50 x 37 cm
In tribute to "Just Visiting This Planet," the 1991 documentary film of the same title which featured the legendary Japanese butoh dancer Kazuo Ôno (1906-2010), our group exhibition celebrates the creativity of a free soul without physical boundaries through the works by six contemporary Japanese photographers – Emi Anrakuji, Hitoshi Fugo, Mikiko Hara, Mayumi Lake, Yu Yamauchi, and Daisuke Yokota. Ranging from landscapes and portraits to still lifes, their work is sensitive to the transient nature of life while exploring its emotionally profound moments.
In tribute to "Just Visiting This Planet," the 1991 documentary film of the same title which featured the legendary Japanese butoh dancer Kazuo Ôno (1906-2010), our group exhibition celebrates the creativity of a free soul without physical boundaries through the works by six contemporary Japanese photographers – Emi Anrakuji, Hitoshi Fugo, Mikiko Hara, Mayumi Lake, Yu Yamauchi, and Daisuke Yokota. Ranging from landscapes and portraits to still lifes, their work is sensitive to the transient nature of life while exploring its emotionally profound moments. These concepts – the perception of non-permanence (mujo) or sensitivity to ephemera (mono no aware) -- are deeply rooted in Japanese culture, and the associated expression of gentle sorrow have been cultivated in Japanese art for centuries.
The highlights of the exhibition include Hunch by Mayumi Lake from her 2016 “Latent Heat" series — striking color tableaux of a barefoot woman in kimono robe hunching over a dead tree trunk; Untitled no. 421 by Daisuke Yokota from his haunting “Site/Cloud” series (2012) featuring a solarized black & white image of a female hiding in a bush; Mikiko Hara’s Untitled (2008), a soft-focus halved pomegranate, which recently became part of her new series; Hitoshi Fugo’s Flying Frying Pan 70 from his fantastical series capturing the microcosmic world of an iron pan; Emi Anrakuji’s Untitled 26, depicting a graffiti-like shadow of herself while catching sublime sunlight, from her 2018 series “Just Love.” Also, online only, we present Yu Yamauchi’s ethereal paradise in rural Mongolia, N 51°12' 08.5"E9 8° 5 9'4 2.6 "- #18, where humans and animals coexist in complicated ecological and political realities.
