ERIC "LOOK AT THIS PEOPLE"
2012. 2. 25 (Sat) ～ 2012. 3. 25(Sun)
OPEN | 12 : 00 ～ 19 : 00
CLOSE | Mon, Tue, National Holidays
CONTEMPLATION: Emerging Female Photographers from Japan
Photographs depict no more than what is visible. Yet at the same time they possess the uncanny ability to reveal the invisible. Just as the hands of the clock mark the linear passing of time, photography can mark our memory, consciousness, desires, and emotions. Beyond merely documenting the visible world, one of the photographers' roles is to create a space for reflecting and gazing upon such invisibilities. This exhibition introduces the work of four emerging Japanese female photographers who engage these invisibilities from various angles.
Tomoe Murakami stares at the boundary between the visible and the invisible through her ephemeral landscapes which are often filled with mist or clouds. By erasing and scratching the surface of her prints, Yuki Tawada uncovers a strength and inter-dependence which transcends the people and cities captured in her images. It can be said that Murakami traces the limit of photography from the inside while Tawada does so from the outside. In snap-shot photographs by Yuhki Toyama, everyone and everything look isolated while longing for the other. This is how she reveals the deeper darkness which swallows an individual even as he/she is not willing to admit it. Ai Takahashi's continuous shooting of remote rural villages and their inhabitants illuminates the accumulated experience of place that runs perpendicular to our urban linear experience of time .
The title of this exhibition CONTEMPLATION comes from the Latin contemplatio meaning the "act of looking at" something. In turn this stems from contemplo meaning "to gaze attentively, observe." More important is that its original meaning was "to mark out a space for observation (as an augur does)." These photographers, too, delineate from, within the real world a space for observation and contemplation of the invisible. Viewing ourselves in this consecrated space we cannot help but reconsider our individual and collective pasts and futures.
Mariko Takeuchi, Curator
James Nakagawa, Co-Curator
Taigan
Photographs by Arata Dodo
5,250 Yen | 300 × 207 mm | 176 page | hardcover
Art Director : Bunpei Yorifuji
Born in 1974, OSAKA Japan
1995 "Konica Introducing New Generation Photographers", Grand Prix
1999 Published "SHANGHAI RYUUGI" (Mole Press)
2000 "Photographic Society of Japan Awards", Newcomer's Award
2001 Published "RUSH" (Littlemore)
LOOK AT THIS PEOPLE
Photographs by ERIC
3,150 Yen | 257 × 210 mm | 128 page | softcover
Art Director : Jun Kawana
1976 Born in Hong Kong
1997 Moved to Tokyo
2001 Graduated from Tokyo Visual Arts, Department of Photography
2001 Awarded Konica Minolta Foto Premio Prize
2002 Awarded 19th 'Hitotsubo' Photography Grand Prix
2004 Awarded 2nd Visual Arts Photo Award Grand Prix
SEIJINSHIKI
Photographs by Charles Fréger
Manga by little fish
3,150 Ten | 174 × 240 mm | 76 page | hardcover
Editing : Tomomi Tada Design : Yuma Harada
Text: Mariko TAKEUCHI
Charles Fréger is a free-lance photographer born in 1975 in Bourges, France. He studied fine art at L´Ecole regional de beaux-arts de Rouen, Since his early days, he desiccated himself to portraits photographing poetic and anthropological representation of social groups such as athletes, school children, military personnel, etc. His photographs have been exhibited in galleries throughout Europe and abroad, and also in international festivals such as Les Recontres photographiques d´Árles. He has traveled in Japan, photographing young SUMO RIKISHI, held at Yokohama Museum of Art Gallery in 2005. Charles Fréger is also the founder of the artistic community Piece of Cake (www.pocproject.com).
little fish is a comic artist. He was born in Tokyo in 1972. He made his debut in the underground comic magazine "Monthly Garo". Since then, his experimental works have been published in magazines and websites, and shown at galleries. in 2002, he met a French comic artist living in Tokyo, Frédéric Boilet, and joined Nouvelle Manga movement at the recommendation of Boilet. In the same year, he started an art magazine, "spore", with fellow artists. He contributed to "Japon" - an anthology of French and Japanese comic artwork in 2005. In the following year, he represented Japan at the Asia-French Comic Project initiated by the Asia-Europe Foundation, producing work in Singapore. Along with his artistic career, he has also spent time researching the films of the Polish director, Jerzy Skolimowski, which resulted in the publication of "The Essence of Skolimowski" (little fish press) in 2010.
３カ月前にこの場所を訪れたとき、静かなその建物の２階で、僕は持ち主を待つカメラが並んでいるところを撮影した。
ブルーシートの上に集められている被災したカメラやビデオカメラは、泥を落とされて元のように黒光りしている。ちょうど西日があたっていて、青と黒の強いコントラストに僕は思わず見入ってしまっていた。
ほとんどのカメラは、本体の中まで浸水しているはずだ。いくらきれいにしても、多分動かないだろうに...。そんなことを、見た瞬間に感じたような気がする。
だけど、カメラのまわりにならんでいるものを見て、少し気持ちが変わった。受賞メダル、メッセージ入りのボール、土産物らしいこけし...。
このカメラ一台一台にも、それぞれ持ち主がいたのだ。写真は、記憶を思い出させてくれる大切な媒体であることは間違いない。そして、沢山（たくさん）の瞬 間を記録してきた機械そのものにも同じくらい大切な記憶が宿っている。だからこそ、あちこちで拾われたカメラはこの場所に集められ、人々の思いやりによっ て、泥を落とされて、今こうやって目の前にあるのだ。
僕はこの場所を訪れる度に、頬を強く殴られたようにハッと目が覚める思いをする。
この原稿が掲載されるころ、僕は３カ月ぶりに東北の地を歩いているはずだ。いまだに日常が戻ることのない土地で、自分には一体何ができるだろうか。もしこのカメラたちの代わりに記録できることがあるならば、それは一体どんなことなのだろうか。
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