Photography Collection

By Guillaume Piens, Paris Photo Artistic Director
Having explored the photography scenes of Europe, for the first time Paris Photo is turning to the Far East and has invited Japan to feature as country of honour. Introduced in 1848 during the Edo era, from its earliest days photography played a fundamental role in Japanese culture in which the image was already popular through Ukiyo-e wood block prints. The medium of photography soon became the symbol of the modernisation of Japan and its introduction coincided with Japan’s opening to Western culture during the Meiji era (1868-1912). As the first Asian country to adopt photography, Japan soon developed its own distinctive style by adapting Western technology and its perspectivist imagery to its own insular visual culture: the aesthetic is suggestive rather than descriptive, more emotional than rational and enamoured with shadowplay. The concept of space is asymmetrical and two dimensional, lines are pure and the whole is deeply rooted in an interest in nature. With its long history and unique vision, Japan offers a photography scene of major importance, on par with those of Europe and the United States and is currently commanding increasing interest on the part of historians and the international art market. Indeed, since the 1990s there has been a profusion of exhibitions in the Unites States and Europe featuring the work of post-war artists such as Eikoh Hosoe, Ihei Kimura, Shomei Tomatsu and Shoji Ueda,as well as that of contemporary masters such as Nobuyoshi Araki,Daido Moriyama, Ryuji Miyamoto,Naoya Hatakeyama and Hiroshi Sugimoto. This comes in addition to the recent exhibition entitled “Heavy Light: Recent Photography and Video from Japan” showing the work of the young generation of the turn of the new century,held at the ICP in New York in May 2008. Several recent publications have also served to enhance the international popularity of the Japanese photography scene, most notably “The History of Japanese Photography” published under the direction of Anne Wilkes Tucker on the occasion of the most important ever exhibition on this subject, held at the Houston Fine Arts Museum in 2003.
Apart from “Japon des Avant-Gardes” held at the Pompidou Centre in 1986 and an exhibition at the Hotel de Sully in 2003 focussing on the period between 1945 and 1970, there have been very few major retrospectives of Japanese photography shown in France. Nevertheless, since the year 2000,there have been quite a number of monographic shows organised by the Fondation Cartier featuring notably Nobuyoshi Araki, Daido Moriyama, Hiroshi Sugimoto and Rinko Kawauchi. Most recently, the Maison Européenne de la Photographie organised a major exhibition of the work of Shoji Ueda. In Japan itself, it has to be said that the recognition of photography as a major art form came relatively late: the first photography gallery was established in 1978 by Etsuro Ishihara, founder of Zeit-Foto Salon in Tokyo.The Kawasaki Museum, which opened in 1988 near Tokyo was the first institution in Japan to handle photography, before the inauguration in the early 1990s of the Tokyo Metropolitan Photography Museum.

With more that 130 Japanese artists represented by 54 galleries and publishers, Paris Photo 2008 is offering an exceptional overview, unprecedented in Europe, of historical as well as contemporary Japanese photography. Under the direction of photography critic and independent curator Mariko Takeuchi*, this panorama is presented in four sections: In the General Sector some 40 galleries pay tribute mainly to the great classic and contemporary masters. In the Statement section, eight Japanese galleries highlight the creative effervescence of the generation of artists from the turn of the new century, while the the Project Room presents a selection of videos produced by Japanese photographers. The Central Exhibition is devoted to five publishers, emphasizing the central role of the book on the Japanese photography scene. Support for the Central Exhibition and the Statement
was provided By Atom

The General Section
From the Meiji era to the avant-garde ofthe 1930s:
The exploration of the early days of Japanese photography begins at Lumière des Roses gallery
(Montreuil) which is showing rare XIXth Century anonymous portraits. An image of a 1880s princess is testimony to the spectacular development of portrait studios during the Meiji era (1868-1912). The first studios were opened in 1862 by photographers Shimooka Renjo and Ueno Hikoma in Yokohama and Nagasaki respectively. They got off to a slow start as people were initially reluctant to have their photograph taken. But the 1870s saw the blossoming of photographic studios in the main cities, in particular Tokyo and Osaka, as photography gradually became the symbol of the modernisation that was being encouraged by the new Meiji government. Simpler technical processes from the 1890s onwards spread the popularity of photography beyond the limited circle of professionals. A number of specialized publications appeared (the first photography magazine “Datsuei Yawa” was created in 1874), amateur groups flourished, organising meetings and exhibitions and exploring the artistic potential of the new medium. This was the beginning of the pictorialist movements which reached their peak during the Tasho era (1912- 1926). The hand-coloured anonymous images of groups of Geishas from the 1900s shown by Fifty One Photography Fine Art Art (Anvers) are examples of a specifically Japanese practice that is unique in the history of photography. Known as the “Costumes and Customs of Japan” images, these pictures deliberately play on the exotic. They were produced in large quantities for foreign tourists. A number of photographers varied some of the elements within a same image depending on whether they were targeting the local or foreign market. Although they are of limited interest from a cultural point of view, their historical value remains important. The 1923 earthquake in Tokyo was the beginning of a new era and heralded the birth of modern photography in Japan. A new modern city rose out of the ruins prompting photographers to find a “new vision,” one that favoured sharper lines, realism and graphic innovation. An example of this can be seen in the amateur picture of Tokyo’s red light district in 1930 presented by Lumière des Roses Gallery (Montreuil). While the influence of the German avant-garde was palpable in the Tokyo of the 1920s and 1930s, the photographers from the Kansai region who mostly worked in
Osaka began from 1930 onwards to develop new styles that were influenced by European Surrealism and Abstraction. Osaka’s MEM Gallery presents a selection of vintage prints by Osamu Shiihara (1905-1974) who was one of the figureheads of the avant-garde in that city in the 1930s. Trained as a painter, in 1932 he joined the Tampai Club, a hotbed of the avant-garde. As an expression of his poetic imagination, he threw himself into experimental photography, using all kinds of techniques including the photogram, solarisation and a combination of drawing and photography which he called “photo-painting.” With the rapid development of the press and the creation of a large number of photography magazines, the 1930s also saw the beginnings of photo-reportage. One of the legendary figures of Japanese photojournalism is Ihei Kimura (1901-1974), along with Ken Domo and Hiroshi Hamaya. The work of the former is shown by Tokyo’s Zeit-Foto Salon Gallery in a personal exhibition that presents a late and previously unseen series from the 1950s. These snapshots of daily life in the city give rise to a new type of vision, that of the urban dweller as he goes about his business and to the expression of social realism that informed the documentary photography of the 1950s.

The Post-War Period and the 1950s
Defeated in 1945, traumatized by the ravages of war and the nuclear bomb, Japan lay in ruins. Photographic activity picked up again in the early 1950s with particular emphasis on social commentary and the documentary style. Images from that period include those shown by Eric Franck Fine Art (London) of snow-covered landscapes of Northern Japan with the pure and graphic lines of Kiichi Asano (1914-1993). Rat Hole Gallery (Tokyo) shows vintage prints from the “Tsuguru” series by Ichiro Kojima (1924-1964), a poetic yet realistic vision of the rough life of the peasants in the village of Aomori. Also on show are Seiryu Inoue’s (1931-1988) images of Kamagasaki Street, testimony to the social misery prevalent in post-war Japan. An unusual personality, Shoji Ueda (1913-2000) began his series of images taken on the sand dunes of Tottori in 1949, a piece of work he pursued right through into the 1980s in which he pictures his family, his friends and himself against the minimalist backdrop of the sand and the sky. Several vintage prints from the 1950s are on show at Howard Greenberg Gallery (New York) as well as at Caméra Obscura (Paris).

The 1960s: A Turning Point
The early 1960s brought accelerated economic growth and industrialization, and the return of Japan into the community of nations, as symbolized by the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games. But there is also the re-negotiation of the Japan-US Security Treaty which provoked violent protests and high emotions among intellectuals and artists. Meanwhile, the development of Japan’s camera-making industry gave rise to a new generation of passionate amateur photographers. Emerging from it are Eikoh Hosoe and Shomei Tomatsu who founded Vivo agency in 1959 with Narahara Ikko and Kawada Kikuji. Active between 1959 and 1961, this photographers’ cooperative defendedsubjective expression and sought to break the shackles of the documentary style. Inspired by Japanese myth and literature, Eikoh Hosoe (b. 1931) worked with author Yukio Mishima on a book in 1961 in which the writer was also his model. A plastic concept of the photograph emerges from these erotic images of the writer who is often photographed naked and surrounded by objects in an exaltation of the beauty of the human body, magnified by the interplay between light and dark. First published in 1963 under the title “Barakei” (“Killed by Roses”) and reprinted in 1971 in a de luxe edition under the English title “Ordeal by Roses” this masterpiece crowns Eikoh Hosoe as one of the great masters of 20th Century Japanese photography. A few rare prints from 1961/62 “Killed by Roses” series can be seen at Howard Greenberg Gallery (New York). Shômei Tômatsu (b. 1930) starts off with reportage on post-war Japan with images of mutilated soldiers, beggars and prostitutes before launching into a more subjective approach epitomised in his landmark volume “11:02 Nagasaki.” Symbolic and fragmented images of objects bear witness to the horror of the atomic explosion, such as a clock showing the exact time of the dropping of the bomb, or a melted-down bottle of beer.The work marks a turning point in the relationship between the Japanese photographers and their approach to their own practice. Priska Pasquer Gallery (Cologne) is showing a number of key works by this leading figure of the post-war years (1950-1970) while Michael Hoppen Gallery(London) brings a selection of 1969 prints, from the period during which he worked with members of “Provoke” - Daido Moriyama, Masahisa Fukase, Nobuyoshi Araki.

The 1970s
The end of the 1960s saw the rise of a young generation of artists bent on creating a new photographic language that rejects objectivity and explores the depths of the human soul.Taboos are shattered and a violent style is imposed that favours “accidental” images that are often blurred and murky. “Provoke,” the mythical publication that came out between 1968 and 1969, embodied the incendiary revolt of the new generation and its reaction against the westernization
of its way of life, and in particular against American influence. The work of some of the leading figures of this generation is on show at Paris Photo, including:
Noyuboshi Araki: The work of this artist (b.1940) is presented simultaneously by Michael Hoppen (London) Hamiltons (London) Rat Hole Gallery (Tokyo) Priska Pasquer (Cologne) and Yoshii Gallery (New York). Alongside the work of Daido Moriyama the latter is showing a unique selection of some of Araki’s early photographs in black and white depicting women in each other’s arms, as well as his latest work in colour. Araki earned immediate fame with his explorations of intimacy, love, sex and death in a society and time when private life and personal emotion were kept hidden and strictly taboo. Since the beginning of his career Araki has produced thousands of images and hundreds of publications using every technique available: transparencies, posters, colour photocopies, polaroids… With this artist, the taking of a photograph is a vital act. His work is a permanent immersion into the depths of our world. Araki opened the way for artists of the new generation such as Mika Ninagawa or Rinko Kawauchi. Daido Moriyama: A former assistant to Eikoh Hosoe, Daido Moriyama (b. 1938) was one of the leading figures in “Provoke.” In Japan he is credited with being the one who took the photographic medium to the paroxysm of its expressive intensity. His highly contrasted images
defy “good technique” with blurs, movement, invasive elements of light or grainy textures. In the 1960s and 70s Moriyama worked on Japan’s urban areas, the theatre of the street and the city’s underbelly (strip clubs, bars for American GIs…) and its marginal inhabitants. Fifty One Photography Fine Art Gallery (Anvers) confronts William Klein’s 1961 “Tokyo” images with those of Moriyama who always recognised the influence of the American master for the immediacy of his work and his use of natural light. Both Rat Hole (Tokyo) and Taka Ishii Tokyo) are presenting vintage prints from this period while Priska Pasquer (Cologne) and Yoshii Gallery (New York) show work from the 1980s and 90s. Exceptionally for Paris Photo, New York’s Yoshii Gallery has brought large format (1m x 1.5m) Moriyama prints that are normally reserved for museum exhibitions and were part of his show at the Fondation Cartier. Fukase Masahisa: Along with Noboyushi Araki, Fukase Masahisa (1934- 1992) was one of the first photographers in Japan to expose his private life. He photographed his wife Yoko for 12 years until the couple divorced in 1976. Fleeing Tokyo at the end of the 1980s, he returned to Hokkaido in northern Japan where he photographed ravens, the symbol of his misfortune and sadness. Fifty One Photography Fine Art (Anvers) and Rat Hole Gallery (Tokyo) bring a selection of prints from this “Karasu” (Raven) series from 1986 in which certain characteristics of “Provoke” are evident: fragmented and sequenced images of the subject, close framing, dilated grain and a tendency towards abstraction and darkness.
Miyako Ishiuchi: Born in 1947 and presented by both Michael Hoppen Gallery (London) and Zeit-Foto Salon (Tokyo), Miyako Ishiuchi is one of very few female artists to have made her mark on the heavily maledominated Japanese photography scene of the 1970s. Her consecration came when she was chosen as the representative of the Japanese pavilion at the 2005 Venice biennale. Starting in 1975 her work explores the passage of time and its effect on human skin as well as clothing (cf. “Dress” from the Hiroshima series of 2007 at Zeit-Photo Salon Gallery) and the façades of buildings. At Paris Photo, Michael Hoppen Gallery (London) reveals a selection of vintage prints from one of her earliest series, “Yokusaka Story,” made in 1977 in her home town which became an American army base. Her grainy black and white images express with deep emotion the ambivalence of her feelings about the town she grew up in and the presence of
American soldiers.
Issei Suda: Presented by Priska Pasquer Gallery (Cologne), Issei Suda (b. in 1940) began his career in 1967 as a photographer for a No theatre troupe whose work sought to express the mysterious side of daily life. Influenced by this experience, in the 1970s Suda began work on his “Fushi Kaden” series: portraits or landscapes in a single 20cm x 20 cm format. In ordinary life, in the costumes and ancestral customs of Japan, the photographer seeks to bring forth the notions of timeless beauty and immutable order. Several galleries are presenting the work of artists who emerged from the contemporary art scene of the 1970s. Keiji Uematsu at Baudoin Lebon Gallery (Paris) Born in Kobe in 1947, this artist works in a variety of media such as sculpture, installation, drawing and photography. From the earliest days of his career Keiji Uematsu focused on the concept of the visible and the invisible as well as the size of space. Renowned today as a sculptor, he produced in the 1970s photographic work in black and white in which he recorded images of his own body during performances that played optical tricks and explored the notion of balance. Kanji Wakae at m Bochum Gallery (Bochum) The gallery is showing early work from the 1970s of this artist (b. 1944) who is associated with the so-called “concrete photography” movement. Resolutely conceptual, the work of Kanji Wakae uses photomontage techniques to question our perception of reality and how we represent it.

The 1980s and 1990s
Now ranking as the world’s second economic power,from the 1980s Japan underwent an unequalled period of prosperity and expansion. Exchanges with the outside world increased and the country experienced unprecedented urban development.There was a radical change in the landscape as entire hills were flattened to provide raw materials for the construction industry in the urban areas. The towns themselves were transformed, growing into mega-cities that annihilated any trace of the past.When the financial bubble burst in the mid-1990s, the boom of the 1980s made way for a deep economic and social crisis. This period of doubt was in many ways symbolized by the 1995 Kobe earthquake and the Aum sect’s Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway.These events revealed deep cracks in the country’s social cohesion and heightened tensions in a society divided between tradition and modernity, collective duty and affirmation of the individual. This period brought the institutionalization of photography, with the establishment of galleries and the opening of the Kawasaki Museum in 1988 and The Tokyo Metropolitan Photography Museum in 1990.Photographers were absorbed into the international contemporary art circuit and established their position as independent artists. Photography was now seen as a major art form. In response to the irreversible environmental mutations unravelling before their very eyes, from the early 1980s onwards,many artists took to photographing both rural and urban landscapes. A new vision of the landscape notably emerged through the work of the following artists:
Hiroshi Sugimoto: Considered one of Japan’s leading contemporary photographers, Hiroshi Sugimoto (b. 1948) works in black and white, creating mat, pure images of and extremely high
plastic quality.The artist works in series, a form of meditation that extends over a period of years. His reputation was earned with several such series, in particular his “Theatres” in which he photographed large screens in old American theatres of the 1920s and 30s, and his “Seascapes,” images of the ocean meeting the sky that were taken in different parts of the world between 1985 and 1988. Each series in its own way explores the theme of the passage of time and captures the essence of the visible in the transitory.This year at Paris Photo, Fifty One Photography Fine Art (Anvers) and Claude Delank (Cologne) are showing prints from the series he produced on buildings that are emblematic of the modern movement in which the blurred quality of the image eliminates the detail to reveal the essence of the architecture.
Ryûji Miyamoto:
Born in 1947, Miyamoto’s passion is for architecture and contemporary ruins. He was first noted for his 1986 “Architectural Apocalypse” series in which he documented the destruction of the pavilions of the Tsukuba universal exhibition. Then came his 1994 “Cardboard Houses” series depicting the survival shelters built by Tokyo’s homeless, and most famously, “Kobe 1995:After the earthquake,” his work on the literal death of a city. At Paris Photo, Taro Nasu Gallery (Tokyo) reveals a series of images he took between 1991 and 2006 of the temples of Cambodia which stand as a meditation on the fragility of civilization. Claudia Delank (Cologne) shows a few works from the Kobe 1995 series.
Toshio Shibata:
Luisotti Gallery (Santa Monica) is showing a number of early black and white works by Toshio Shibata (b. 1949) from the beginning of the 1980s. “53 Stations” is a direct reference to the title of a series of famous woodblock prints by Hiroshige produced in the Edo era and showing the 53 resting places along the road between Kyoto, the imperial capital and Tokyo, the country’s economic and political centre. A century later,Toshio Shibata travelled with his camera along the same historic route now transformed into a modern highway to accommodate the motor car.The
gallery also reveals several silver bromide proofs from a similar piece of work he did along Route 66 in the United Sates. Meanwhile Zeit Foto Salon (Tokyo) brings a few examples of his large colour landscapes from the 1990s. These works, showing the concrete belts surrounding the Japan’s mountains, brought the artist into the limelight.
Naoya Hatakeyama:
Represented by Taka Ishii Gallery (Tokyo), Naoya Hatakemaya (b. 1958) focuses on the fate of nature at the destructive hands of man: the “Lime Hills” series depicts the quarries from which the raw materials for the post-war reconstruction of Japan are extracted.The “Rivers” series looks at the confinement of the country’s rivers into concrete canals while the “Underground” series explores Tokyo’s subterranean tunnels and “Explosions” focuses on detonations in Japan’s mines. Austere and mysterious in their beauty, Hatakemaya’s large colour images stand as a metaphor of the neverending cycle of destruction and construction inflicted upon nature by man.
Taiji Matsue:
Presented by Taro Nasu Gallery (Tokyo),Taiji Matsue (b. 1963) quickly rose to fame in the 1990s for his monochrome mountain-scapes, images of plains or skyscrapers and more recently, his colour aerial views of coastlines (the “JP22 series.”) The illusion of the thirddimension is displaced by his interpretation of space as a flat and asymmetrical surface that brings out the texture of the landscape in sharp, minute detail.
Takashi Homma:
Born in 1962,Takashi Homma who began his career as a magazine photographer in the early 1990s, won early acclaim as an artist with a personal exhibition entitled “Tokyo Suburbia” held at the Winterthur Fotomuseum in 2000. He creates “architectural landscapes” with his colour photographs of the artificial environment of the Tokyo suburbs and the children that inhabit them, capturing the banality of their daily lives and the disenchantment of a Japanese society in the grip of the social and economic crisis of the 1990s. At Paris Photo, Claudia Delank Gallery (Cologne) presents a recent series entitled “Tokyo and my daughter,” in which the artist’s daughter acts as the mediator between the world she sees and the viewer. Alongside photographs of urban and rural landscapes, other artists are presenting works focussing on the question of identity:
Yasumasa Morimura:
Presented by both Juana de Aizpuru (Madrid) and MEM (Osaka) galleries,Yasumasa Morimura (b. 1951) works on the self-portrait, creating scenes inspired by famous paintings by Western artists (the Mona Lisa, La Maja Desnuda…) or posing as iconic Hollywood stars. By cross-dressing in his self-portrait as Marlene Dietrich (1996) shown by MEM gallery, the artist addresses the issue of sexual identity, as well as celebrity culture, but also the complex question of an Asian confronting the standards of beauty as imposed by the West.
Hirô Kikai:
The work of Hiroh Kikai (b. 1945), shown at Paris Photo by Yancey Richardson Gallery is currently the subject of a major re-discovery. His work was recently presented in the context of the May-September 2008 exhibition “Heavy Light: Recent Photography and Video from Japan,” organised by the ICP in New York. Hiroh Kikai lives and works in the neighbourhood of Asakusa, theepicentre of popular culture in the Japanese capital. Since 1973 he has been taking portraits of passers-by in front of the Senso-ji temple. With minimum means, Hiroh Kikai manages to capture the identity of his subjects and as such, each stands as a commentary on the
human condition. Other aspects of contemporary Japanese photography can also be discovered notably at Hamilton’s Gallery (London) which is showing the sensitive and poetic work of Tomio Seike (b.1943) with a series on Paris from the 1990s, produced specially for Paris Photo. A discreet figure, Tomio Seike revisits 19th Century pictorial techniques and using black and white, approaches with intimacy the street and neglected elements of daily life (a staircase, café table, a glass…) which then stand as poetic, timeless fragments of life untouched by the whirlwind of urban existence. Van Zoetendaal (Amsterdam) and Zeit Foto Salon (Tokyo) galleries are showing the black and white world of Yuki Onodera. Known for her 1994 “Portraits de Fripes”
series Yuki Onodera creates a weightless, floating world. Using technical manipulation such as collage or superimpositions, every image is the result of a gap deliberately inserted into the information circuit. Central to the work of this artist is the issue of perception: she seeks to capture the substance of things in order to access a different level of reality. Resonating with the Japanese theme at Paris Photo, Camera Obscura Gallery has developed a thematic exhibition entitled “East meets West” which explores the exchanges and affinities between Western and Japanese photographers, and brings together the work of photographers from different cultures and generations.
Shoji Ueda and Jacques Henri Lartigue:
Although they never met, both artists had a talent for transforming daily life into a theatre of whim and joie de vivre. “He was my absolute master,” Shoji Ueda once said of Lartigue, “he was curious about everything.” Yasuhiro Ishimito and Lucien Hervé The two artists revolutionized architectural photography and sometimes worked on the same buildings such as Katsura Palace in Tokyo. They both approached urban areas with the same formality (Chicago in the case of Ishimito, Paris in the case of Hervé). The influence of Bauhaus and Mies Van der Rohe’s precept that “less is more” is also visible in their work. Sarah Moon and Masao Yamamoto There is an interesting comparison to be made between the world of Masao Yamamoto (b. 1957) and that of Sarah Moon: there is a similar reference to the concepts of memory,nostalgia and the fragility of the photograph. Both will present a wall of images with Sarah Moon showing a series of small prints from her monograph to be published in October 2008. On opening night, Masao Yamamoto will conduct a live public installation of a number of small prints on the wall of Jackson Fine Art Gallery (Atlanta), as a concrete application of the Japanese concept of “MA” (the space between things, the sense of time, coincidence or changes in situations) which underpins his work.

The Statement - The emerging scene of the 2000s:
The Statement section brings together eight Japanese galleries who have been invited to reveal yet little-known facets of the young emerging scene of the new century. The sheer profusion of current photographic expression in Japan makes it difficult to define a specific trend. Nevertheless, the 17 artists shown in the Statement section do present some similarities: Mainly born in the 1960s and 70s, they belong to a particular generation which is undoubtedly more individualistic and cosmopolitan than those that came before. These artists reached adulthood just when the economic bubble burst and were profoundly affected by the crisis that rocked the foundations of Japanese society at the end of the 1990s. It led them to re-examine their daily lives, revisit traditions and strive to define the soul and identity of Japan in the era of globalisation. The artists shown here also use photography as a medium of artistic expression and experimentation with emphasis on a way of seeing things rather than on the choice of subject. Another notable feature is the strong presence of female artists (50% in the Statement section) among this new generation.
Base Gallery (Tokyo)
Featured artists: Keisuke Shirota (b. 1975), Tsukasa Yokozawa (b.1971) and Mayumi Terada (b. 1958) Keisuke Shirota takes photographs of urban landscapes while moving about either on foot or by car. He then pastes the images onto a canvas and extends them with acrylic paint. The continuity between the photographic and the painted images creates a new sort of ambiguous and contradictory representation: the landscape is stripped of all references and lies somewhere
between the realism of the photograph and the imagination of the painted picture, between the precision ofmemory and alteration of recollection.
Foil Gallery (Tokyo)
Featured artists: Rinko Kawauchi (b. 1972), Syoin Kajii (b. 1976) and Yoichi Nagano (b. 1969) A leading figure of this young generation, Rinko Kawauchi won instant recognition for her three volumes published in 2001: “Utatane,” “Hanabi” and “Hanako.” At Paris Photo she will reveal her new series, “Utatane 2.” This is an intimate narrative in small colour prints that capture ephemeral moments of ordinary life - emotions close to hallucination in the face of the precariousness of existence arising at the sight of a dying insect, the nursing of a newborn or the sacrifice of an animal. Syoin Kajii is both an artist and a Buddhist monk of the Shingon sect. He became known with the publication in 2004 of his book “Nami” (waves). The photographs in this colour series, shown at Paris Photo, are an ode to the spiritual and dynamic properties of water as an element, with its masculine power and feminine generosity.The artist photographs the ocean every day from the island of Sado where he lives. Yoichi Nagano’s series entitled “Sima-Jima” (Islands) with its portraits of island-dwellers are a celebration of the beauty of Japan, its inhabitants and its coastlines, though they are increasingly disfigured by standardized urbanisation.
G/P Gallery (Tokyo)
Featured artists: Masayuki Shioda (b. 1971), Taisuke Koyama (b. 1978), Yumiko Utsu (b. 1978)Hiromiyoshii (Tokyo) Featured Artist: Nao Tsuda (b. 1976) In a solo exhibition, the gallery reveals large format colour works by Nao Tsuda from the series “Kogi,” published in a book in 2007.
Shugo Arts (Tokyo)
Featured Artist:Tomoko Yoneda (b. 1965) The gallery is presenting a solo exhibition of the work
of Tomoko Yoneda with the series she began in 1998 entitled “Between Visible and Invisible:” black and white images taken through the spectacles worn by historic figures of the 20th Century such as Sigmund Freud and the writer Junichiro Tanizaki. According to the artist, this is an attempt to establish a relationship between the visible (the surface of the image itself) and the
invisible (the memory of the historic figures in question and their vision of the world) with the aim of creating a new image that brings the two together.
The Third Gallery Aya (Osaka)
Featured artists: Nobuo Asada (b. 1967), Akiko Ikeda (b.1972), Midori Komatsubara (b. 1965) and Takashi Suzuki Midori Komatsubara draws inspiration from the world of the Manga, the popular teenage comic books, which have grown to become nothing less than a social phenomenon since they first appeared in the 1970s. In his “Sanctuary” series which he started in 2003, the artist’s point of reference are the “Yaoi”- the romantic love stories between boys. She uses digital manipulation to transform the heroes into female figures.The result is a series of androgynous characters (female heads on male bodies) who inhabit a closed fictional world that is free from the oppression of everyday reality but dominated by a sense of confused feelings, the turmoil of desire and erotic fancy. Takashi Suzuki’s focus is on the way we see things rather than the subject itself. In his “Altus” series, he concentrates on the space and intervals between images, provoking debate on the meaning of photography as a reflection of the world as it is seen by the individual. In his series “A Theater Without You - Their Site/ Your Sight,” Akiko Ikeda, a sculptor by training, creates threedimensional photographic installations using images she has cut out of magazines or has taken himself. Nobuo Asada photographs the ocean in the North of Japan from the same location but at different times of the day and in all seasons to capture the ever-changing beauty of nature.
Tomio Koyama Gallery (Tokyo)
Featured artists: Nobuhiro Fukui (b. 1972), Mika Ninagawa (b. 1972), Mamoru Tsukada (b. 1962) Nobuhiro Fukui Fukui photographs the city between midnight and three o’clock in the morning. He uses sophisticated framing to create unsettling urban landscapes in a world of silence, garishly revealing elements that go unseen by day. Mika Ninagawa began her career working in advertising and magazines before turning to photography and more recently cinema. She draws her inspiration from popular culture. Using bright, intense colours she creates a dreamlike world full of floating visions: golden fish in her “Liquid Dreams” series (2003), artificial flowers in “Everlasting Flowers” (2005), or fluorescent animals in “Floating Yesterday” (2004). Mamoru Tsukada began his career by photographing blind people with the intention of showing the hidden meaning of things and making visible what is invisible and all the while leaving the way open to interpretation for the spectator. His 2003 series “Identical Twins”
can be described as “documentary fiction” while his more recent work, “Specter” 2006 and “Cave Painting” (2007) is more abstract.
White Room Gallery (Tokyo)
Featured artists: Gentaro Ishizuka, Naruki Oshima

Emerging Artists featured in the General Section
In addition to those show in the Statement,artists from the emerging Japanese photography scene are also featured by galleries in the General Section of the fair.
Galerie Baudoin Lebon (Paris)
On show is the delicate work of Mineko Orisaku (b. 1960) who revisits the tradition of Ikebana, the floral art in which the harmony of composition is the key. In her photographic approach, Mineko Orisaku carefully places each flower against a neutral background. She enhances the colours in a subtle way, thus lending substance to the image.
Galerie Claudia Delank (Cologne)
The gallery is showing the work of Yuji Ono (b. 1963) with a series of black and white images.The artist photographspaintings by the classical masters of the 16th and 18th Centuries.Over-exposure creates an effect by which the reflective surfaces of the painting catch the light and certain details appear, giving way to mysterious, abstract compositions.
Fifty One Fine Art Photography (Anvers)
The gallery unveils the work of Yuichi Hibi (b. 1963), a film-maker and actor by training. He arrived in New York in 1988 with the vision of the outsider looking in,and photographed the city in a mood akin to “Lost in Translation.” Back in Japan a decade later, he produced a series of atmospheric black and white images of the city at night infused with the solitude of the lone night-time wanderer.
Jackson Fine Art Gallery (Atlanta)
For the first time the gallery is showing the work of Masato Seto (b. 1961) with a number of works from recent series “The Living Room,” “The Picnic” and “The Binran” in which the artist portrays individuals sitting alone in their own familiar environment.
MEM Gallery (Osaka)
Representation of the individual, his or her identity and place in contemporary Japanese society is the common theme running through the work of three young artists on show: Tomoko Sawada (b. 1977) explores the theme of the individual’s relationship to the group,using the self-portrait. She places herself in an endless series of incarnations as a Gothic or Lolita girl (Decoration GothLoli series) or a bride (Omiai), using costume and make-up to create a unique individual for each image. In his series entitled “Our Face Portrait”, Ken Kitano (b. 1968) creates symbolic portraits of Japanese society by juxtaposing and fusing the faces several individuals from the same social group or community into one image. The work of Noriko Yamaguchi (b. 1983) seeks to address the alienation of the individual in a society saturated by information. Inspired by the world of the Manga or Japanese mythology, she transforms herself into imaginary characters such as Keita Girl, Golden Zazame or Princess Ogura. In her “Keita Girl” series, shown this year at Paris Photo, the artist photographs herself dressed in a “cybernetic” jump-suit that is covered
in hundreds of mobile telephone keypads that allow her to communicate with the outside world. For the opening night of Paris Photo, the artist will present an exceptional performance “Keita Girls Marching,” featuring ten dance artists.
Priska Pasquer Gallery (Cologne)
The gallery is presenting three female artists: Rinko Kawauchi with a selection of works from her “Utatane” and “Aila series (see Statement section, under Foil Gallery); Mika Ninagawa with her “Liquid Dreams” series (see Statement section under Tomio Koyama Gallery) and Asako Narahashi (b.1959) with her series entitled “Half Awake Half Asleep in the Water.” The artist began this colour series in 2001. It shows images of the Japanese coast taken at water level. Using a waterproof 35mm camera,the artists immerses herself in the sea, letting herself float upon the waves.The result is representations of a floating world, suspended between sea and sky, visions that are at times magical and at others threatening.
Rose Gallery (Santa Monica)
The gallery presents a selection of prints from the series “Half Awake Half Asleep in the Water”by Asako Narahashi (see under Priska Pasquer Gallery) as well as recent work by Mikiko Hara.
Taro Nasu (Tokyo)
An artist of the young generation, Maiko Haruki (b. 1974) creates dark, apparently abstract images that suggest a scene, a stage, a place where there are no references, rather like the Black Out that follows lights out at the end of an act or play in a theatre or performance.The anti-sceptic images of building hallways or office corridors in the work of Hirofumi Katayama (b. 1980) are misleading.The images are entirely computer-generated, the product of algorithms named “Vectorscapes” by the artist. Yuki Tawada (b. 1978) is fascinated by masshysteria as a phenomenon. She creates dreamlike scenes of anonymous crowds gathered in a sort of cosmic opera with special effects obtained by scraping the surface of the image with an abrasive tool such as a razor blade or sand-paper. The manipulated images of Cozue Tagaki (b. 1985) suggest the passing flow of chaotic remembrance in the memory of an amnesiac, a fantasy world in which species and gender, dream and reality fuse into one.