Archive for Exhibition
April 6, 2008 at 17:25 · Filed under Award, Exhibition, Photographer, Publication
Just a short post after a long hiatus, but I hope to post more in the upcoming months.
I know I wrote a few times about Rinko Kawauchi - with whom I had a very pleasant dinner in Tokyo a few weeks ago -, but since this is the first time that her famous series “Utatane” from 2001 is exhibited in a solo show outside Japan, I thought it is worth to mention it.
Rinko Kawauchi “Uatane”, at Art77, presented by Antoine de Vilmorin (until May 3).
As far as I know there has not been much written about the series and book “Utatane” (in contrary to “Aila”) and which has lead to Rinko’s national and international breakthrough. For “Utatane” (and for her book “Hanabi” [Fireworks]) the artist received the prestigious Kimura Ihei Award and the book was included in the “The Photobook: A History. Vol. 2″ by Parr and Badger. Badger wrote a very interesting comment on Rinko and “Utatane” in the photobook anthology:
Just when it seems that everything has been photographed, in every possible way, along comes a photographer, whose work is so original that the medium is renewed. Such a photographer is Rinko Kawauchi, who makes simple, lyrical pictures, so fresh and unusual that they are difficult to describe or classify.
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October 7, 2007 at 19:27 · Filed under Exhibition, Publication
It’s not the first time that I write about Daido Moriyama. The reason is simple: Daido Moriyama is one of my favorite photographers. His photographs and his books - especially the book Shashinyo Sayônara (Farewell Photography) - had a huge impact on my initial idea of Japanese photography. Therefore it had a certain inevitability that soon after we began to work more intensively with Japanese photography at Galerie Priska Pasquer, we did a Daido Moriyama exhibition in 2004. The exhibition took place at the time when Daido Moriyama received the Cultural Award of the German Photographic Society. The award ceremony was held at the Photographische Sammlung / SK-Stiftung Kultur in Cologne (and where I had the pleasure to give the award speech).
Daido Moriyama. Retrospective from 1965
Photographische Sammlung / SK-Stiftung Kultur (Photographic Collection / SK-Culture Foundation)
Sept. 5 - Dec. 12, 2007
At the beginning of September Daido Moriyama was in Cologne again. He came for the opening of his exhibition Daido Moriyama. Retrospective from 1965 which is held at the same place where he received the Culture Award three years ago.
This retrospective, which comprises some 500 photographs, presents the decidedly complex work of Daido Moriyama (b. 1938), one of the most renowned Japanese photographers, from 1965 to the present day. It consists of thirteen series of pictures, largely based on vintage material, and a film presentation. Although Moriyama belongs to Japans post-1945 artist generation, who struck out along radically new aesthetic paths in the post-war period, it is interesting to note that to this day his work has lost none of its currency or artistic scope.
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July 10, 2007 at 0:49 · Filed under Exhibition, Publication
John Szarkowski, a curator who almost single-handedly elevated photography’s status in the last half-century to that of a fine art, making his case in seminal writings and landmark exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, died in on Saturday in Pittsfield, Mass. He was 81.
[Quote: New York Times Obituary]
American Photography
As the New York Times points out John Szarkowski “was first to confer importance on the work of Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander and Garry Winogrand” and two of his books, “‘The Photographer’s Eye,’ (1964) and ‘Looking at Photographs: 100 Pictures From the Collection of the Museum of Modern Art’ (1973), remain syllabus staples in art history programs.” Szarkowski also introduced the work by William Eggleston in the now legendary exhibition “William Egglestons Guide” (1976). This exhibition “was widely considered the worst of the year in photography.”
New Japanese Photography
John Szarkowski left definitely his mark in the field of American photography, but not only there. In 1974 John Szarkowski organized together with Shôji Yamagishi (editor of Camera Mainichi magazine) the exhibition “New Japanese Photography”. The exhibition introduced 15 photographers, amongst them the grand masters of Japanese photography: Ken Domon, Yasuhiro Ishimoto, Shomei Tomatsu, Kikuji Kawada, Masatoshi Naitoh, Tetsuya Ichimura, Hiromi Tsuchida, Masahisa Fukase, Ikko, Eikoh Hosoe, Daido Moriyama, Ryoji Akiyama, Ken Ohara, Shigeru Tamura and Bishin Jumonji.
It was the first major exhibition about contemporary Japanese photography outside Japan ever.
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July 4, 2007 at 0:33 · Filed under Exhibition
Since decades the major trend of Japanese photography is definitely ‘straight photography’ with all its derivations (street photography, cityscapes, portraits, e.g.). A lesser role plays conceptual photography like the works by Hiroshi Sugimoto or Naoya Hatakeyama. But even these photographers usually use their cameras in a traditional way, that is they don’t (overly) manipulate their works during the production process.
Maybe it’s just my selective perception, but in contrary to the ’straight’ approach on reality the experimental, manipulative use of the medium photography as a tool for to produce works of art is not very wide spread in Japan.
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March 8, 2007 at 2:53 · Filed under Exhibition, Publication
Did anybody see the exhibition Berlin - Tokyo / Tokyo - Berlin at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo last year? I wasn’t neither able to see the exhibition in Tokyo nor at the second venue in Berlin afterwards. The reviews in the German press were very positive (except on the contemporary part of the show) while the main English review of the exhibition in a Japanese newspaper was quite crushing: “Berlin/Tokyo: Invitation to a car wreck”.
Some better examples
While I cannot say anything about the exhibition, I found the catalogue to the exhibition very weak compared to previous exhibition catalogues about the relationship between the West and Japan. Just take for example the early publication “Japan und Europa 1543-1929″ (Berlin, 1993) which contains many elaborate essays as well as detailed descriptions of/ explanations to every piece exhibited; or take the more recent exhibition catalogue “Encounters: The Meeting of Asia and Europe 1500 - 1800” (Victoria &Albert Museum, London 2004) which contains very insightful essays on the early encounters between the West and Japan. I have seen the show and I kept it in my mind as a very important contribution to our knowledge about the cultural exchange in the early stage of the contact between the Far East and Europe.
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