Now and Then, Japanese Photography and Art

November 26, 2015/in EXHIBITIONS /by Ferdinand

NOW AND THEN
Don’t Follow the Wind, Leiko Ikemura, Rinko Kawauchi, Ken Kitano, Tatsuo Miyajima, Daido Moriyama, Asako Narahashi, Mika Ninagawa, Lieko Shiga, Issei Suda, Yutaka Takanashi, Shomei Tomatsu and others

Dezember 5th, 2015 – January 23rd, 2016

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“NOW AND THEN” is the second exhibition in the new rooms of | PRISKA PASQUER. It is devoted to Japanese photography and art.

The exhibition brings together a number of different eras and media. Classical positions of Japanese post-war photography rub shoulders with the studious shots of Rinko Kawauchi; the bright pop aesthetic of Mika Ninagawa collides with the raw imagery of “Provoke” protagonists Daido Moriyama and Yutaka Takanashi; Leiko Ikemura’s contemporary painting is juxtaposed with a digital LED installation by Tatsuo Miyajima. On a thematic level, “NOW AND THEN” casts an eye on Japanese society. Past, present and future, changes and threats, possibilities and defeats are viewed from a wide variety of perspectives. As different as the artistic positions are, they all share a peculiarly Japanese approach to dealing with reality: the artists do not attempt to pigeon-hole what they find, but rather approach reality with a high degree of openness. This approach gives rise to a unique aesthetic. An aesthetic that toys with the visible and invisible, always referencing more than can be seen in the picture.

At the same time, all artists deal with very specific themes – always rupture, transition and change. These are discerned, shown and channelled into the image. However, they are not evaluated, nor is any attempt made to present reality in an explicable format or pattern.

The curtain on “NOW AND THEN” is raised with the website for the project titled “Don’t Follow the Wind”. Initiated by artist group Chim↑Pom and with ten international artists in radioactively contaminated houses near the Fukushima nuclear power plant, the exhibition on the Tepco company site is not visible in any real sense. The contaminated site is out of bounds for the general public until such time as it is decontaminated. It is not known when and even whether this will ever be the case. Accordingly, the website is also “invisible”. A blank white screen with a soundtrack, but nothing to be seen.

Since 2000, | PRISKA PASQUER has shown many exhibitions featuring the leading names in Japanese photography – both in its own gallery rooms and in cooperation with institutions in Germany and abroad (e.g. FOAM in Amsterdam, Fondation Henri-Cartier-Bresson in Paris, FOMU in Antwerp and Hundertwasser Haus in Vienna).

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„NOW AND THEN“ ist die zweite Ausstellung in den neuen Räumen von | PRISKA PASQUER. Sie widmet sich der japanischen Fotografie und Kunst.

Die Ausstellung vereint verschiedene Zeiten und Medien. Klassische Positionen der japanischen Nachkriegsfotografie stehen neben den achtsam- konzentrierten Aufnahmen von Rinko Kawauchi, die knallbunte Pop-Ästhetik von Mika Ninagawa kollidiert mit der rauen Bildsprache der “Provoke”- Protagonisten Daido Moriyama und Yutaka Takanashi, aktuelle Malerei von Leiko Ikemura trifft auf eine digitale LED-Installation von Tatsuo Miyajima.

Auf inhaltlicher Ebene richtet „NOW AND THEN“ den Blick auf die japanische Gesellschaft. Vergangenheit, Gegenwart, Zukunft, Veränderungen und Bedrohungen, Möglichkeiten und Niederlagen werden aus unterschiedlichsten Perspektiven fokussiert. So verschieden die künstlerischen Positionen auch sind, eint sie doch ein spezifisch japanischer Umgang mit der Wirklichkeit: Die Künstler versuchen nicht, das Vorhandene, Vorgefundene in feste Kategorien zu fassen, sondern begegnen der Wirklichkeit mit einer großen Offenheit. Aus diesem Ansatz heraus entwickelt sich eine besondere Ästhetik. Es ist ein Spiel mit dem Sichtbaren und dem Unsichtbaren, das immer auf mehr verweist, als im Bild konkret sichtbar ist.

Dabei sprechen alle Künstler ganz konkrete Themen an. Immer geht es um die Brüche, Veränderungen und den Wandel. Diese werden wahrgenommen, gezeigt und ins Bild übertragen. Sie werden jedoch weder bewertet, noch wird versucht, die Wirklichkeit in ein erklärbares Format und Raster zu bringen.

Den Auftakt zu „NOW AND THEN“ macht die Website des Projekts „Don’t Follow the Wind”. Die von der Künstlergruppe Chim↑Pom initiierte und mit zehn internationalen Künstlern in radioaktiv verstrahlten Häusern in der Nähe des Atomkraftwerkes Fukushima realisierte Ausstellung auf dem Gelände der Firma Tepco ist faktisch nicht sichtbar. Das verstrahlte Gelände ist für die Öffentlichkeit gesperrt und wird erst nach seiner Dekontaminierung wieder betreten werden können. Es ist vollkommen ungewiss, wann und ob dies jemals der Fall sein wird. Entsprechend „unsichtbar“ ist auch die Website: Ein leerer weißer Screen, auf dem nur ein Sound-Track läuft, aber nichts zu sehen ist.

Seit dem Jahr 2000 hat | PRISKA PASQUER eine Vielzahl von Ausstellungen mit den bedeutendsten Vertretern der japanischen Fotografie gezeigt – sowohl in den eigenen Räumen als auch in Zusammenarbeit mit Institutionen im In- und
Ausland (z. B. FOAM, Amsterdam, Fondation Henri-Cartier-Bresson, Paris, FOMU, Antwerpen, Hundertwasser Haus, Wien).

SHOMEI TOMATSU

February 25, 2013/in EXHIBITIONS /by admin

SHOMEI TOMATSU

November 8th, 2012 – February 26th, 2013

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Galerie Priska Pasquer is pleased to present the second exhibition in Germany to be devoted exclusively to the works of Japanese artist Shomei Tomatsu. The exhibition features a selection of black-and-white photographs and, for the first time in a gallery exhibition outside Japan, colour works by the artist from the late 1960s and the 1970s.

Shomei Tomatsu is regarded as the most important figure in Japanese post-war photography and his work has had a key influence on subsequent artists such as Daido Moriyama, Yutaka Takanashi and Nobuyoshi Araki.

Shomei Tomatsu’s imagery is noted for its varied and complex nature. His style ranges from works leaning towards classical street photography and symbolically charged objects to abstract (urban) views and dynamic, expressive compositions. Depending on the subject matter, the artist expands his visual grammar, creating pictures that walk a tightrope between the concrete and the abstract and between fascination and repulsion. At the same time, these images remain timeless photographs.

Shomei Tomatsu’s works take a unique approach to exploring the changes in society since the 1950s. His photography shows the after-effects of the atom bomb dropped on Nagasaki, the influence of American popular culture, the impact of the Japanese economic boom of the 1960s and the declining archaic culture in Okinawa in the 1970s.

Shomei Tomatsu’s artistic works focus on Japan’s journey towards urban modernity since the 1950s. Indeed, the works in his ‘Protest’ and ‘Eros’ series from the late 1950s have come to symbolise a lifestyle that reflects the search for novelty and appears to be charged with eroticism and aggression. Another theme that has been explored by Tomatsu for more than a decade in the ‘Chewing Gum and Chocolate’ series is the influence of the US occupying forces and of American culture on Japanese society.

In the first half of the 1960s, Tomatsu began to experiment with colour photography. In the late 1960s, he then began to use colour images, in addition to black-and-white photography, as a medium for his key themes. As with his black-and-white works, he manages to create dynamic, expressive compositions with his colour photographs. He transforms the waving flags of a demonstration in his ‘Protest’ series into an abstract composition of moving colours. Even in his more narrative photographs, Tomatsu manages to add symbolic messages. For instance, a photograph of an amusement park, which was taken through a window splotched with red paint, has been described as a modernist, almost painterly desecration of the Japanese flag (John W. Dower).

| EN

Galerie Priska Pasquer is pleased to present the second exhibition in Germany to be devoted exclusively to the works of Japanese artist Shomei Tomatsu. The exhibition features a selection of black-and-white photographs and, for the first time in a gallery exhibition outside Japan, colour works by the artist from the late 1960s and the 1970s.

Shomei Tomatsu is regarded as the most important figure in Japanese post-war photography and his work has had a key influence on subsequent artists such as Daido Moriyama, Yutaka Takanashi and Nobuyoshi Araki.

Shomei Tomatsu’s imagery is noted for its varied and complex nature. His style ranges from works leaning towards classical street photography and symbolically charged objects to abstract (urban) views and dynamic, expressive compositions. Depending on the subject matter, the artist expands his visual grammar, creating pictures that walk a tightrope between the concrete and the abstract and between fascination and repulsion. At the same time, these images remain timeless photographs.

Shomei Tomatsu’s works take a unique approach to exploring the changes in society since the 1950s. His photography shows the after-effects of the atom bomb dropped on Nagasaki, the influence of American popular culture, the impact of the Japanese economic boom of the 1960s and the declining archaic culture in Okinawa in the 1970s.

Shomei Tomatsu’s artistic works focus on Japan’s journey towards urban modernity since the 1950s. Indeed, the works in his ‘Protest’ and ‘Eros’ series from the late 1950s have come to symbolise a lifestyle that reflects the search for novelty and appears to be charged with eroticism and aggression. Another theme that has been explored by Tomatsu for more than a decade in the ‘Chewing Gum and Chocolate’ series is the influence of the US occupying forces and of American culture on Japanese society.

In the first half of the 1960s, Tomatsu began to experiment with colour photography. In the late 1960s, he then began to use colour images, in addition to black-and-white photography, as a medium for his key themes. As with his black-and-white works, he manages to create dynamic, expressive compositions with his colour photographs. He transforms the waving flags of a demonstration in his ‘Protest’ series into an abstract composition of moving colours. Even in his more narrative photographs, Tomatsu manages to add symbolic messages. For instance, a photograph of an amusement park, which was taken through a window splotched with red paint, has been described as a modernist, almost painterly desecration of the Japanese flag (John W. Dower).

Araki, Moriyama, Takanashi, Tomatsu, JAPAN 4

November 10, 2011/in EXHIBITIONS /by admin

JAPAN 4
Araki, Moriyama, Takanashi, Tomatsu

Jablonka Pasquer Projects

September 10th – November 11th, 2011

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Galerie Priska Pasquer and Jablonka Galerie are delighted to be embarking on a new partnership for the 2011 autumn season. At Lindenstr. 19, Jablonka Pasquer Projects is presenting the exhibition:
Japan 4
Nobuyoshi Araki, Daido Moriyama, Yutaka Takanashi, Shomei Tomatsu
The exhibition centrally features four Japanese photographers whose work has significantly influenced the medium both within Japan and internationally.
Shomei Tomatsu (*1930) is the most important Japanese photographer of the latter half of the twentieth century. His photography series on the deep-reaching changes that have taken hold in Japanese society since the 1950s and his brilliant and powerful imagery make him the pre-eminent figure in Japanese art. The exhibition features a selection of the artist’s work from his central series, including ‘Bottle Melted and Deformed by Atomic Bomb Heat, Radiation and Fire, Nagasaki’ from the ‘Nagasaki 11:02’ series, as well as his ‘Eros’ work from the ‘OO! Shinjuku’ cover photography on the 1968 generation in Tokyo.
Nobuyoshi Araki, Daido Moriyama and Yutaka Takanashi are representatives of the ‘Provoke’ generation of artists that forged new frontiers and decisively broadened the scope of photography as a medium.
Yutaka Takanashi (*1935) and Daido Moriyama (*1938), co-founder and member of the ‘Provoke’ group (1968) respectively, radically broke from conventions in photography with their raw expressive style of ‘are, bore, boke’ (rough, blurred and out of focus). Like Shomei Tomatsu, they are driven by the search for identity in contemporary society, a society caught on the cusp between centuries-old traditions and modernity.
The search for the elemental in society and in individual existence leads Daido Moriyama to the grey fringes of Japanese life – to strip clubs, to the back rooms of cheap kabuki theatres and to bars catering to American soldiers, but first and foremost to the street and throughout rural Japan.
Yutaka Takanashi’s central theme is also change in Japan. In dark images, he describes a country that in vast areas has become a no man’s land between city and country devoid of any place for human beings except as consumers under the sway of American popular culture.
The revolutionary imagery of the ‘Provoke’ group continues to influence street photography in Japan and in the West to this day.
Nobuyoshi Araki (*1940), a contemporary of Takanashi and Moriyama, took a different path in both subject matter and imagery, one founded on an examination of Eros and Thanatos, the taboo depiction of sexuality in the mirror of ephemerality and death. His art flouts both societal and aesthetic rules, showing human sexuality unfiltered. Araki’s pictures range from subtle erotic studies to seemingly pornographic works while renouncing customary evaluations of of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ pictures.
In his work, he also unites two separate areas, such as personal and commission work, studio shots and street photography, private pictures and public. Nobuyoshi Araki’s work is in many respects marked by a radical transcendence of borders and unbridled excessiveness.

| EN

Galerie Priska Pasquer and Jablonka Galerie are delighted to be embarking on a new partnership for the 2011 autumn season. At Lindenstr. 19, Jablonka Pasquer Projects is presenting the exhibition:
Japan 4
Nobuyoshi Araki, Daido Moriyama, Yutaka Takanashi, Shomei Tomatsu
The exhibition centrally features four Japanese photographers whose work has significantly influenced the medium both within Japan and internationally.
Shomei Tomatsu (*1930) is the most important Japanese photographer of the latter half of the twentieth century. His photography series on the deep-reaching changes that have taken hold in Japanese society since the 1950s and his brilliant and powerful imagery make him the pre-eminent figure in Japanese art. The exhibition features a selection of the artist’s work from his central series, including ‘Bottle Melted and Deformed by Atomic Bomb Heat, Radiation and Fire, Nagasaki’ from the ‘Nagasaki 11:02’ series, as well as his ‘Eros’ work from the ‘OO! Shinjuku’ cover photography on the 1968 generation in Tokyo.
Nobuyoshi Araki, Daido Moriyama and Yutaka Takanashi are representatives of the ‘Provoke’ generation of artists that forged new frontiers and decisively broadened the scope of photography as a medium.
Yutaka Takanashi (*1935) and Daido Moriyama (*1938), co-founder and member of the ‘Provoke’ group (1968) respectively, radically broke from conventions in photography with their raw expressive style of ‘are, bore, boke’ (rough, blurred and out of focus). Like Shomei Tomatsu, they are driven by the search for identity in contemporary society, a society caught on the cusp between centuries-old traditions and modernity.
The search for the elemental in society and in individual existence leads Daido Moriyama to the grey fringes of Japanese life – to strip clubs, to the back rooms of cheap kabuki theatres and to bars catering to American soldiers, but first and foremost to the street and throughout rural Japan.
Yutaka Takanashi’s central theme is also change in Japan. In dark images, he describes a country that in vast areas has become a no man’s land between city and country devoid of any place for human beings except as consumers under the sway of American popular culture.
The revolutionary imagery of the ‘Provoke’ group continues to influence street photography in Japan and in the West to this day.
Nobuyoshi Araki (*1940), a contemporary of Takanashi and Moriyama, took a different path in both subject matter and imagery, one founded on an examination of Eros and Thanatos, the taboo depiction of sexuality in the mirror of ephemerality and death. His art flouts both societal and aesthetic rules, showing human sexuality unfiltered. Araki’s pictures range from subtle erotic studies to seemingly pornographic works while renouncing customary evaluations of of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ pictures.
In his work, he also unites two separate areas, such as personal and commission work, studio shots and street photography, private pictures and public. Nobuyoshi Araki’s work is in many respects marked by a radical transcendence of borders and unbridled excessiveness.

SHOMEI TOMATSU, Shomei Tomatsu

April 17, 2010/in EXHIBITIONS /by admin

SHOMEI TOMATSU
Shomei Tomatsu

March 13th – April 17th, 2010

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Press Release

Galerie Priska Pasquer is pleased to present the first ever exhibition in Germany to be devoted exclusively to the works of Japanese photographer Shomei Tomatsu. Shomei Tomatsu (*1930) is widely considered the most important figure in Japanese postwar photography. Tomatsu’s photographs are examining, in an absolutely personal and unique vision, the changes in the Japanese society since the 1950s. They provide a candid look at the aftereffects of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, the influence of American military and popular culture, and the impact of the post-1960s economic boom in Japan. The exhibition will show a selection of works from late 1950s to the early 1970s.

A self-taught photographer, Shomei Tomatsu went freelance in 1956. In the years that followed, he took part in the pioneering “Eyes of Ten” exhibitions and in 1959 he was one of the cofounders of photographic agency VIVO, which is seen as the ‘epicentre’ of Japanese post-war photography. Other VIVO members included Ikko Narahara and Eikoh Hosoe, both of whom were the subject of individual exhibitions by Galerie Priska Pasquer (Eikoh Hosoe in 2002, Ikko Narahara in 2009/2010).

Shomei Tomatsu’s imagery is noted for its varied and complex nature. His style ranges from works leaning towards classical street photography, symbolically charged objects, abstract (urban) views to dynamic, expressive compositions. Depending on the subject matter, the artist constantly expanded his visual grammar, creating pictures that walk a tightrope between the concrete and the abstract and between fascination and repulsion, while remaining timeless.

A central theme in Tomatsu’s photographic work is the effects of the atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Here, he portrays survivors and documents objects from the Atom Bomb Museum. Among the works featured in the exhibition is “Bottle Melted and Deformed by Atomic Bomb Heat, Radiation, and Fire, Nagasaki, 1961”. This photo, which calls to mind a melted body part, is described by Leon Rubinfien as “possibly the single strongest image of his career” (Shomei Tomatsu: Skin of a Nation, p. 27).

Another theme that has been explored by Tomatsu for more than a decade is the influence of the US occupying forces and of American culture on Japanese society. The “Chewing Gum and Chocolate” series, which was taken near the US military bases, thrives on the ambivalent experience of the Americans as overbearing victors who also brought a new culture to Japan.

However, Tomatsu’s photography deals not only with the unfamiliar but also with the familiar, such as the tension relating to rural traditions and Japan’s journey to urban modernity since the 1950s. In “Flood and Japanese” (1959), Tomatsu demonstrated the effects of floods, in “Protest” the student demonstrations in Tokyo, and in “The Pencil of the Sun” the dwindling popular culture in Okinawa, the group of islands in the south of Japan.

Brief biography
Born in Aichi, Nagoya in 1930. 1954-56 Photographer at the Iawanami Shashin Bunko publishing house together with Nagano Shigeichi. Participated in the “Eyes of Ten” exhibitions, 1957-59. In 1959, founded photographic agency VIVO together with Kikuji Kawada, Akira Sato, Akira Tanno, Ikko Narahara and Eikoh Hosoe. In the same year, he began to take photographs at the US military bases all over Japan and also the effects of a typhoon that destroyed his mother’s house.
Commissioned to work on a book about the dropping of the atom bomb on Nagasaki, together with Domon Ken. 1972-1976 lived in Okinawa. 1974 Founded the “Workshop Photography School”, Tokyo, together with Nobuyoshi Araki, Masahisa Fukase, Eikoh Hosoe, Daido Moriyama and Noriaki Yokosuka. 1995 Awarded the Purple Ribbon Medal by the Japanese government.

Selected exhibitions
– 1974 “New Japanese Photography”, Museum of Modern Art, New York
– 1979 “Japan: A Self-Portrait”. International Center of Photography, New York
– 1984 “Shomei Tomatsu: Japan 1952-1981”, Forum Stadtpark, Graz
– 1985 “Black Sun: The Eyes of Four”, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford
– 1992 “Sakura + Plastics”, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
– 1996 “Traces: 50 years of Tomatsu’s works”, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo
– 2000 “How You Look at It: Photographs of the Twentieth Century”, Sprengel Museum
Hanover
– 2004 “Interface. Shomei Tomatsu”, The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto
– 2004 “Shomei Tomatsu: Skin of the Nation”, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San
Francisco
– 2006 “Aichi Mandala: Early Works of Tomatsu Shomei”, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art,
Nagoya
– 2007 “Tokyo Mandala“, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo
Selected publications
– Shomei Tomatsu, Ken Domon, et al: Hiroshima-Nagasaki Document. Tokyo 1961
– 11:02 Nagasaki. Tokyo 1966
– Nippon. Tokyo 1967
– Salaam Aleikum. Tokyo 1968
– Okinawa, Okinawa, Okinawa. Tokyo 1969
– Oh! Shinjuku. Tokyo 1969
– Après-Guerre. Tokyo 1971
– I Am a King. Tokyo 1972
– The Pencil of the Sun. Tokyo 1972
– Kingdom of Mud. Tokyo 1978
– Ruinous Garden. Tokyo 1987
– Sakura, Sakura, Sakura. Osaka 1990
– Tomatsu Shomei 1951-60. Tokyo 2000
– Shomei Tomatsu. Skin of the Nation. San Francisco 2004