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Becky Yee "Back to the streets"
Nakaochiai Gallery
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Artists
Becky Yee
Chinese-American artist Becky Yee's Back to the Streets examines the dying world of the city7s shotengai, or shopping streets. As Tokyo evolves, the city's youth and youth culture have concentrated on the major centres: namely Shibuya and Harajuku. Ignored by much of Tokyo's adolescent, are the fringes of the cities older shopping streets. These traditional shopping streets live on but for the most part they are the world of the Japan's "silver" generation.
Back to the Streets takes place at Nakaochiai Gallery, itself a former noodle shop located on a nearly dead shotengai. It is here, through a series of portraits, that Yee breathes life back into the shotengai by preserving their individual sense of community. Yee redirects attention to the shotengai by juxtaposing these fading communities with the youth culture and fashion found in the city's major centers.
The extreme difference between "Ura and Omote" (the surface and what lies beneath) is what continues to influence much of her work. The organized and clinical approach of much of Japanese society contrasts with what she calls, "the city's crazy underworld culture and landscape".
Yee was born and raised in Chinatown, New York City. She is currently a fashion and commercial photographer based in Tokyo, working for clients such as Maxium, Relax, Switch, Nylon. She has shot portraits for Aerosmith, Lenny Kravitz, Nigo and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Yee was recently recognized in New York in the prestigious 2005 PDN Photo Annual 2005.
Her previous independent exhibitions were Good Girl, Bag Girl at Eyesaw's 12th exhibition at Le Deco in Shibuya, for which she photographed teenage prostitutes. The second was called 3P: All Girls Camera Orgy, taking up four floors at the HPGRP Building in Ginza. This is her first solo exhibition.
Opening Reception: 5 Nov 6-9pm
Back to the Streets takes place at Nakaochiai Gallery, itself a former noodle shop located on a nearly dead shotengai. It is here, through a series of portraits, that Yee breathes life back into the shotengai by preserving their individual sense of community. Yee redirects attention to the shotengai by juxtaposing these fading communities with the youth culture and fashion found in the city's major centers.
The extreme difference between "Ura and Omote" (the surface and what lies beneath) is what continues to influence much of her work. The organized and clinical approach of much of Japanese society contrasts with what she calls, "the city's crazy underworld culture and landscape".
Yee was born and raised in Chinatown, New York City. She is currently a fashion and commercial photographer based in Tokyo, working for clients such as Maxium, Relax, Switch, Nylon. She has shot portraits for Aerosmith, Lenny Kravitz, Nigo and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Yee was recently recognized in New York in the prestigious 2005 PDN Photo Annual 2005.
Her previous independent exhibitions were Good Girl, Bag Girl at Eyesaw's 12th exhibition at Le Deco in Shibuya, for which she photographed teenage prostitutes. The second was called 3P: All Girls Camera Orgy, taking up four floors at the HPGRP Building in Ginza. This is her first solo exhibition.
Opening Reception: 5 Nov 6-9pm
Schedule | Nov 6 (Sun) 2005-Nov 20 (Sun) 2005 Opening Hours Information
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| Fee | Free | ||||
| Venue | Nakaochiai Gallery http://www.nakaochiaigallery.com/index.html  | ||||
| Location | 4-13-5 Naka-Ochiai, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 161-0032 | ||||
| Access | 10 minutes walk from Nakai Station on the Seibu Shinjuku or Toei Oedo Lines, or 7 minutes walk from exit A1 at Ochiai Minami-Nagasaki Station on the Toei Oedo Line. | ||||
| Phone | 03-5988-7830 |
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