Yoko Ikeda
Laurence Miller Gallery, since 1984 a pioneer in presenting Asian photographers, is pleased to announce its participation in ASIA WEEK NEW YORK, a city-wide event founded in 2009 to celebrate and promote Asian art. This will be the first time that a photography gallery has participated in this annual event. ASIA WEEK brings together art specialists, museums, auction houses, and galleries, with an itinerary of exhibitions and special events focused on Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Korean, Himalayan, and Southeast Asian art.
Contemporary Photography Asian Perspectives features over 50 works from six decades by more than 20 Asian photographers. The underlying theme of the exhibition is memory. Miyako Ishiuchi’s recent large-scale color images of charred clothing from the aftermath of Hiroshima is juxtaposed with Shomei Tomatsu’s classic image of a watch frozen at 11:02 A.M., the exact moment of the atom bomb over Nagasaki. China’s Cultural Revolution and the strict rule of conformity under Chairman Mao, exemplified by earlier propaganda photos from the Xinhua News Agency, were an inspiration for Tseng Kwong Chi’s self-portraits in his "Mao suit." Reagan Louie’s street portraits of stylish Shanghai residents in European-influenced dress further emphasize the recent rebellion against conformity, and the embrace of capitalism.
The revisiting of tradition through a modern lens is evident in Fan Ho’s cinematic interpretations of mid-century Hong Kong and in Yasuhiro Ishimoto’s modernist pictures of the 17th Century Japanese villa Katsura.
Traditional reverence for the splendors of nature has been challenged by the highly abstract color landscapes of Toshio Shibata, which embrace man-made infrastructure in harmony with natural surroundings, as well as in Hiroshi Sugimoto’s view of a polar bear in the snow, actually taken within our city’s Museum of Natural History.
Other photographers in the show include: Yasuhiro Ishimoto, Masahisa Fukase, Fan Ho, Daido Moriyama, Yoko Ikeda, Yoshihiko Itō, Byung-Hun Min, Dodo Jin Ming, Masumasa Morimura, Yuji Hamada, Kazuo Sumida, and Magdalen Wong.
New York times staff writer Martha Schwendener enumerates her top picks from Asia Week New York and it's "10-day parade of exhibitions". She singles out Laurence Miller Gallery's presentation of Toshio Shibata's "quiet environmental-abstractions" as a highlight.
Toshio Shibata talks to Guardian writer Sian Cain about what went into the making of his iconic picture of the Okawa Village bridge.
The Japanese photographer Toshio Shibata is fascinated by water — in particular, the way it interacts with man-made structures. For the later half of his almost-40-year career in photography, he has explored this relationship in novel ways, hiding horizon lines and taking the perspective of the water itself with his camera, visually evoking its rushing sound.
