Archive for Photography Market
October 18, 2007 at 0:04 · Filed under Photographer, Photography Market, Publication
When I went to Japan in the second half of the 1990s for to research Modern Japanese photography I was fortunate to meet the photographer Eiji Ina who introduced me to the contemporary photography scene in Tokyo. At that time it was nearly impossible for foreigners without a well developed ability to read Japanese (especially names) to find out what was going on in Tokyo, since there were no English sources neither about exhibitions nor galleries available and Eiji Ina was so kind to take me to photography events like exhibition openings at galleries and museums or to the award ceremony of the Kimura Ihei Award. He also introduced me to the photographer Mikiko Hara, whom I met for the first time in 1998 at the opening of her exhibition “Agnus Dei” at Nikon Salon, Ginza/Tokyo.
A year later I saw Mikiko’s work again in the group exhibition about young Japanese women photographers “Private Room II” at Art Tower Mito. Curated by Kohtaro Iizawa this exhibition was a kind of assessment of the “onna no ko shashinka” (girly photographer) phenomenon which had already faded at that time. I felt that Mikikos work was misplaced in the girly photographer context, since she was a few years older than these ‘girlies’ like Hiromix and Yurie Nagashima. Also Hiromix’s and Nagashima’s main aim was to use the camera for to talk about themselves and to deal with their own identity. Mikiko’s topic is different, she does not speak about herself:
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September 17, 2006 at 12:50 · Filed under Photography Market, Publication
Books on Photography Books
In the last years the interest in Japanese photography books has jumped from non recognition to becoming a must have not only for specialized photo book collectors. Books which were completely unknown outside Japan except to a few well informed collectors and researchers are now sold at high prices by rare book dealers and at auctions.
It all began in 1999 with the exhibition catalogue “Fotografia Publica. Photography in Print 1919-1939″. Read the rest of this entry »
June 30, 2006 at 3:28 · Filed under Award, Exhibition, Photographer, Photography Market, Publication
In 2003 the “Regionale 2004″ a project by North Rhine-Westphalia (a federal state in West Germany) commissioned Naoya Hatakeyama to document the defunct coal mine “Zeche Westfalen I/II Ahlen”.
From October 2003 to February 2004 Hatakeyama photographed the sites and structures that were home to tens of thousands of workers for over a century. The series, which I have not seen yet, neither on the wall nor in the book with the same name published just recently by Nazraeli Press, is on display at Taka Ishii Gallery in Tokyo.
It seems that Hatakeyam kind of returned with the following series to a topic with which he ‘blasted’ into the Japanese photo scene in 1995, literally.
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November 24, 2004 at 19:11 · Filed under Photography Market, Publication
“Farwell Photography” by Daido Moriyama (Shashin yo Sayonara, 1972) is one of a dozen Japanese photography books (others are from Eikoh Hosoe, Jun Morinaga and Ikko Nakahara) being included in the upcoming auction “Photographic Literature” at Swann in New York, Dec. 7. The estimate for the book is 4.500 – 5.500 US$! This is above the price range I have seen in France recently. Even this book belongs undoubtly to the important photography books of the 20s century – more on Japanese photobooks and their current appraisal in a future post – I wonder what makes this book the second most expensive book in the auction behind a book by Robert Frank. We will see if the auction will confirm the high estimate…
Speaking of prices, during the extremely successful auction “Veronica’s Revenge” two weeks ago at Phillips, de Pury & Company, New York a “Seascape” by Hiroshi Sugimoto reached 27.600 US$ (estimate 10.000 – 15.000 US$).
Phillips, de Pury & Company New York, Veronica’s Revenge (Session 2), 11/9/2004
