly dancers, musicians, and monks, and spent between one and seven days with each trying to learn their personal philosophies.

Kim's In-der-Welt-sein (1990–91) consists of black and white images of natural objects near a Buddhist temple, which are revealed only by a dim light.

Kim recounts that when his father would walk him home from school as a child, he would point out small details such as flowers, insects, or stones.

[15] Deconstruction (1991–95) consisted of black and white photographs of groups of nude men and women positioned lifelessly in desolate landscapes.

[35] Like The Museum Project, ON-AIR Project consists of several subseries: 1- New York: Street and pedestrian traffic dissolves in a mist over the long exposures, in photos taken in iconic, and typically crowded locations in New York City's Midtown Manhattan: Times Square, Grand Central Station, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Park Avenue, and Fifth Avenue.