A1990s-era portrait shows two children with their eyes glued to a television screen while playing video game Nintendo 64, while another shows a traditional Japanese wedding ceremony in a rural village in the 1970s. Y et other photos show the skyscraper-dominated city of Tokyo in the 1980s, and a still life of pale pink Sakura flowers taken in 2002.
Held by the Japan Foundation, “Gazing at the Contemporary World: Japanese Photography from the 1970s to the Present” displays 76 shots by 23 Japanese photographers.
Established in 1972, the foundation promotes international understanding between Japan and other countries via cultural exchange programs.
“A Changing Society” focuses on the individuals that make up Japanese society, displaying a collection that allows the viewer to see the Japanese departing from their traditional ways of life in an age of modernity. With people as the central subjects as they go about the business of their everyday lives, the section includes people from all strata of society. In a traditional scene, an old river fisherman puffs on a cigarette before a background of tall grass in a black and white photo by Manchuria-born Kazuo Kitai. “River Fisherman” (1975) is taken from the series “To the village,” which won the Kimura Ilhee Award in 1976.
Mitsugu Ohnishi won the 18th Kimura Ihee Award in 1993 for his photographic series “The Last Vacation,” which according to the photographer, “is a picture diary of a random summer of the 1980s.”
One picture has a group of swimmers in uniform swimsuits being briefed on the beach, while another displays a couple sunbathing.
“Rainy Sunday” by George Hashiguchi shows two permed and coiffed young men in suits crouching on the pavement under umbrellas.
“Changing Landscapes,” the second part of the exhibition, emphasizes the impact of Japan’s rapid economic growth in the 1970s on the country’s landscapes.
Photographers immortalize the changes evident in the cities, suburbs and in nature.
Award-winning Ryuji Miyamoto has memorialized the devastating Great Hansin earthquake that took place in Kobe in 1995, and which claimed more than 6,000 lives. His “Kobe Ekimae Building” shows the wrecked facade of multi-story building.
Giving a face to modernity, Tokudo Ushioda’s “Ice Box” series shows pictures of refrigerators filled with items ranging from milk cartons to eggs, and somewhat insinuates the marriage between the advent of modern technology and the age of consumerism. A picture of a concrete dam, which control erosion and water flow in the Japanese mountains, was photographed by structure-specialist Toshio Shibata. Writing about his series called “Quintessence of Japan,” Shibata said that he focused on the contrast between nature and human action, and also the peculiar formal beauty of structures.
In the exhibition’s book, Rei Masuda, a curator at the National Museum of Art in Tokyo, wrote, “The work of the 23 photographers gathered here does not fully represent Japanese photographic expression since the 1970s, but we don’t intend to trace its entire historical development through the categories of figure and landscape.”
Held by the Japan Foundation, “Gazing at the Contemporary World: Japanese Photography from the 1970s to the Present” displays 76 shots by 23 Japanese photographers.
Established in 1972, the foundation promotes international understanding between Japan and other countries via cultural exchange programs.
“A Changing Society” focuses on the individuals that make up Japanese society, displaying a collection that allows the viewer to see the Japanese departing from their traditional ways of life in an age of modernity. With people as the central subjects as they go about the business of their everyday lives, the section includes people from all strata of society. In a traditional scene, an old river fisherman puffs on a cigarette before a background of tall grass in a black and white photo by Manchuria-born Kazuo Kitai. “River Fisherman” (1975) is taken from the series “To the village,” which won the Kimura Ilhee Award in 1976.
Mitsugu Ohnishi won the 18th Kimura Ihee Award in 1993 for his photographic series “The Last Vacation,” which according to the photographer, “is a picture diary of a random summer of the 1980s.”
One picture has a group of swimmers in uniform swimsuits being briefed on the beach, while another displays a couple sunbathing.
“Rainy Sunday” by George Hashiguchi shows two permed and coiffed young men in suits crouching on the pavement under umbrellas.
“Changing Landscapes,” the second part of the exhibition, emphasizes the impact of Japan’s rapid economic growth in the 1970s on the country’s landscapes.
Photographers immortalize the changes evident in the cities, suburbs and in nature.
Award-winning Ryuji Miyamoto has memorialized the devastating Great Hansin earthquake that took place in Kobe in 1995, and which claimed more than 6,000 lives. His “Kobe Ekimae Building” shows the wrecked facade of multi-story building.
Giving a face to modernity, Tokudo Ushioda’s “Ice Box” series shows pictures of refrigerators filled with items ranging from milk cartons to eggs, and somewhat insinuates the marriage between the advent of modern technology and the age of consumerism. A picture of a concrete dam, which control erosion and water flow in the Japanese mountains, was photographed by structure-specialist Toshio Shibata. Writing about his series called “Quintessence of Japan,” Shibata said that he focused on the contrast between nature and human action, and also the peculiar formal beauty of structures.
In the exhibition’s book, Rei Masuda, a curator at the National Museum of Art in Tokyo, wrote, “The work of the 23 photographers gathered here does not fully represent Japanese photographic expression since the 1970s, but we don’t intend to trace its entire historical development through the categories of figure and landscape.”
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