Toshio Shibata, Chichibu City, Saitama Prefecture, Japan, 2006
March 9, 2020
We feature this photograph by Toshio Shibata in memory of our dear friend Kevin Consey, who recently passed away after a long illness. Kevin's prestigious career included the Director of the San Antonio Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. He was a devotee of photography, and in particular the photographs of Toshio Shibata. In 1996, while Director at the MCA, Kevin commissioned Toshio to come to the United States and photograph our unique American landscape.
A decade later, approximately 110 kilometres northwest of Tokyo, Shibata captivates us as he looks down onto a reservoir to reveal a string of pearls; the delicate touch of wind as it caresses the water's surface; and the sensual suggestion of human form.
Much like Kevin himself, this picture embodies the delicate balance between man and nature, the tangible and the ephemeral, the transient and the eternal.
